Name: Xing Fan
SID: 510275493
Comparative online journalism analysis
Introduction
Today, the digital dissemination of news is ubiquitous (Malik & Shapiro, 2017), and people’s access to information is no longer limited to traditional media such as radio, newspapers, and television. In this post, I will compare the news content of the same story from public news service ABC News and youth digital news pedestrian.tv. I will analyze and compare them in terms of interactivity, multimedia, community, scannability, and online delivery.
News Story 1: ABC News:
New COVID-19 wave likely underway in NSW, weekly surveillance report shows
News link:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-09/new-covid-wave-nsw-march-2023/102073104
Publishing context:
According to the ABC News Annual Report 2021-2022 (About.abc.net.au 2022), ABC News, as a public news service, receives approximately 11.09 million visits each week. The mission of ABC News is to provide accurate, timely and comprehensive local, national and international news coverage. It ranks second among Australian news sites and has absolute public credibility in Australia. ABC News Online has a very broad target audience. The site is designed to cater to users of all ages and backgrounds, making it easy for users to browse and search. ABC News’ annual report (2022) states that the average weekly coverage for ABC News’ five city metros in 2021-22 is 998,000. The news content is updated regularly throughout the day to ensure that users can get the latest and most timely information.
Journalistic content:
The news article, titled “New wave of COVID-19 may be underway in New South Wales, weekly surveillance report shows,” reports a new wave of COVID-19 cases in New South Wales, Australia. The article details the situation, including the number of new cases and the potential impact on the community. The article also cites an interview with Alexandra Martiniuk, a public health expert at the University of Sydney, to support the veracity of the story
(Screenshot of the news, Source: ABC News)
Interactivity&Multimedia:
This article incorporates multimedia elements, including photos and interactive graphics. One of the most basic examples of interactivity as the core of online journalism is the link, which allows users to interact by clicking on relevant information.(Bradshaw & Rohumaa, 2017) This story contains a chart, this image showing the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths in New South Wales over time. Allowing the reader to hover over individual data points to see specific information about that date creates an interaction with the reader.
(I hold the mouse over a position and the corresponding information is displayed,Source: ABC News, NSW health)
While these elements help engage the reader and provide additional context, there are a few areas that could be improved. The photos used in the article lack impact, which means that some parts of the article lack visual support. News reports have repeatedly mentioned emergency rooms, such as the increase in the number of emergency room patients. Adding relevant images, including emergency room waiting areas, and placing them more purposefully will enhance the visual appeal of your article.
(Screenshot of the news content, Source: ABC News)
Scannability&Community:
The article begins with a concise and clear title that immediately grabs the reader’s attention and outlines the main content of the article. The overall structure is also very consistent with the traditional inverted triangle structure of journalism. However, it lacks community. Community and conversation have always been the lifeblood of journalism. (Bradshaw & Rohumaa, 2017) In the case of this news story, the community included the people of New South Wales, as well as the wider community of individuals interested in the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on Australia. Articles can include some citations from individuals or groups affected by the pandemic, such as individuals who have lost loved ones to COVID-19. This creates a connection with the reader. For some publishers, community management is about building relationships with readers, which helps to strengthen engagement and loyalty to media brands (Bradshaw & Rohumaa, 2017).
Online delivery&Technical
The online delivery of this news was influential in several ways. The site is easy to navigate and the page structure has clear headings and key points sections. Having social media share buttons at the beginning and end of the article is a valuable feature as they allow readers to share the article on their social media channels which can effectively increase the spread of the article.
(Screenshot of the news website, Source: ABC News)
News Story 2: Pedestrian.tv:
New Data Suggests NSW Could Be Copping Its Fifth Wave Of That Bloody Bastard Known As ‘COVID-19’
News Link: https://www.pedestrian.tv/health/covid-19-possible-fifth-wave-nsw/
Publishing context:
Pedestrian. tv is a youth digital news website, located Sydney, Australia, founded in 2005. Topics include news, entertainment, fashion, lifestyle and health. According to SimilarWeb (2023), Pedestrian. tv receives an average of 1.235M visits per month, with traffic from Australia accounting for 52.33% of the traffic this quarter. Users aged 18-24 and 25-34 accounted for 26.63% and 34.42% respectively.(SmilarWeb,2023) Pedestrian TV’s target audience is diverse, but the publication’s content is primarily tailored to appeal to a younger audience. The magazine also offers a range of multimedia content, including videos, podcast, and interactive features. The publication’s focus on multimedia content and social media engagement has helped it connect with its audience, and it has 112,000 followers on Instagram.
