Evolution of the Web news genre-the slow move beyond the print metaphor

Abstract

Based on repetitive visits to three Scandinavian newspaper organizations, the paper presents trajectories of evolution for three Scandinavian news sites from 1996 to 1999. Genre awareness is an explanation of how users and designers create and maintain Web site awareness beyond the individual site. Genre is elaborated in terms of content, form and rationale. From the data it is concluded that Web news by 1999 possesses characteristics that makes it distinctive from print media and Web news sites from 1996. The immediacy of the Web affords the provision of news in a continuous pattern, similar to "live" reporting. Primary content of Web news is hard news that affords users to visit news sites throughout the day in order to stay informed. In comparison to print media, the Web genre has introduced composites to support the users in overview, navigation and browsing of the content of a news site.