Online News and the Public

Online News and the Public. Michael B. Salwen, Bruce Garrison, and Paul D. Driscoll, eds. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2005. 404 pp. $39.95 pbk.

A decade after the PaIo Alto Weekly introduced the first online newspaper, what use are news organizations making of the Internet, and, in turn, how are audiences using online news sources? That query was the basis for a national research project in 2003 to understand online news consumption. The results are compiled here in a series of articles edited by three faculty members at the University of Miami School of Communication.

"Eureka" moments are few among the researchers' findings, although this is the dilemma that faces anyone doing work in this quickly evolving field. For example, that audiences like the convenience of reading news online will not raise eyebrows, but then again, it is not meant to. Rather, the editors, who have also written or co-written ten of the book's thirteen chapters, intend their work as a touchstone, a basis for further research and theory building.

As such, the book is usefully divided into three sections. The first, an overview of newspapers' early forays online, trends in Web-based news, and related legal issues, provides the reader with the historical landscape of online news. This informative section also lets the editors wag their fingers at a youngster who is not living up to his potential. Journalism is fundamentally a public service, and, as such, online news sources should concentrate on providing original content and pursuing investigative reports. To the editors here, anything less is fluff, and that is not entirely fair. If journalism is a form of storytelling, the Internet has widened the array of stories and practitioners. Perhaps with dramatic changes in technology, we must also consider refining, not redefining, our ideas about news.

The chapter on legal issues in online journalism explains in detail why it is difficult to impose traditional models on a converged media environment. For example, how is jurisdiction assigned when plaintiffs, content providers, and computer servers reside in different states or, because the Internet is a global network, different countries? Further, who is a journalist or publisher, what constitutes journalism in the new medium, and importantly, how do those distinctions limit privileges and protections? Coeditor Driscoll effectively argues that established news organizations with fact-checking capabilities should be held responsible for conveying libelous third-party content on their Web sites. At the same time, he shows how immunity granted to common carriers, which convey but do not prepare or screen information, may work to impede the progress of online news. Internet regulation is a fertile area of scholarly research, and the author suggests additional avenues of inquiry.

The second section is the core of the book, providing the results from five national telephone surveys conducted in 2001 and 2002 related to online news content and consumption. Scholars will find this section useful in conceptualizing their own research projects. The authors found that Internet users turn to online news because of its convenience and not because it represents a more credible source of information compared to traditional news media. Given that fact, educators might ask why students are so trusting of Web-based information, often refusing to apply even the minimum of evaluative effort. Another study, by the Pew Center, yielded similar results when it surveyed online news users' preferences but also found that audiences turned to the Internet to fill in gaps of information left by traditional and mainstream media. This is a phenomenon to watch, as additional studies report the public's growing distrust of traditional forms of news.

Some survey respondents were divided over the question of whether online news represented distinct content in comparison to conventional news sources. When the same news story was covered online and in traditional media, however, they preferred the immediacy of television to both the Internet and newspapers. That finding is juxtaposed with a chapter on research of public fear after the September 11 attacks and news coverage of the war on terrorism. In this case, Internet users found online news to be less sensational, more reassuring, and more accurate than traditional media. This is troubling given the proliferation of Internet hoaxes, yet it may speak to the Internet's important capacity as community builder. Still, the authors point out that newspapers have fallen short in fostering community among online news users.

The editors do not attempt to provide the big picture of their research, a shortcoming in an otherwise fine book. Indeed, some readers will find this lack of perspective frustrating. However, if one considers that Web-based news is a relatively new venture, still in its infancy, then this "baby picture" works as a benchmark for further research.

[Author Affiliation]

BARBARA FRIEDMAN

University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill