Characteristics of online media 1.O
Characteristics of Online Media
The four identity types of online journalism to some extent utilise the key characteristics which include hypertextuality, multimediality, interactivity, and immediacy. Each of these four characteristics make-up online journalism in their own way.
Hypertextuality-
The problem with hypertext is as one of the founding fathers of hypertext Ted Nelson writes, that it creates “a delivery system for separate closed units – a system which allows only embedded links pointing outwards”. What one has to realise is that texts, interconnected through links - hyperlinks – can refer internally to the other texts within text’s domain or externally to texts located elsewhere on the internet. Effective use of internal and external hyperlinks is a basic element of a good online media production. It enables journalists to refer their readers to all kinds of background or related information, ranging over documents, illustrations, sources, multiple perspectives on a particular topic and so on. If we examine how today’s news sites apply these concepts the conclusion we will come up with is pessimistic. Only a few sites actually embed hyperlinks and if they do it does not integrate their information with the web.
Multimediality-
Multimediality means the extent to which text, graphics, sound, voice and images (still and moving) are translated and integrated into a common digital form. The internet provides opportunities to journalists to present non-linear types of storytelling by using hypertextuality and multimediality in an innovative way.
One of the important implications of multimedia is that the online journalist will learn how to work with these different formats. For this writing, the journalist will also need the skills to decide for each story which part of the story will consist of text and which one will carry audio and visual elements.
Web designer Tim Guay has written as early as 1995 about the inherent pitfalls of applying multimedia content to web sites: “if multimedia is used with no thought to the reasons why it is being used, or it had poor lay-out or content it can result in a pointless aesthetic fiasco that needlessly hogs bandwidth”.
Interactivity-
Interactivity is the process of two people or things working together and influencing each other that is the ability of a computer to respond to a user’s input. In online journalism interactivity is subdivided into three types: navigational interactivity, functional interactivity, and adaptive interactivity. Observing interactive options in news sites it is noted that there is a sheer absence or rather the fact that most sites do not develop interactivity beyond functional and navigational levels. The most sophisticated level of interactivity is adaptive meaning that it allows the web site to adapt to itself, and the behaviour of the visiting surfer. Its revealed that the more interactive opportunities websites give to users, the more involved the users will feel about the website. Mainstream news sites usually operate on internal hypertextuality with mainly navigate interactivity. These sites don’t usually apply multimedia, unless they specifically intend to index images. This could be seen as serving as some kind of accountability one could argue: allowing the surfer to submit a feedback or comment to the people responsible for the metasite.
Immediacy-
Immediacy is the quality of bringing into direct and instant involvement with something, giving rise to a sense of urgency or excitement. The basic concept of immediacy is that it means there is theory, virtually no lag between when information is received or created at a news producer and when the information is passed on to the news consumers. This is possible because of two related features. First, the information is digital and can be easily moulded continuously and secondly that the information is not distributed as far as web is concerned. Rather than being pushed out to the audience all the time, the audience should seek up a database that presents the information to the audience. That means the information will not leave the producer entirely unless someone downloads the website and the information can therefore be worked on continuously.
The content of modern communication is characterized not only by orality and scripturality, but also by verbality and nonverbality. More than a telephone call or a letter, not only the optical or acoustic signal is missing in the computermediated written communication, but also those related to nonverbal personal
communication (Schmitz 1995). This is how personalized logos called “smileys” developed in the early 80's, the paralinguistic signs that typographically represent the representation of nonverbal signals. With the so-called "emoticons" are represented iconically the appearance, behavior, attitude, personal appreciation and emotions. They are used in internet chat, also in SMS texts or emails.
Kallmeyer believes that this aspect is important in the communication of young people on the Internet, precisely because it allows a greater freedom of style. Traditional communication is thus being replaced by new ways. According to Baron and Severinson, this is explained by the fact that new ways, such as e-mail, offer a number of characteristics that distinguish them from written communication: it is more impersonal and less insistent than a telephone or a letter, it is a cheaper or even free communication.
Anonymity also applies to chat. Such ways of communication reflect both cultural conventions and characteristics of the system used. But also, the change of the social label through a less rigid attitude towards spelling. In the e-mail communication, the information sent is often no longer corrected.
According to Schütte, the public character of media communication involves a mixture of areas of life and styles: the public presentation of the private sphere and the "private", personal stylization of public self-presentation. This is the case of the way simple people present themselves, but especially public figures on various online channels: b / vlogs, facebook, twitter, instagram, etc., each depending on age and the audience they interact with. To this is added the fact that the new technical modalities intervene much more radically in the communication conditions, by the fact that the multimedia integration can be done through almost all semiotic channels. Some of the forms in classical media such as the press, advertising or audio-visual tend to increasingly integrate text into the image, until the text plays only a secondary role.
“Characteristics of Online Communication. Advantages and Limitations” | Scholars Portal Journals. (n.d.). https://resolver.scholarsportal.info/resolve/26011182/v52i0002/39_oocaal.xml
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