(Screenshot of the news website, Source: Pedestrian.tv)
Journalistic content:
This article discusses the possibility of a fifth wave of COVID-19 cases in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. The article opened with humorous writing about the concerns of NSW health authorities, also citing Alexandra Alexandra Martiniuk, a public health expert at the University of Sydney, and noting that it was from an ABC News interview. This article highlights ongoing concerns about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the end of the article, the author again ends with humor, emphasizing the importance of continued public health measures and calling for everyone to wear masks and wash their hands frequently.
(Screen shot of the news content of begin and end, Source: Pedestrian.tv)
Interactivity&Multimedia:
With regard to interactivity, the article proposes a limited number of interactive features. Although the article provides hyperlinks to more information, these links are embedded in the text without prominence, which may make it difficult for readers to find them. However, it’s worth noting that this news post received the highest number of comments on pedestrian.tv’s official Instagram account compared to a post from the same day. Headlines also often focus on media: if your article has video, audio, images, a live blog, map or info-graphic, then that might be important to highlight in your headline. (Bradshaw & Rohumaa, 2017) Below the title is a featured image that resembles the memo, but doesn’t work as well, as the image is a virus with an anthropomorphic text “Me Again.” The font is too small, too small to attract the reader’s attention in the first place to achieve effect. As a digital journalism for youth. Pedestrain.tv should do a better job of using pictures and videos in the text, but in this report, the number of pictures and videos in the medium is clearly insufficient.
(Screen shot of image under the headline, Source: Pedestrian.tv)
Scannability&Community:
The article uses several formatting elements to improve readability, including subheadings, bullet points, and short paragraphs. Additionally, the article uses bold and blue fonts to draw attention and emphasize key points. This makes it easy for readers to quickly find key information. However, the article lacks subtitles, adding subtitles can improve the readability of readers, and the grammar is not rigorous, such as the use of puns in this passage, (see image below) but perhaps this is the unique humor of pedestrain.tv writing style.
(Screenshot of the news content, Source: Pedestrian.tv)
Pedestrian.tv does not appear to have a strong community element to its news articles. It does not actively encourage reader participation or feedback. The article does not include any call to action inviting readers to share their opinions or experiences, or perhaps they have focused on building community on social media, such as Instagram.
Online delivery&Technical
Online delivery makes it easy for readers to share information with others through social media and other online channels, but the article only gives links to Facebook at the beginning and at the end. While this helps increase the reach and impact of the article, it is clearly not enough for the impact it could have. pedestrian.tv has a good community environment with Instagram and Twitter, and I think it might be better to add sharing buttons for these two social media platforms.
(Screen shot of the news content, sharing button of Facebook, Source: Pedestrian.tv)
Conclusion
In conclusion, both the ABC News and Pedestrian.tv articles provide the latest news on NSW covid. Although both articles cover similar content, there are differences in the way the information is presented based on the different user groups on the two platforms. pedestrian.tv’s articles are more humorous and more appealing to the youth demographic. The news content on ABC news is more effective and is written in a more rigorous manner. This is very much in keeping with the nature of their service.
Word count: 1503
Reference List
Hanrahan, C. (2023, March 9). New Covid wave ‘likely’ underway in NSW, Latest Report shows. ABC News. Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-09/new-covid-wave-nsw-march-2023/102073104
Corbett, I. (2023, March 9). New data suggests NSW could be copping its fifth wave of that Bloody Bastard known as ‘covid-19’. PEDESTRIAN.TV. Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https://www.pedestrian.tv/health/covid-19-possible-fifth-wave-nsw/
Malik, A., & Shapiro, I. (2017). 1. What’s Digital? What’s Journalism? In The routledge companion to digital journalism studies (1st ed., pp. 15–24). essay, Eldridge, Scott A. ; Franklin, Bob.
About.abc.net.au. (2022, October 20). Retrieved March 22, 2023, from https://about.abc.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/2021-22-ABC-Annual-Report.pdf
Bradshaw, P. A. U. L., & Rohumaa, L. (2017). 4. writing for web. In Online journalism handbook: Skills to survive and thrive in the Digital age (2nd ed., pp. 72–98). essay, Taylor & Francis Group.
Bradshaw, P. A. U. L., & Rohumaa, L. (2017). 4. writing for web. In Online journalism handbook: Skills to survive and thrive in the Digital age (2nd ed., pp. 323-344). essay, Taylor & Francis Group.
Similarweb identity. SimilarWeb Identity. (n.d.). Retrieved March 26, 2023, from https://pro.similarweb.com/#/digitalsuite/websiteanalysis/overview/website-performance/*/999/3m?webSource=Total&key=pedestrian.tv
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