Electronic newspapers - history, background and development.

Electronic newspapers – history, background and development

In order to understand fully the theoretical aspects of this work and to relate this to practical field results, it is necessary to understand both the history and development of electronic newspapers and the context within which such development has taken place.

The general historical context within which electronic newspapers are being developed is first examined. A brief description of the history of electronic publishing itself and some background containing details of the characteristics of electronic newspapers is followed by a review of development in the UK and a statement on their use, spread and status to date. The major characteristics of some existing UK based electronic newspapers are discussed and a comparison made with their hard copy counterparts. The chapter concludes with a review of a non-commercial leading edge example where issues of user acceptability have been uppermost in the minds of the developers.

The historical perspective

An alternative and enlightening perspective on history (to the more usual one of “dead men and dusty dates”) is obtained through the study and understanding of the means by which communications has taken place between human beings. There is strong evidence to suggest that control of technology led to control of content and thus to maintenance of cultural control within society generally. This is clearly a useful perspective.

A most interesting and useful historical perspective is given by Sreberny-Mohammadi (Sreberny-Mohammadi 1995) where she argues that, thus far, communications history can be divided into three main epochs; the earliest when speech dominated (orality); the epoch of print; and the advent of electronic media. Careful note should be made of the use of the word ‘advent’, because clearly this epoch has by no means reached its zenith given the potential to be unleashed through further technology convergence and integration.

Orality

During the orality epoch, communications had several characteristics. Most significantly it was geographically constrained and thus discussion ...

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Orality

During the orality epoch, communications had several characteristics. Most significantly it was geographically constrained and thus discussion of and intellectualising on events outside a small locale in real time was impossible. Any real influence on the majority of distant events was therefore almost impossible. Communication could be one to one or one to many within the constraints imposed by the human voice, or membership of a particular forum and the message was ephemeral.

Communication

The context within which the communication was delivered (and simultaneously received) was very important. Feedback from recipient(s) to sender was immediate and allowed a skilful sender to modify the message depending upon such feedback. Control was exercised through the power of persuasion, which in turn depended upon the sender’s ability to argue logically, his (because this was a masculine activity) personal characteristics for credibility, and ability to invoke emotional responses in the recipients. Those who heard, as well as those who spoke were “empowered” – but were an elitist group and many neither heard nor spoke.

The written and printed word

Handwriting provided the first means of non-transient communication and came about for reasons such as the need to provide better and more objective record keeping. Whilst being limited in a spatial sense, the written word is not geographically constrained in the same way as during the orality epoch. However certain other characteristics are important. The sender and recipient need not be present together in either space or time. The context has no where near the same significance as it did earlier and the sender has much less control over the way in which the recipients interpret the message. Clearly there is usually little or no feedback.

Paper and the printing press were the keys to the widespread use of the written word. Print had a number of very important aspects associated with it. First it created a large number of jobs, and in particular the author who could sell ideas through the printed word and became no longer the slave of the wealthy patron. However at this point, the concept of ‘gate-keeper’ was established, that is one who could decide on what should and should not be published. In the words of Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi they became “the new arbiters of public tastes and opinions”. This needs to be discussed further.

New books spread new ideas; religious debates were enhanced by such ideas; people who could read were more empowered, intellectuals challenged the old religious order and new movements became established such as liberalism, nationalism, (and later, the Chartists and socialism and Communism). As literacy spread, new authorities were established based upon intellectuals who could argue logically and persuasively orally, but also and now more importantly, through the written word.

Electronic media

From the 1920’s onwards, the relatively new electronic media in the form primarily of radio and television broadcasting have exerted enormous influences over their audiences. As Sreberny-Mohammadi argues, television re-combines the visual and the aural and, through VCR, allows a time-shift to take place; in other words, the constraints imposed by the real time nature of broadcasting are removed somewhat.

In the orality epoch, it was the ethos of the speaker which was important; with the written word, it was logical argument which was supreme, but with broadcasting and particularly television broadcasting the power of speech returns. Once again it is the charisma of the deliverer of the message which is most important and particularly through the ability of the deliverer to create a sense of trust between himself and the largely unseen audience.

Almost more powerful than the owners of the print media are the often monopolistic controllers of broadcast media who wield massive power over what is and what is not broadcast. Thus the gatekeepers continue to influence greatly the attitudes of the general public through the control over what and how news is received. Feedback is mere noise in the overall scheme of things and is indeed itself controlled by the same gatekeepers.