Digital Journalism

 Also called Web or Online journalism.

 They can also be called as New Media journalism
since they are using tools and medium other than
print, TV and Radio.
Digital Journalism
 Digital journalism can be described as the
dissemination of news, information, stories and facts
via the internet.
 Eg: TIMESOFINDIA.COM
 HT.COM
 VICE NEWS
 Newslaundry
 Are some websites which disseminate news via the
internet
 Media not only disseminates information via web,
but also makes use of digital tools and applications
to research, develop Digital op, edit and
publish/broadcast news stories.
 The news is not just disseminated through a
computer but also through a ipad, mobile and even
watches ( Apple Watch).
 Characteristics of Digital Journalism

 Hypertextuality: The linking and layering of

digital information.
 Interactivity: The process of engaging active
human and machine participation in the process of
information sharing and seeking.
 Non-linearity: a unique newswriting technique
which might not adhere to the traditional system of
writing news.
Characteristics of Digital Journalism

 Multimedia: The use of various media in a story or a

product.
 Eg: Videos with text reports
 Tweeting the story
 Convergence: The technique of mixing or intermingling of
technologies and services.
 Customization: To alter the product to suit the readers habits
and needs
 Eg: To convert it into pdf or e book
 To read a website story in the form of e paper
The beginning…
 The first type of digital journalism, called teletext,
was invented in the UK in 1970. Teletext is a
system allowing viewers to choose which stories
they wish to read and see it immediately. The
information provided through teletext is brief and
instant, similar to the information seen in digital
journalism today.
In India
 As stated earlier, Indian newspapers had started using
computers for word processing and page layout since 1987.
The newspapers one after another switched over from
teleprinters and telex machines to e-mail to send and receive
news when Internet was available 1995 onwards. The
changeover was quicker when a number of competing
Internet service providers descended on the scene during the
last decade. Later, mobile phone instruments with cameras
were made available to journalists. 
 Yet,these newspapers were slow to launch their
web editions. Only 48 dailies had their web sites
by 1998 when this researcher undertook
documentation of status of online journalism. An
extension of this study established that there were
116 Indian dailies with web editions in year 2006.
 List of digital only publications in India
 Bloomberg Quint
 Catch News
 Dailyhunt (aggregator)
 Firstpost
 InShorts (aggregator)
 Medianama
 News Laundry
 ScoopWhoop
 POPxo
 Scroll.in
 The Better India
 The News Minute
 The Wire
 Youth Ki Awaaz
 YourStory
 The Logical Indian
Size of the market
 India now has the second largest number of
internet users in the world and rapid growth in
internet use and digital advertising is seen by
many as the biggest market opportunity outside
China since the internet took off in the United
States in the 1990s.
 Growth of digital media startups like
 the Quint, Scroll, Inshorts, DailyHunt, The Wire,
and Khabar Lahairya has been the result of
explosion in internet use via mobiles in the
country.
Cyber Journalism
Advantages
 Immediate feedback
 Real time discussion
 Space for niche audience
 Tool for social awareness
 Use of various audio visual tools
 Few barriers to entry
 Low cost of entry
 Democratized the online space
Disadvantages
 Many newspapers and individual print
journalists have been forced out of business
because of the popularity of digital
journalism.
 Critics believe digital journalism has made
it easier for individuals who are not
qualified journalists to misinform the
general public. Many believe that this form
of journalism has created a number of sites
that do not have credible information. Sites
such as PerezHilton.com have been
criticized for blurring the lines between
journalism and opinionated writing
Advantages Disadvantages
 Greater degree of creativity  Clickbait features
 Online harassment and trolling
 The reader is free which
 Weak cyber laws
story to read/watch/listen, as
 Unverified information( Chetan
well as choose any format
Bhagat tweet)
that he feels will suit him
 Less attention spans(Our attention
best. He can also interact
spans are shrinking, which leads to
with a story in several ways,
more skimming and less in-depth
such as sharing it, emailing engagement. We can’t read anymore.
it, downloading it,  Fake news
commenting, voting etc.   Satirical news often taken as real
news (Onion news websites)S
News websites
 BuzzFeed India: http://www.buzzfeed.com/tag/india This
social news and entertainment company started India
operations in August 2014. The Indiafocused platform
has a host of feature videos and light news.
 Readers have the option to switch to
http://www.buzzfeed.com/news which a standard news
platform.
 Long-form stories featured in
http://www.buzzfeed.com/bigstories do not have an India
focus.
 Catch News: www.catchnews.com Promoted by
the Patrika Group of Rajasthan, this digital
platform ‘aims to filter and provide news-on-the-
run for an impatient new generation’, as well as
cater to a ‘deeper consumer’ of news. It is in
English and Hindi. Catch has an editorial team of
experienced and trained journalists. It launched in
June 2015.
 Daily O: www.dailyo.in
 The online opinion platform of the India Today
Group. It entered the market around September
2014. It gets commentators to write on a wide
range of subjects. The site seems inspired by the
collaborative publishing service Medium. It puts a
reading time-duration on every article.
 Huffpost India: http://www.huffingtonpost.in
Launched in India on November 2014, the
Huffington Post’s Indian edition is in partnership
with legacy player the Times of India. It has an
eight-member editorial team. It is a news and
blogging platform and is supported by ToI’s reach
with readers and advertisers.
 Gaonconnect: www.gaonconnection.com This
digital platform positions itself to be India’s first
professionally run rural newspaper. Launched in
2012 by a journalist, this paper aims to provide a
connection between rural and urban India.
 Indiaspend: www.indiaspend.com This claims to
be India’s first data journalism website. It uses
open data to explore a gamut of issues. It also
takes pride in the fact that the specialisation of its
journalism focus has turned it into an ‘agency of
record’ for a range of subjects. It is non-profit and
is a project of the Spending & Policy Research
Foundation.
 MediaNama: http://www.medianama.com
Established in 2008 by Nikhil Pahwa, MediaNama
is a portal for news about digital media and
