Digital Journalism is also known as online journalism is a modern form of journalism. In the digital realm where the editorial content is now distribute online rather than print or broadcasting. Several scholars debated about what constituted digital journalism. The main feature of journalism is news and features on the latest affairs. In digital journalism the information is provided in the form of text, audio, videos, or some interactive elements to make your storytelling more creative and unique.
The latest growing technological advancements which has contributed in the field of journalism and also has lessened the work. It has decreased the data entry barriers, various computer networking technologies and lower distribution costs which has led to growing use of digital journalism.
The widespread use of digital platforms has help in the flow of information previously which was control by traditional media including magazines, television and radio. The greater level of creativity can applied with digital journalism as compared to traditional journalism or traditional media.
Basically, digital journalism is a practice of gathering, producing and distributing content through digital channels, including websites, social media, podcasts, mobile applications and many more.
Role Of Online Journalism
Online Journalism has emerged as an influential medium, which allows instant access to news from around the world such as global news, business news, interactive storytelling and many more. The internet provides a global platform, which enables the journalist to rhea-out the global audience and connect with the reader.
Digital platforms used to foster a sense of connectivity, engagement and interactivity through the comment section, social media and multimedia elements. But with the emergence of high speed data such as 4G and LTE you can easily get access to news, videos and current trends from the best source of online platforms. One of the most trusted platforms for journalists is X (Twitter) where they can talk on current topics of the country such as business, politics, religion and sports.
The Rise of News Websites: A Reliable Source of Information
News websites have spread their extensions and it is also count as one of the reliable sources of information. Websites are created to carry information or detailed stories on a vast range of journals provided by reporters and editors. There are quite a few independent sites operating but they are not strong economically. There are many news channels that also have their own news websites such as BBC, New York Times, CNN, Wikipedia and many more.
Blogs and Online Journalism Websites
Blog has a separate recognition and the news value of blogs is quite bounded in India. It is an informational site which consists of details on any event or topic, but the information is present in a pattern where the writer is sharing his/her opinion. A majority of the blogs are the expression of personal opinion by the blogger on a certain topic and it is a highly subjective basis.
Online journalism is a field where the person works on a report and enters it on the public domain. Until 2009 blogs were usually works for a single individual but in 2010 multiple author blogs emerged and featured the writing of multiple authors.
Business Journalism
Business journalism is a very important niche of global journalism which tracks, records, analyzes and interprets the business and the financial activities occurring around the world. This area of journalism provides news and articles about the business sector such as economy news, stock share market news and many more.
In the recent global issue, several newspapers from the western world were badly affected but the internet has remained unaffected. Numerous leading newspaper companies have come up with the local editions such as Forbes, WSJ, Financial Times, New York Times and many more started publishing business news as the important part of their information.
Most of the newspaper, websites, magazines, radio and television includes business segments related to monetary policies, share market prices, mutual funds and much more.
Basic Elements of Digital Journalism
Digital journalism refers to the content which is collect, create and distributed online, in other words this type of journalism is operated on the internet. Online journalism is the publishing of information that is correspondent to print and broadcast counterparts such as magazines, newspapers and television.
Digital media is technology driven and evolving with the time. Attest innovations, creativity, ideas and concepts are added to work more frequently than in any other traditional media. The given are some basic elements of digital journalism, that you are searching for:-
Headlines
A headline is the topic or a heading of an article, which tells about what the story is about. In the news platform, headlines are used as the topic of the story or differentiate between two or more stories. Basically, it is the text which indicates the content or the nature of the article and also provides a brief summary of its content.
Hyperlinks
Hyperlinks used to connect different elements of a multimedia presentation, underlined text or using small pictures. It is simply a link or a digital reference to the data that users can follow by just tapping the link. A hyperlink takes a whole document or a specific element within the document. It is one of the creative features in the internet, hyperlinks leads users to the information.
Text
A text is a written or a printed work regarding the content rather than its physical form. It is the body of the story which contains important information in one page or broken up into several connected links. Words make up the written part of the multimedia, which presents details about certain topics.
Podcast
A podcast is the medium that gives the users the option to choose any topic that they want to listen to. It is a type of web feed of audio files that users can easily download and play on their device. Podcasts cover a variety of content including radio programs, education, entertainment and many more.
