Genre Evolution - a Framework for Online Newspapers

• The online newspapers entered the Internet in the mid-nineties and since then it has become moreand more common to read the news online. There is a long tradition of designing newspapers inprint and today there is a demand from both academics and practitioners for more knowledgeabout how to design user friendly news sites. By studying the evolution of the online newspapergenre it would be possible to suggest layout implications for further development within thegenre. In this paper we suggest a framework, applying genre theory, for identifying the stages ofevolution for online newspapers. In view of a page layout analysis of the front pages of 85Swedish online newspapers our framework extends Shepherd and Watters (1998) cybergenremodel by adding a fifth leaf node and elucidating the distinctions between the leaf nodes. Ourempirical results show that the online newspaper genre in Sweden is a heterogeneous genre withonline newspapers in different stages of evolution. We have identified and categorized all contentelements on the front pages and related them to form and functionality elements and positionedthem according to a columns and sections grid. By drawing on best practice due to occurrence wehave suggested some initial layout implications for further development within the onlinenewspaper genre.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Systemvetenskap, informationssystem och informatik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Information Systems (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

online newspapers

genre

cybergenre

evolution

broadsheet metaphor

framework

Informatics

Informatik

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)