Online Journalism: Research Methods

As a continuation of the book in Spanish and Portuguese languages, a new (electronic) book has been recently launched: Online journalism: research methods. A multidisciplinary approach in comparative perspective. In this book, more than 40 researchers from Spain and Brazil have taken part, to offer an extract of the research methods they have used in the last ten years.

The chapters are:

1. Typology of online media

2. Genres in online jorunalism: a typological proposal

3. News and database architecture

4. Research methodologies in journalism design on the Internet

5. Narrativity

6. Methods of researching participatory journalism

7. Production routines

8. Media convergence

9. Teaching online journalism and its evaluation

Bibliography

The book has been published in Spanish as well.

Reference

Palacios, Marcos; Díaz Noci, Javier (eds.). Online journalism: research methods. A multidisciplinary approach in comparative perspective. Bilbao: Servicio Editorial de la Universidad del País Vasco. ISBN 978-84-9860-191-6

http://www.argitalpenak.ehu.es/p291-content/es/contenidos/libro/se_indice_ciencinfo/es_ciencinf/adjuntos/journalism.pdf

 

Palacios, Marcos; Díaz Noci, Javier (eds.). Ciberperiodismo: métodos de investigación. Una aproximación multidisciplinar en perspectiva comparada. Bilbao: Servicio Editorial de la Universidad del País Vasco.

http://www.argitalpenak.ehu.es/p291-content/es/contenidos/libro/se_indice_ciencinfo/es_ciencinf/adjuntos/ciberperiodismo.pdf

 

Cyberjournalism in Venezuela

Venezuela is one of the Spanish language countries where the studies about cyberjournalism are young but increasingly growing. The first academic meeting was in 2004, the I Forum of Online Journalism [I Foro de Periodismo Digital], organised by the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas. Some other academic events have taken place since then, and some books have been published as well, i.e. Miladys Rojano’s Diez años de periodismo digital en Venezuela , 1996-2006 [Ten years of online journalism in Venezuela, 1996-2006].

Now a new book is added to the bibliography on the subject in Latin America. Carlos Arcila  (University of Los Andes y Táchira) has coordinated a book entitled Comunicación digital y Ciberperiodismo. Nuevas prácticas de la comunicación en los entornos virtuales [Digital communication and Online Journalism. New practices in digital enviroments' communication].

Structure of the book:

Prologue (Javier Díaz Noci)

Introduction (Carlos Argila)

Part I: Digital environments and communication

1. Digital communication (Carlos Argila)

2. Web 2.0: Definition and uses (Miladys Rojano)

Part II: Online journalism

3. Cyberjournalism, a post-journalism? (Jesús María Aguirre)

4. Cyberjournalism in the 21st century (Exequíades Chirinos)

5. Newsmaking. Creation of original contents (Carlos Argila)

6. The pyramid model. Non-lineal (Joyceleine Scarleth Urdaneta Castillo)

7. Design and construction of an online information service (Patricia Henríquez Coronell and Carmen Aidé Valecillos Vázquez)

Part III: The new journalist

8. The digital intellectual journalist: two images of change (Carlos Delgado Flórez)

9. Journalist’s behaviour in the networked society (Mabel Calderín)

10. Ethical training of journalists in the digital era: articulations and tensions (Fernando Villalobos G. and Marialejandra Montiel de Rodríguez).

Reference:

Arcila, Carlos (Coord.). Comunicación digital y ciberperiodismo. Nuevas prácticas de la comunicación en los entornos virtuales [Digital communication and Online Journalism. New practices in digital enviroments' communication]. Caracas: Universidad Andrés Bello, 2008. 236 p. ISBN: 978-980-244-551-6

Methodology for the study of cybermedia

As a fruit of an international cooperation amongst two research networks from Brazil and Spain, a new book has been launched at the end of 2008: Metodologia para o estudo dos cibermeios. Estado da arte & perspectivas [Methodology for the study of online media. State of the art and perspective], coordinated by Javier Díaz Noci and Marcos Palacios.

The book gathers the contribution of more than 40 researchers of both countries, papers that were presented at an encounter held in the Faculty of Communication of the Federal University of Bahia (Brazil) in December, 2007. The book was presented at the second meeting held in Sao Paulo in November, 2008.

The volume has been published by EDUFBA, the publishing house of the University Federal of Bahia. The text are in Portuguese or in Spanish. A more destilled version of the book will be published in 2009, in English, to offer the international community the points of views, trends and perspective of the methodological work done by this internationl network.

Reference:

Díaz Noci, Javier; Palacios, marcos (orgs.). Metodologia para o estudo dos cibermeios. Estado da arte & perspectivas [Methodology for the study of online media. State of the art and perspective]. Salvador de Bahia: EDUFBA, 2008. 358 p. ISBN: 978-85-232-0541-6

Fernando Zamith: A research on Portuguese journalistic websites

Fernando Zamith, from the University of Porto, launched during the I Congress on Cyberjournalism a book which contains his master dissertation work. The book’s title is Ciberjornalismo: As potencialidades da Internet nos sites noticiosos portugueses [Cyberjournalism: The potenciality of the Internet in the Portuguese journalistic websites]. The books is divided in five chapters plus a conclusion. First of all, Zamith analyses which is the impact of the Internet in journalism. In the second chapter, he explains the characteristics of the new medium: hypertext, multimedia, interactiviy, personalisation, memory, instantaneity, ubiquity, hypermedia and contextualization.

