Journalism and the Rise of the Internet

WWW or the World Wide Web. The place to be if you want to complete that research paper due in six hours or wait until 11 am pst for a makeup collection to drop. The internet has evolved since it first opened its browsers. You have yahoo, bing, Firefox, internet explorer, google, and safari. All of these browsing servers do one thing, connect the world together. They house websites for shopping, weather, and especially news, both domestic and international. But with this change comes a shift with a question. Has the internet replaced journalism and media as a whole? The answer, no, but it has changed the way we view journalism and the media. The internet has provided us with more than one way to hear about news and politics. They have given us multitudes of websites and video outlets as well as social media outlets to share information. Everyone has access to news right in their face. You no longer have to wait until sunday mornings to go outside and pick up a newspaper, you can pull up the CBS app on your phone to catch up on what you missed during the week. Giussani has a futuristic perspective on the internet and journalism. He then broke down the concept into three parts: diversity, community, and movement. But let's break it down in 21st century understanding. The first term is diversity. Diversity is the mixture of everyone and everything. In terms of journalism, according to Giussani, it relates to space and is a set of skills that helps to condense a story (Giussani 1997). He relates this to all the components it takes to make and approve of a story (Giussani 1997). But in the 21st century, journalism is diverse and actually attempts to appeal to the masses. Journalism’s diversity tries to cover all that it can in terms of balance. People are able to decide if they are satisfied with what they read and can come up with different opinions of their own making it easier to lead into the next term, community. These new age journalism and media have created communities based on common values and interests expressed in the news. People no longer have to set up a newspaper reading club on Saturdays starting at 3 pm. They can create chat rooms, group chats, and/or zoom calls to discuss topics and share views and opinions. In terms of journalism, according to Giussani, community is the interactivity connecting people (Giussani 1997). This has been brought to life because of the internet. You can go online into these groups and make connections based on the issues discussed. The internet essentially bridges the gap between people and the news. The last term is movement. In terms of journalism, according to Giussani, movement is a flux with a progressively organized process or structure (Giussani 1997). In terms of the 21st century, community gives way to movement because these communities come together and become focused on issues they deem important to themselves. These then turn into activist groups, who hold movement marches to get the attention of political officials and the media. Journalists go out and interview individuals: supporters, volunteers, owners and staff. This produces news coverage that generates support and sometimes funds. The internet has not taken anything away from journalism and media but enhanced them. Giussani said it would not replace but provide a new way to communicate and indeed it has.