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Pedro Pereira Neto, OberCom

SHiFT, 29.09.06
Lisboa
 State-of-the-art
‡ Approaches persist which, from a social discontinuity standpoint, set a
causal relation between social change and technology
± Attempts to render m
 what are 

m phenomena
± Focus on the 
, instead of the m and the m 
 
 
 in which
such interaction takes place
± Devices placed m


  
  
, when they should be taken for   

 m
in constant adaptation processes
‡ Much of the debate regarding
  
   mistakes it for  

 ; but no social or cultural change takes place as quickly as
technological change does

one should not underrate 

m

aspects behind social phenomena:


m

- rather than 


m

- is the staple feature of the past
decades (LYON; WEBSTER)
 Main perspective
‡ Evolutionary nature of the relation
between journalistic values and practices,
and the Internet:

± Refusing positivist neo-hypodermism

± Refusing discontinuity and a-historical logics
 Method
‡ Why print journalism? Because it is one of
the preferential fields of observation of
technological innovation effects
‡ Four main (in circulation figures and online
single visits) nation-wide print dailies
‡ First page content and inner/linked news
piece development, in both print and
online editions
Print media business strategies
‡
 

is the main variable behind strategic
options, not
  
 




‡ Traits of dynamism in the Portuguese media
business sector: reprivatisation of key media
titles, and media concentration in major
economic groups
‡ the emergence of ICTs actually reinforced the position of the
players already established: the six major media groups
stood for 86% of all circulation, and about 80% of the
advertising revenue
± about 3.5 times less space for advertising in their online
editions, while self-promotion practices get about 10 times
more space
 Internet-specific potential use
‡ Imediacy
‡ only two out of four newspapers -

 e
 
   - updated their online editions
‡ Multimediality
± must deal with technical infrastructures such
as access speed and bandwidth
‡ given the predominance of dial-up household
Internet access, no video footage is found in
newspaper websites, and there are less photos -
and of smaller size - in online editions
 Internet-specific potential use
‡ Hypertextuality
‡ links only at the bottom or on the sides of news pieces,
rendering the print layout of text virtually intact
‡ circular reference to the same title or, at best, to content in
sites belonging to the same economic group
‡ Interactivity
‡ front-page content personalization in only one newspaper -
the same which provided the only PDF version - and e-mail
newsletters available in two of them
‡ commenting stories possible only in the same two
‡ forum-like mechanisms not found
‡ no personal e-mail addresses
 EPILOGUE
‡ For now, it is best to consider the Internet as another chapter ± not
"the" chapter - in the History of the interaction between technologies
and media, in the context of
± political frames
± technical infrastructures
± market wants and needs
‡ Assessing the importance of ICTs does not imply underrating the
complex web of backgrounds in which the  m

 process of
intertwining devices and people takes place
‡ One must, then, take into consideration
± a) the effects produced in media routines by the economic context of
increasing costs and competitiveness
± b) the technical context of infrastructural preconditions and resources
± c) the cultural context of skills and representations.

Thank you for your time.