1. ‘Speaking of meta'
Questioning the internet as homogeneous
and global news medium
M. Opgenhaffen
Lessius University College
Symposium Myth of Global Internet - Free University of Brussels, 2007

2. Convergence
Convergence in modern journalism:
 "has erased the boundaries between print, television, radio
and online technologies“ (Boczkowski & Ferris, 2005)
 "Unification of functions" (Yoffie, 1999)
 "a growing similarity in news presentation through various
media" (Seib, 2001)
 "the internet will be all“ (Owen, 1999)

3. General belief
• On the internet
– Everything is ‘the internet’
– Everything is accessible
The internet is considered and studied as one,
big, homogeneous and global news medium
? ? ? Myth or reality ? ? ?

4. 1. Everything is the internet?
• No distinct media online?
– Digital news papers, blogs, e-mail, discussion
fora, web tv, web radio, podcasts, rss-feeds, …
– Each medium has its own ‘media logic’, own
‘medium specificity’
• Better:
– ‘medium of media’ (Levinson, 1999)
– ‘Multimedium’ (Jankowski & Hanssen, 1996)
– ‘metamedium’ (Adams & Clarck, 2001)

5. Content analysis
• Online coverage of elections in 2006 + 2007
(Belgium)
• measuring distinct sub-media and characteristics
Internet as meta-medium
Convergent medium Convergent medium Convergent medium
(e.g. digital news paper) (e.g. portal site) (e.g. news site)
Sub-medium Sub-medium Sub-medium Sub-medium Sub-medium Sub-medium
(e.g. news blog, paper in pdf, discussion forum, web tv, web radio, rss-feed, mail-alert)

6. 2. Everything is accessible?
• Global infrastructure
• Everybody is a journalist (cfr. citizen journalism)
(Non-)official news from all around the world is
accessible through the internet
- Do news consumers access this information?
- Do they know how to access and process?

7. Access or use?
• 4 types of access (Van Dijk, 1999; 2003)
Usage access
(e.g. news vs. entertainment)
Skills access (e.g. lack of information
retrieval skills)
Material access (e.g. lack of internet)
Mental access (e.g. lack of motivation)

8. Digital divide in use
• Shift from
– digital divide in access
– digital divide in use of online (news) media
• Access to global news ≠ use of global news

9. Online survey
• 789 college students (18-24) (64% response rate)
• June – September 2007
• 100% access to internet
• 0% never / 0.3% < 1 year / 81.6% > 5 jaar
• Based on content analysis: use of online news
media (+ online applications)

10. Use of (foreign) news media
≥1 Never / Mean Std.dev.
time/day unknown (0-5)
Digital newspaper 18% 22.5% 1.96 1.54
[foreign newspaper] [12,93%]
TV/Radio-site 11.5% 21.6% 1.75 1.37
[foreign tv/radio-site] [2.91%]
News blog 1.3% 84.6% 0.35 0.86
[foreign news blog] [2.53%]
Rss-feeds 3.7% 96% 0.25 0.93
[foreign rss-feeds] [2.28%]
News forum 0.9% 87.6% 0.23 0.71
[foreign fora] [1.14%]
Usenet 0.3% 95,3% 0.17 0.41
[foreign usenet] [0.25%]
News mail 3.6% 54,3% 1.01 1.26
[foreign news mails] [5.44%]

11. Conclusions
• Internet ≠ homogeneous medium
 meta-medium with (convergent and distinct)
sub-media
• Access to global news ≠ use of global news
 Variance in online media use
 Very low usage of foreign news media