Nowadays, it isn’t so uncommon to find some previously unknown news paper being published through the internet. The fact that we actually believe and empower such kinds of press got me thinking. From where does an internet news paper get its authority to have a wide influence, and possibly as much influence as long existing printed newspapers such as Times? I mean, seriously, on the internet, anything can be written down by anyone and be posted. So how does internet newspaper get such an influence?
Well, one way some newspapers based on the internet get empowered is to directly link or cite more famous ones like the Times. It definitely sounds lame for a newspaper to write stories that were already published in other papers, but that seems like a valid way to justify that their news, although posted via an extemely volatile medium, are still legitimate.
Well, personally that is the only way to truly empower a newspaper based on the internet. The simple write-anything-you-want nature of the internet is powerful enough to take away all authority from an article, and to cite from a well renowned source is the easiest and the most efficient way for writers to empower their articles.
I am not certain if this phenomenon will continue to the future, but one thing I am quite certain is that printed forms of news will eventually die out. Because we live in a capitalist economy, the main focus of every company is to minimize the costs and publishing news via the internet is most certainly a lot cheaper than printing out millions of newspapers every day.
Here’s a link to a website that examines the pros and cons of this phenomenon. I’m sure you all will find it very useful.
http://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/fdt/article/viewArticle/4902/1758