Multimedia and Web Stories
Multimedia is a form of communication that uses different combinations of digital forms such as writing, videos, images, animation and many more multimedia items into a single interactive presentation. Web stories is a web-based version of popular stories which includes multimedia elements such as videos, images, text, animation and much more which enhance the reader experience for example Flutterwave scandal, Baltimore Bridge Collapse and many more.
Trends in Online Journalism
With the growing technologies in the digital world there have been several transformative changes. The digital era has brought the benefit of information dissemination and revolutionizing the field of journalism. Along with the rapid advancements of technology and the tools available on the internet such as Deepfake AI Bot and Qxefv which have played a significant role in journalism. Technology into the field of journalism has emerged as a powerful force in shaping public discourse. The following are the trends in online journalism, that you should know about:-
Time Shift Journalism
In the past we had to wait for days for the re-telecast of a programme on the television, now it has finally ended. Now, there is no need to make arrangements for individuals to record their favorite shows or news. In the digital era, all we need to do is to search the content into the internet and gather all the information. In revolving technologies, it is time to bring transformation in journalism or time shift content. Now, we have to do only one tab and read the content.
Emergence of New Digital Platforms
New technologies are emerging and giving opportunities in order to meet the consumer demands. The emergence of several digital devices such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops are becoming challenges for online journalism. Digital platform is a group of software and hardware tools that the companies use to disseminate information and connect consumers.
Digital platforms can be a set of tools which includes a website, a contact database, registration services, news feed, payment processor and many more. Through these platforms you can gather information, knowledge, exchange goods and services. Companies or organizations are trying and figuring out how they can produce unique content that will fit into all sorts of niches.
Social Media For Online Journalism And Digital Marketing
Social networking sites provide a digital space where individuals can create their own online profiles and update it with their activities. Media platforms are the modern technique of gathering, generating and distributing any information. It plays a very significant role in journalism, which is faster and more rapid than traditional journalism but can be inaccurate and frequent based on the public opinion rather than facts and evidence based. But for journalists and news providing organizations, it is a platform which can used to connect people and share relevant information. Social Media is not only used for current news or any impactful topics, the platform is also used for entertainment and digital marketing.
Digital Marketing is also known as online marketing, which is a component that uses digital technologies or any other digital media to promote the products and services. The emergence of digital marketing started back in the 1990s and 2000s when the brands started using technologies for the marketing.
Digital marketing and traditional marketing such as print ads and direct mails which are used to generate product awareness and influence the purchasing decisions to increase the sales. The main difference between traditional and digital marketing, traditional marketing is a marketing that uses conventional methods which is used to promote goods and services and digital marketing uses digital technologies and online platforms to promote goods and services. There are various platforms available which cover digital marketing concepts to promote a product or guide you about the goods and services.
How TV Journalism and New Media Evolved In Digital Transformation
In the world of technological transformation which is touching new heights in the entertainment industry. Don’t worry broadcasting television is not dead but it is evolving with a digital transformation. Over the past few decades, there has been a considerable expansion of news platforms and OTT delivery systems.
Entertainment journalism is a part of journalism that focuses on culture and the entertainment business. It covers entertainment industry specific news such as theater, music, games, video and celebrity coverage. The journal is focus on celebrities and their lifestyles, it also includes television soap operas, reality shows, rich and royal families. After the digital transformation or digitalization, the entertainment industry is growing prominence all over the internet.
You can look for several results on the internet regarding your favorite celebrity, their lifestyle and reality shows, in the form of videos, images, biography (such as biography of Janet Condra, Toriah Lachell and much more). The private players came into the entertainment industry and new channels have begun a new era, some entertainment channels around the world are T-series, ABC, Discovery Channel and many more.
Platform Based Online Media Writing In Different Genre
Online media contains various genres which includes news, articles, features, photos features, global news, entertainment, sports, health, finance and business. It has multimedia content and live coverage of the news which makes it unique and creative from other media. The writing style of each genre is different and also varies from one another. Although the basic rule of language, vocabulary, grammar and the syntax rules remain the same, only creativity and expression differentiate from the type of genre.
