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

Doctoral thesis in Portugal

Helder Bastos, professor at the University of Porto, will do tomorrow, October 21st, 2008, his Viva Voce. This is the second doctoral thesis produced by a Portuguese scholar on Cyberjournalism, and the first one to de defenden in Portugal, since the first on written by a Portuguese scholar, João Canavilhas, was done in the University of Salamanca, Spain, and written in Spanish.

Helder Bastos’ doctoral thesis is entitled “Ciberjornalistas em Portugal: Práticas, Papéis e Ética” [“Cyberjournalists in Portugal: Practice, Papers and Ethics”]. The Viva will be held at the Faculty of Social and Human Science, Universidade Nova of Lisbon.

Nelson Traquina is the director of this new doctoral thesis, as he was the orientator fo Helder Bastos’ master thesis in 1999, “Jornalismo Electrónico: Internet e Reconfiguração de Práticas nas Redacções” [“Online Journalism: Internet and the Reconfiguration of Newsroom Practices”], published later as a book. As a journalist, Helder Bastos worked in the Jornal de Notícias, Rádio Press e Diário de Notícias, and he is one of the creators of the Observatório do Ciberjornalismo [Observatory of Cyberjournalism], and one of the organisers of the I International Congress on Cyberjournalism, to be held at Porto (Portugal) on December 11 and 12, 2008.