Traditional news media online: An examination of added values

Abstract

An exploratory study of seven online newspapers and six television news station web sites in the United States, Canada and The Netherlands suggests that the potential added values of electronic publishing are not fully utilized. The online newspapers and television news web sites which were examined make use of facilities such as feedback, discussion groups and access to news archives. Only one of the online newspapers, however, makes extensive use of multimedia possibilities of Internet-based publication. The web sites of television news stations, in contrast, offer multimedia options, both audio and video. The online TV news stations make use of interactive facilities, such as discussion and feedback, to a lesser extent than the online newspapers. A typology of added values developed in this paper provides an analytic tool for monitoring the further development of traditional news media online.