Writing for online media is a new genre within itself and news related to entertainment, films, and celebrities are much in demand recently and have a huge fanbase. It is written in a gossip style along with pictures and quotations. Global news or international news is the news and current affairs which is collect from around the world. Which used to attract a lot of viewers into the pages. The online writers have to keep their eye on the latest developments, issues and events to satisfy the interest of the readers.
Global News and Breaking News
Global news is also known as international news which is gathered from across the world on current affairs, international relations, developments and more. Whereas, breaking news is also known as hard news in which only initial information is available. The news can be on accident, earthquake, political issues or any event. These news covers a vast range of topics and immediately flashed on digital media which gathers immediate attention of the readers. Online writers can convey the news in the simplest language but by following basic requirements of language such as vocabulary, grammar and the syntax.
SEO-Based Online Writing
What readership means to newspapers and TRP. It tells about how many people have read your story and how long they have stayed on the page. It also decides the advertisement revenue for the website and it is important for both revenue earning and popularity of the website. Always attempt online news writers to reach as many readers as possible. The following are the writing tips which will help to gain popularity:-
Searchable URL-based Headline
Headlines are the most important element of news which leads to the website and provides a glimpse of the content. The headline should be creative, attractive, interesting and eye-catching. In case it is a new article then it should include keywords that the news wants to convey. To search for the news on any search engine, which will provide you the top news will be easily searchable content and give on the top in the swatch engine results. The online news writer also includes the work of a search engine optimization (SEO).
Keywords and Tags
Meta rags is a broader term which is the title of the news, its keywords and a short description of the news. Meta elements like HTML or XHTML provide structured metadata regarding the content of the page and it is not visible for the readers. Keywords are specific words which are descriptive and separated from each other by comma. Title tags contain keywords through which a story is indexe on the search engine.Whenever, you search a question, the news which is display on the basis of relevant keywords. Description is a brief statement on the content of the web page and could be identify by the intro of the content.
Fact-Checking While Writing
The foremost principle is to check the authenticity of the facts, figures and images before any kind of journalistic writing takes place. It is more important in the case of online news articles. Before you begin writing an article make sure that you have all the details with you and you have thoroughly checked all the available sources. The following are some guidelines, that you should know about:-
Visual Fact-Check
Cross-checking and double-checking the facts, figures and images are the most important things before creating any content. Especially on social media, where the photographs have been morphe and used to mislead the context and destroy the purpose of the news item. The content writer should also check whether the context of the image is right or not. Relevant images should used in the news story.
Fake News Check
In the growing realm of digital and social media, dissemination of fake news has become a major issue, finding an easy way into the mainstream media and mostly in digital media. Fake news is the incorrect information that has carried out an intention to manipulate the intention of the readers. Content writers should check the information from reliable sources and cross-check all the facts and figures.
Readership, Reach-Out & Response Management
The popularity of the newspaper is determine by the readership and for a TV news channel it is determine by TRP. The popularity of a website is count by the number of page views it has received from the readers. When a reader used to click at a link or a headline, they will receive a message for accessing a single web-page or the HTML file. The larger the number of views of a website, the higher the page has popularity and views. The popularity will help to gain revenue from the online advertising. There are numerous analytical tools which measure the views from the pages and the most popular tools of Google Analytics.
Page Views Analytics
CPM (Cost Per Thousand) is a most common metric to measure the online advertising rate and check the number of page views by thousand. The lesser the value the more benefits to the advertiser. PPC (Pay-per-check) and CPC (Cost-per-check) are the other metrics which have a great importance. Due to their effectiveness in ensuring that the users have tapped into the particular web page.
Response Measurement
Analytics tells you about the measurable metrics to determine the popularity of the news story. There are other parameters that will help in the online newsroom. Comments on the story are the unique and interactive feature which tells the newsroom about the users. Comments connect the readers to the news provider and also provides an insight of the readers such as their opinion on the topic and issues.
Conclusion
In the transforming realm of technologies which has brought a new wave into the field of journalism. Digital journalism or online journalism does not only mean the content created and distributed online, but the digitalization helps to inform people about the trending topics like finance, Lifestyle, Health, Technology and issues, events across the country. With a few clicks, you can get access to information from the entire world of journalism and with a vast variety of sources. The media industry has a lot to study deeper and explore the opportunities related to the online news delivery.
