Interactive New Media and the News

One of the most interesting parts of New Media is the accessability and abundancy of many different news sources on the internet. Before, many people had to watch TV or read their local newspaper to get the news.

Today, news is not only up to the minute, but also interactive. Many websites now publish their printed content online with the ability to comment. Now, when a story is printed online, hundreds of people can react in real time to the story, and other people can view the reactions online.

One example of interactive news is NJ.com, which features news from several New Jersey newspapers, including the Star-Ledger. NJ.com has a box that shows which stories have the most comments (LEFT). On a busy day, the top story uusally has more than 200 comments.

There are a host of benefits to this new interactive medium. Opinions are freely expressed, interaction is encouraged, and sometimes the posts are pretty funny. You can even trash the newspaper on their own website, like this commenter did in an article about Gov. Jon Corzine's loss in his campaign for re-election.

Posted by deceiverbo

November 04, 2009, 10:51PM

The Star-Ledger, despite being shell-shocked, is still able to put a spin on this election. Even if the voter shortfall in Union County, Hudson County and Newark cited above compared to 2005 was taken into account, Corzine would have still lost. And 1 million fewer voters than the 2008 election? Like they would have gone all to Corzine. Please spare us all. BO and the Democratic Party are failing to revive the economy and things are only getting worse.

Unfortunately, with this new type of interactivity, there are offensive comments that slip by, some of which go unregulated. They usually appear on the pages that feature hot-botton topics. One example is an article by Tom Moran advocating for the NJ state Legislature to use the lame-duck session to push through a bill to legalize gay marriage. What should be a civil debate on a legitimate news website quickly deteriorates into a free-for-all.

Posted by zumagong

November 05, 2009, 7:22AM

Nobody is telling anyone what to do. It's about allowing a union of two individuals who pay taxes and have families like anyone else. period. As far as redefining an "institution" -- it's already been redefined. Just ask Newt Gingrich and his four wives or Britney Spears. None of you so called Christians complained about that. And should we have "traditional" marriages that our founding fathers had? Women had no rights and had to cough up money to the husband. Interracial marriages were forbidden. We seem to only want to enforce the traditions we like and when its convenient. Put your money where your mouths are and demand that we ban divorce or make secondary marriages civil unions too!

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Posted by joeb222

November 05, 2009, 11:00AM

Before you go around accusing others of bigotry, you ought to take a long hard look in the mirror and examine your own bigotry. Where do you get off deciding what "so called" Christians think about Newt Gingrich's private life? And what in heck does THAT have to do with the issue. Nothing. It's just a vehicle for you to engage in Christian-bashing, as bigots such as you prefer to do rather than actually discuss an issue with any intelligence.

At least you showed you don't need to be taken seriously.

As you can see, it doesn't always end up being an intelligent discussion.

For my part, I welcome this newfound interactivity. It represents another barrier being broken down between journalists and the people they write for. What needs to happen now is that websites like NJ.com should start censoring comments more frequently, and those who roam these websites and participate should learn lessons of civility. There's nothing wrong with arguing, but name-calling and lack of respect for other point of views contribute nothing to civil discourse.