telecommunication in India. It has a significant
following in media and policy circles and on
Twitter and a focus on business and regulatory
issues. It is owned by MixedBag Media Pvt Ltd.
 Newslaundry: www.newslaundry.com Launched in
February 2012 by a group of four people all of whom
were associated with various levels of journalism, it
started as a media critique platform. It is self-funded
and has a button called ‘I Pay to Keep News Free’
through which it also tries to get monetary support
for its work. Newslaundry Media has also raised
some money from Omidyar Network and Singapore-
based Digital Media Laboratory.
 Newslaundry: www.newslaundry.com Launched in
February 2012 by a group of four people all of whom
were associated with various levels of journalism, it
started as a media critique platform. It is self-funded
and has a button called ‘I Pay to Keep News Free’
through which it also tries to get monetary support
for its work. Newslaundry Media has also raised
some money from Omidyar Network and Singapore-
based Digital Media Laboratory.
 Peepli: www.peepli.org A niche website that focuses on long-
form investigative reporting, its four-member team uses all
kinds of tools available to ‘enhance storytelling’ (from the
website). It focuses on long-form stories.
 People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI)
https://ruralindiaonline.org A website that focuses on ‘the
everyday lives of everyday people’, it was launched by P.
Sainath, acclaimed journalist and former rural affairs editor of
The Hindu. It is unique in terms of its focus on people and
lives and issues that rarely get a mention in mainstream
media.
 ScoopWhoop: http://www.scoopwhoop.com The site was
launched in 2013 by a group of Indian Institute of Mass
Communication alumni all working in advertising. The site
curates and creates stories focused on India and is heavily
focused on social media distribution, having built a significant
following on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media.
 The Hoot: www.thehoot.org It started in March 2001, an
online media-watch platform that was launched by a group of
journalists. The Hoot’s motto of ‘The more the media matters,
the more we need to track what it does’ is perhaps most apt
now
 The News Minute: http://www.thenewsminute.com It is a digital news platform
founded by two journalists and a finance person. It began in 2014. It focuses
specifically on the five southern states. It also has a regional language (Tamil)
Facebook page. In 2015 it raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Quintillion
Media.
 Thumbprint: www.thethumbprintmag.com Launched in 2012 by Teresa Rehman, this
is a unique digital platform from India’s north-east. They claim 45 to be a bridge
between the eight states in this corner of India and the rest of India and the world. It
makes a consistent attempt to focus on overlooked stories from north-east India.
 Youth Ki Awaaz: http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/ The site was launched by Anshul
Tewari in 2008 as a community blog and has since expanded into a platform for
citizen journalism and public debate, with thousands of contributors from all over the
world. In addition to publishing reports, commentary, and opinion pieces, the site
promotes various campaigns.
Scope of online influence
 Theclout of a print publication in India is
determined by distribution. Whether you buy the
Hindustan Times or the Times of India, for
example, depends on availability in your local
market. Better the distribution, bigger the
numbers, and hence greater the advertising
revenue, political clout etc. And once a reader
buys a newspaper or magazine, what he/she
actually reads in it becomes irrelevant.
Scope
 Online distribution, however, is viral, driven
entirely by reader interest. Every media outlet —
big or small, national or local — is equally
available online. There is no way to restrict
competition, and therefore no artificially
engineered face-off, as in Chennai, between the
Hindu and TOI. Online influence is determined by
the ability to churn out relevant, timely and
engaging 24X7 content, day after day after day.
Links
 https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/defaul
t/files/Digital%20Journalism%20Start-ups%20in%
20India_0.pdf
 http://www.thehindu.com/features/education/issue
s/Digital-media-has-great-scope/article13387321.e
ce
 http://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/in-other-
news/140816/digital-platform-may-alter-scope-of-
journalism.html
Impact of Digital Media on Good-
quality News
 There are still conflicting views on whether news has
become better in terms of trust, credibility, investigative
approach, and in-depth analysis due to digital media. For
example, the Annual Edelman Trust Barometer for 2010–
2011 showed a declining trust in the media in India that
year; what makes this grave is that feedback from India
was based on surveys carried out between 11 October and
24 November 2010, before the 2G telecoms scam had
further dented public perceptions.55 However, the same
organization’s 2012 survey ranked India quite high.
 Sundeep Khanna, editor of Livemint.com (the online version of Mint, the
second-largest selling business daily), felt that although the sheer volume
of news content has multiplied, the proportion of credible and
investigative pieces is still as low, if not lower, than before the expansion
of digital media.56 Simon Denyer, India correspondent for the
Washington Post, expressed much the same argument: In China, where
the newspaper and television media are so closely controlled by the state,
digital media, especially blogs, are important sources of news and help
give a useful insight into popular opinion. However, in India—despite
some significant flaws in newspaper and television media—One can get
most of what they need from the traditional media. Digital media in India,
especially social media, is sometimes interesting to track, but there is a
danger of too much opinion and not enough analysis.
 One problem with mainstream websites or popular blogs, as
opposed to smaller sites and blogs, is that they tend to
proactively monitor their readership/viewership. Mr Khanna
described this mindset succinctly: As the editor of the online
version, my job is to consistently track the hits on each article/
opinion/blog on the website. The moment we notice that a
piece is not getting enough readership, we immediately take it
off the home page, and shift it to the inside pages or archives.
So even if a piece is important, crucial and excellent as per
investigative standards, it does not get the coverage it deserves
if enough visitors are not interested in it. Thus, quality becomes
peripheral to the demands of reader traffic.