There are thousands of newspapers in digital format on the Internet. Each day is carefully updated and offer their readers / surfers information and training/formation  according to the type to which they belong. A Digital Daily  could be the web version of the parallel paper or could be created only for the web and can be found only online with the ability to print a screen or a single news of interest. Being able to "surf on web" has made space for even to small newspapers so that they can compete with large heads (the so-called broadcast journalism) to be known and appreciate by a large number of readers / surfers. Let us remember also for our use.

To intrigue the reader

 The online journals are very similar to the printed newspaper because both types have levels. We will explain: for a single item, starting from the top, we can find a loop that anticipates the argument, the title itself in varied size and extended on one or more columns; a little summary that has, in the larger form of wider than does the loop, the basic contents of the article; there may be a bolt between the little summary and the real article, which serves to draw attention to particular content of the article.

 Why both in the paper and in digital journal, the titles are so layered? First, to allow those who have little time to realize the important news and those less and get a quick idea of ​​the contents; and then to upload the information of allusions  directing in some way the interpretation of news; finally, to intrigue the reader, when you think certain some news that in the article is then denied. A clear example is the headline on an interview with Monsignor Fiorenzo Facchini, a renowned paleoanthropologist, a follower of evolutionary theory and in perfect harmony with the mind of the Church, by Il Sole 24 ore on  June 1^st, 2008: "The priest Darwinist" . Well, the title shakes, makes us curious, does react, while the content is of the purest orthodoxy.

 The large, striking difference between a newspaper and a digital paper is all about in the interactivity, or on the possibility of having available, after a simple click of a mouse, hundreds of photographs, video and audio accompanying the individual reports, which range on the places where the events occurred and which are comments and interviews. That it’s not all. The other big difference is on the direct involvement of the reader who may participate in discussions, to join in a Forum, to enrich a particular section of the newspaper with photographs and videos that he has taken and shot and create a link to your blog or transmit immediately an interesting news to his social network of friends.

Another difference there would also be on  the text: writing for the web is substantially different from writing for the paper. The texts for the web are short, the period makes extensive use of punctuation, has few adjectives and adverbs and presents, often in the form of lists to allow the player / navigator to choose what to read. This last point is to grasp the essence of an article when you have little time to read it. In this regard, schools of journalism in their students accustomed to writing the same story for the paper is for the web because they are two communication media with different characteristics and different ways of consuming. What is unique and characteristic of online journalism is the ability to go "far" and "elsewhere" for the presence of numerous links usually found on the head. And link to link, you can not find where you wanted to get, not only that, but you may realize with sadness that he burned precious time that could have been spent in pastoral or constructive training.

Criteria for the selection of titles

 The online publications are truly many. To see how many are simply visit the link

http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/italy.htm. There are all Italian newspapers regularly registered on the web. Nobody  miss any call.

 Instead the link http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/ are the heads of the world, in many languages, divided by continent, each subdivided by areas that lead to the individual nations. One mentioned is a well organized and very helpful site to make comparisons between individual heads and news http://www.newspapers.com/search.php?country=Italy is another good link that leads directly to the Italian digital publications.

 It is appropriate when one wants to read a news story without comment or partisan colors, go to the press agencies. The Italian site at http://www.ansa.it answers, but does not shine for objectivity. Even the Italian site of Reuters news (http://it.reuters.com/) is free from color trends. Major international agencies are cited Reuters (http://www.reuters.com/), the Associated Press (http://www.ap.org/) and France Presse (http://www.afp.com/ / afpcom / fr), to mention the most, while the site offers http://www.mediatime.net/agencies.html active links that lead to several news agencies and photographs.

What criteria adopted in the selection of titles? What guidelines could lead the community and personal reading? A guiding principle would be to choose an online print quality for the person who says and acts according to the statement, compared with at least an alternative voice to understand and weigh as much as the news is viewed from different perspectives than embraced.

  A second guiding principle asks us to choose a head that questions on the major world events, the third head that goes beyond the news and is capable of confrontation, dialogue, dialectic respectful. A community that discusses these issues do not forget that the Internet structure, even in us, a new way of thinking for the presence of vast numbers of information that are not in a linear format, but a network that are interactive, floating, wrap-around . The way "self" we have to make use of the network may lead us to reinforce the sense of responsibility honed in training or de-formed shape losing "good" that the gospel should shine through our thoughts, opinions and experience.

Read and interpret the newspaper online

 We understand if what we read are really news? To be valid, must meet certain prerequisites: the interest provoked in the reader, the uniqueness of the fact, that can arouse the emotion, and its usefulness, its consequences, the objective importance of the fact, the reputation of the protagonist. The online media, such as paper, "choose" news and "tell". Selecting and narrative are necessarily consistent with the ideological vision of the newspaper. That's why the community or individual that inquires daily devoted to a single source is likely to see reality only in terms of the popular magazine. It is appropriate to deal with multiple warheads and on the Internet - alas - is visible to all the superficiality of some titles, the vacuum and prejudices that convey the invitation to syncretism proposed.

 To judge with expert critical we should proceed according to a grid which considers as a first time, the analysis of the "newsworthiness", in other words, to ask: why is this news reported? On what aspects of the event focuses the story? It should also be taken into account the syntax and vocabulary as well as the technique with which the news has been developed that answers the questions: how the story developed? Because it affects the beginning of the article (commonly called "attack") on its subsequent development? How many and which views emerge in reporting the news? To what end is referred to the news? The third moment makes us ask what justifies the placement of the news article in the newspaper or online, while the fourth level is about gender. The "piece" may in fact be a response, investigation, interview or reportage.

     More important is the content analysis, done with the intent to break the communication message to bring out hidden or symbolic meanings that are conveyed. There are three steps in a process of content analysis: the acquisition of material, or "reading" of all available information, organization, processing and synthesis of information, restitution, ie, communication of results in a new form. Only in the effort to revise the content, or refund, what emerges is not immediately obvious. This operation is called, in English, content analysis and its objective is the discovery of the context of the article or its author's mental funds. How many discoveries would! Let us work!

Get out from the crowd

    The media in general and Internet in particular, live with our choices in life that, in an era characterized by the efficiency, yield, egocentrism also need to be witnessed anywhere. How? By structuring the official website of our religious family with a section that shines journalistic quality, content and evangelical perspective. It takes determination, desire Reporting and professional competence. The first two characteristics are directly declined in the charisma of membership, while the third can we properly with the correct readings of the texts, with practice and with the curiosity to visit beautiful sites to learn and then enriched with multimedia materials and links. Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini's Il lembo del mantello (The flap of the coat)  reminds us that "by means of standardization of the messages can be a real communication:  humanizing and even salvating. It is necessary to facilitate the process of "leaving the crowd," because people, by the state of anonymous users of messages and images standardized, enter into a personal relationship as receptors dialoguers vigilant and active. " Mediators, for this to happen, we could be us. Why not?

Caterina Cangià FMA
Università LUMSA
Via Mauro Morrone, 25-00139 Roma


 

Read more

C. BALDI-R. ZARRIELLO, Penne digitali 2.0. Fare informazione online nell’era del blog e del giornalismo diffuso, Centro Documentazione Giornalistica, Roma 2008. L. LORENZETTI, Fare un giornale online, Audino, Roma 2005.             M. PRATELLESI, New Journalism. Teorie e tecniche del giornalismo multimediale, Bruno Mondadori, Milano 2008.