Wednesday, 16 November 2011

The emergence of on-line screen news


Before the emerging of digital era, people may think of newspaper as the only source to obtain current news of world. But people have changed their way to obtain news after the emerging of digital world. Since then, the way of viewing latest news has evolved from print media to web-based media. Up to date, there are many online news portals that are well-known by the Malaysian, such as Malaysiakini, The Star Online and so on. However, from reading news on print media to web-based media, now people are prefer to obtain latest news by watching news video instead of reading written text on the web or print media. A financial and economic news company “Reuters” is one of the example that do publish video news online and also using Youtube as the platform for video upload.

According to the survey by Simon (O’Neill 2011), 85 percent of online media websites are now using online video content to cover the news and the numbers are still increasing year by year. The increment is basically due to internet users are getting more and more. Mostly, the internet users are derived from Generation X and Y who are more adapt to digital media. The increased ubiquity of sound, image, film, through TV, the computer and the internet is undoubtedly behind this new emphasis on and interest in the multi-semiotic complexity of the representations we produce and see around u (Ladema 2003). The audiences are now preferred more interactive communication rather than one sided communication like print media. Usually, the internet users are allowed to make comments to the video news online and also some discussion with other internet users.

Besides, publish news video online are usually faster than traditional television news. With the influence from social network such as Facebook and Twitter, people are demanding the latest news to be delivered immediately after the particular event had happened. To certain extent, if one internet user gets to know news one day later, it will be considered as “slow”. By referring to the data obtained from the survey of Simon, it can be estimated that the number of people view news online will still increase. The traditional news media that have not yet using video to cover news should consider about it now.

Reference list

Ledema R 2003, Multomodality, resemiotization: extending the analysis of discourse as multi-semiotic practice, Visual Communication, Vol.2, No.1, p.29-57,

O'Neill, M 2011, 85% of Media Websites Now Use Online Video to Cover News, Social Times 3rd May 2011, viewed 15 November 2011,

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