The third and fourth chapters are devoted to the field research done in the Portuguese online newspapers, and how they get profit of the characteristics to be measured. In the fifth chapter, Fernando Zamith explain which is the scenery of online media in his country.

The main conclusions of the research are: the Portuguese online newspapers use very few hypertext, multimedia and interactivity; they give access to their archives, but get very few profit from it; the rhythtm of information renewal is very low; and they haven’t realised how important is the ubiquity Internet offers. Personalization is also very poor.

Reference:

Zamith, Fernando.  Ciberjornalismo: As potencialidades da Internet nos sites noticiosos portugueses .  Porto: Afrontamento, 2008. 113 p. ISBN 978-972-36-0995-0

Guillermo López launches new book

Guillermo López, teaching at the University of Valencia (Spain) has launched a new book. It is a research on the online media of the autonomous community of Valencia, entitled Los cibermedios valencianos: cartografía, características y contenidos [The Valencian Cybermedia: cartography, characteristics and contents]. Dr. López and his team have carried out a complete catalogue and research of 232 online media.

The book has been published by the University of Valencia in pdf format, and can be downloaded for free. The website of the book also offers additional contents: a brief version of the conclusions, the catalogue, and the analysis variables.

The audiences of the media analysed are periodically revised as well.

This is the second time Dr. Guillermo López publishes a pdf book on cyberjournalism. As an editor, he published in 2008 a volume entitled Comunicación local y nuevos formatos periodísticos en Internet [Local communication and new journalistic formats on the Internet]. This book also can be downloaded from the Web, and includes some papers of a seminar held at the University of Valencia in 2008 on the situation of cybermedia in Spain, the especific case of Valencian cybermedia, and on the new format of the online journalism.

Reference:

López García, Guillermo et al. Los cibermedios valencianos: cartografía, características y contenidos. Valencia:  Servei de Publicacions de la Universitat de València, 2008.
167 pages. ISBN: 978-84-691-5787-9

Lev Manovich’s new book

Software takes command. This is the title of Lev Manovich’s new book, published both in pdf and .doc format and for free downloading from the researcher’s own website. The first version has been released on November, 20, 2008. The .doc document includes footnotes not available in pdf format. No one of them include illustrations, nor a definitive cover. People is asked to submit their proposals. The publication has been done unde Creative Commons non commercial-no derivative works 3.0 license”,

“One of the advantages of online distribution which I can control is that I don’t have to permanently fix the book’s contents. Like contemporary software and web services, the book can change as often as I like, with new “features” and “big fixes” added periodically. I plan to take advantage of these possibilities. From time to time, I will be adding new material and making changes and corrections to the text”, explains the author.

New book: The Penetration of Online News, by An Nguyen

An Nguyen, lecturer in Journalism Studies, University of Stirling (Scotland), has just published a new book on cyberjournalism: The Penetration of Online News. Past, Present and Future.

Dr. Nguyen comes from the University of Queensland, Australia, where he completed his PhD in Media and Communication Studies. He was also a journalism practitioner in Vietnam. Currently he is teaching at Stirling. Interested in online journalism and its audience, he has published articles on online journalism from 2003 onwards. Some of them can be accessed from his own website.

An Nguyen wonders in his book whether “online news gradually displace and then replace older news forms”, as well as whether “the rise of blogs, forums and other ‘Web 2.0′ platforms spell a slow death of journalism”. From an interdisciplinary and international perspective, he explains the the socio-technical dynamics of the diffusion of this new form of making news and deals on the take up of news technologies in the newsrooms.

Another book on cyberjournalism has been published in Germany this year, about Austrian online media: Österreichische Online-Medien, by Dieter Marek and Moritz Omasits (Facultas Universitätsverlag, 2008).

Complete book reference: Nguyen, An. The Penetration of Online News: Past, Present and Future. Saarbrücken: VDM Publishing, 2008.

News on the Web: A study from Portugal

João Canavilhas, professor of the University of Beira Interior (Portugal) has published a book: Webnoticia. Propuesta de modelo periodístico para la WWW [Webnews. A proposal of a journalistic model for the WWW]. Although the book comes from Portugal, it is written in Spanish language. Professor Canavilha has some articles on this subject in English as well.

The book is accesible in pdf format by University of Beira Interior’s LabCom, a research group conducted by professor António Fidalgo. They publish all their books, with ISBN and professional format, as e-books, and offer as well the possibility of purchasing a printed issue.

The book has two parts: theory and experiments. The author makes in the first part a state of the art of the characteristics and research done on multimedia language and the news, and explain the metholodgy proposed for his study. In the second part, he explains some experiments done around two concepts: hypertext and multimediality. Finally, based on the syntax of hyperlinks, Canavilhas proposes a multimedia grammar for online news. based on four levels: basic level, explanation level, background level and exploration level.

The proposals were applied to the experimental online newspaper of João Canavilha’s own University in Covilhã, http://www.urbi.ubi.pt/.

Complet book reference:

Canavilhas, João. Webnoticia. Propuesta de modelo periodístico para la WWW. Covilhã: Universidade de Beira Interior, 2008