Comprehensivness, Hypertextuality, Interactivity

Published by Emil Abraham,

Comprehensiveness
Online journalism has the potential to be more thorough than journalism in any other medium. It can provide materials in multiple forms that free journalists from the bounds of text-based stories and space limitations. Its flexibility in form of presentation allows journalists to tailor elements of a story to the ways people learn best. The best online journalism models the idea that the whole of something can be greater than the sum of its parts. The nature of the medium is part of the foundation of excellence online, but the medium’s potential depends on the efforts of journalists and the priorities of their organizations. The complex nature of the medium also poses distinctive challenges in storytelling, and these challenges add to the difficulties that journalists face thanks to time and staffing limitations. This combination of factors makes it difficult to realize the potential of online journalism to tell comprehensive stories.
Comprehensiveness in online journalism takes in the distinctive strengths of the forms that contribute to the medium, but it also involves strengths that encompass more than one form.

Overarching elements
  • unfiltered information: original/source documents and data
  • greater volume of information
  • enduring background information
  • drilling down on one aspect of the story
  • interaction/dialogue with audience
  • combination of forms—"fullest flowering of media"
  • forms appropriate to a story and the ways people learn
Comprehensiveness in online journalism means going deep and wide with information. It also means fostering opportunities for interaction and making the most of the multiple forms of communication available online. It depends on how stories are told in the nuances of various online forms including interactive/information graphics, text, audio, photos, and video.

Hypertextuality
Another use of text that is important in online journalism is links. Hyperlinks are at the heart of the identity of the online medium because they enable navigation to other elements on the site and information elsewhere. Like stories themselves, links can help to provide detail and context—for example, by sending readers to sites that offer expert knowledge, explain points of view, or show how to get help.
The pages with these links also offer context through brief explanations of the types of information available on these sites. Links are so much a part of the medium that it is easy to take them for granted, but they are integral to online excellence. A key difference between simply shoveling newspaper stories onto a website and providing added value to users is the decision to offer direct ways to connect with additional opportunities for learning.

Practices of interactive tools on media websites
  • Interactive journalism is a new type of journalism that allows consumers to directly contribute to the story. Reporters can develop a conversation with the audience. The digital age has changed how people collect information. Interactive journalism allows media outlets to "include convergence with citizens, the public, as well.
  • Community members have a wide range of online elements, such as blogs, websites and social media, to disseminate their stories. Therefore, media outlets have been forced to widen the definition "of mass media from ‘one-to-many’ to ‘many-to-many’ communication.
  • One of the most popular interactive journalism tools are blogs, which allow grassroot news to be developed by eyewitnesses or those with expertise or interest in a particular subject area. Bloggers often cite and link to mainstream news articles and mainstream journalists often get story ideas from blogs they monitor. The blog format allows readers to add further information or corrections. Many blogs syndicate their content to subscribers using RSS, a popular content distribution tool.
  • Blogs, social media pages, comment boxes, video sharing platforms, podcasts