The Internet's Impact on Journalism

Date of Graduation

Spring 2005

Degree

Master of Science in Cell and Molecular Biology

Department

Biomedical Sciences

Committee Chair

Mark Paxton

Abstract

This work explores the ways the Internet has changed the way journalists and the companies they work for operate. In addition to a literature review of previous research done on this topic, a comparison is made between the printed and online versions of a newspaper. This comparison helps illustrate the changes in journalism the Internet has instigated. A triangulated approach was used in this study. A qualitative content of the two kinds of newspapers uses a grounded theory approach. The pilot study uses observation and interviews. Analysis is in part based on the critical media discourse approach. A constructed week is used for the content analysis. It was compiled by selecting newspapers that were published each day of the week randomly from February 15 to March 10, 2003. One surprising finding of the work is that the online versions of the newspapers were more static than the printed pieces. Despite the online editions’ ability to go live with breaking news, short updates were all that were presented during the constructed week observed. This work concluded that the Internet has not had much effect on the way newspapers report the news. It also found that news on paper may become obsolete, but the demand for good journalism will not.

Keywords

journalism, Internet, news, newspaper, reporting

Subject Categories

Medical Molecular Biology

Copyright

© Paula J. Smith

Citation-only

Dissertation/Thesis

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