Main Characteristics of On-line Journalism in Communication of Information
Kim Chol Hwan
Faculty of Korean Language and Literature
Kim Li Sung University
Online journalism, a new form of report at present, has a great impact on the society and human life for its unique characteristics. The rapidity and extensiveness of information communications is one of the main characteristics of online journalism.
Aboveall, it is a great rapidity in information communications. The great leader Comrade Kim Jong Il said as follows.
โThe role of the mass media must be enhanced.โ(โKim Jong Il Selected Worksโ Vol.10,p.37)
Only then, can the publications guarantee the value of hot news as they mainly consist of them in the contents of editing. Incorporating computer, telecommunications and telegraph, online journalism can provide people with latest news earlier than other mass media. The rapidity of online journalism finds its expression in two ways.
First of all, it reports on news or events instantly on the network. It is the great advantage of online journalism to promptly load important events that are going on at home and abroad. Next, it rapidly updates its editing materials. As soon as important events happen, it sends them out in no time and updates editing materials as fast as possible for the sake of its rapidity. Its updating speed is relatively high. As for the traditional news media, the period of updating of the newspaper contents is from one day to one week in general and radio and TV programs one day. However, online journalism incessantly upgrades some of news by minutes and by seconds. An accurate choice and analysis of the ongoing events poses a serious problem while keeping the rapidity of online journalism. The great rapidity of online journalism is related to its means of transmission.
The traditional news media are subject to some restrictions of transmission speed. Transmission means of the newspaper with paper as a medium is the post and delivery. Therefore, its transmission speed is affected by transmission vehicle, sales service and postman’s role. Radio and TV broadcast transmit their information to some regions by means of wireless electronic signals, thus being restricted by receiver regions where signals can be transmitted. A relaying auxiliary means needs to be where the signals fail to reach for their successful transmission.
These factors affect the transmission speed of information. Optical fiber communication line is mostly used as the transmission means of online journalism. The speed at which optical fibre transmits digital signals is 300000km per second, which enables information to momentarily reach any part of the world. Along with this, the simplicity of the online journalism process provides an important guarantee for ensuring its rapidity. As to the traditional news media processes, newspaper process comprises coverage, writing, editing, printing and distribution; radio or TV broadcast process constitutes coverage, writing, editing and progress. But online journalism needn’t print or distribute like newspaper and progress like radio or TV, so it can cut the report time short. Every process of traditional news media consumes much time. Journalists engaged in this kind of work devote so much time to coverage, writing of manuscript, shooting, recording and others.
On receiving the manuscript, the editorial staff spends too much time on editing of manuscript, sound editing, developing of photos, electronic image editing and printing. Some news items require further survey of the events and thus need more time for the addition of such materials as background, characters, photos, sound and images. Consequently, it takes much time in traditional news media processes for the news to reach the receivers since relevant facts or events have occurred. On the contrary, those of online journalism cover and edit the events, send the information to the editorial staff via the network, and search required materials on the network database. This makes it possible to save much valuable time and provide news materials as soon as possible. When important facts or events happen, they may be broadcast live by radio and TV.
But they have to make a lot of detailed arrangements for live broadcasting and their machinery is very complex. However, online journalists employ such digital means as portable computers and digital cameras so that they can report on the ongoing events directly via the network. When an event happens, so to speak, online journalism enables receivers to listen to and watch the report on the event in real time on the network. Online journalism can receive and send news scripts at any time.
This is also an important guarantee for its rapidity. As for the newspaper, it is needed to issue an extra edition or re-edit as a whole in order to add another news to it after finishing editing. In this case on radio or TV, it needs to lengthen the time of carrying the scripts or stop regular programs before reporting on the sudden news or events.
But, on the network it is free to incessantly receive and send scripts all day without any restrictions. A great rapidity of online journalism is related to such articles widely posted on the home pages those on scroll, and real-time report, both of which help ensure rapidity. Scroll report is the article on the recent news of importance presented by the scroll bar. On collection of hot news, it is loaded on the homepage in two ways: one is to erase the existing content and post it and the other is to post it by use of the scroll bar. The scroll bar is put where attention is easily paid and runs through the contents horizontally or vertically. Scroll report is the way of presenting latest news by means of the scroll bar and is of significance in raising the rapidity of online journalism.
Live broadcast means the instant presentation of articles on the ongoing news or events. Contrary to that by radio or TV, live broadcast by online journalism is characterized by quicker presentation of articles, richer expression and more extensiveness in the range of communications than the former. It can be carried out by using various forms,such as characters, sound, images, multimedia and so on.Journalists can broadcast live instantly in the forms of characters, sound, images and multimedia on the network by using computers, mobile phones, camera stand others on the spot. Among them live broadcast by characters is peculiar to the network. Live broadcast by characters is the presentation of the news by characters while journalists cover the events on the spot. It is presented to the live broadcast special webpage.
Compared with alive broadcast on TV, it fully records the progress and details of the event and preserves them for along duration, not to speak of its great rapidity.ย It also has the advantage for online users of reading in an instant or in a prolonged time. Next, online journalism is extensive in the communication of information. It means extensiveness in the contents of information communications and also in their range. It is extensive in the contents of information communications. Traditional news media are limited in their space or broadcast time, resulting in the relative restriction of their information volume. As the newspaper space is limited, the number of its characters or photos available is invariable.
Radio or TV broadcast the restricted amount of information in a fixed time. For this reason, it fails to carry a large amount of programmes and their choice poses an important problem. In addition to this, once its programme has just been broadcast, it can never be repeated. It is after all subject to restriction on broadcasting many programmes. In particular, as TV programmes are broadcast on certain channels, it is limited by the choice of its programmes. From this point, editors of the traditional news media attach great importance to the choice and presentation of materials. A news agency in a country sends 70 percent of received information to a news medium, in which two percent of them is chosen for broadcast. Online journalism media, however, have a mammoth memory capacity of information, thus providing deliverers with an infinite scope. The online information volume further exceeds the biggest library in the world and at present is formally recognized by humans as the biggest and most comprehensive information source base. Many online journalism media are now providing the data browsing service.ย By using this service, online journalism readers can search and read the required news or materials for their convenience.
Online journalism is extensive in its range of information communications. The traditional news media are limited in this regard. The distribution of newspaper requires employing various vehicles, so it is restricted in its range of distribution. Radio or TV broadcast using electric waves need to set up relay stations and resolve many technical problems of improving their quality of waves to reach any places of the earth. But the communication scope of online journalism covers wherever to connect the network all over the world. The network is available in every country and region at present. The network enables anyone freely to exchange information with anyother person at any time and in any place. It is not affected by time, channel, weather and national border.
Accordingly, humans can keep themselves up to date with any news from every country in good time via online journalism media and freely exchange information with different news media and people of the world and communicate with them. As seen above, the rapidity and extensiveness of the information communications mainly feature the online journalism.
Keywords: on-line journalism, communication, information
SOURCE: Journal of Kim Li Sung University-2019
