Internet Has Increasing Role In Media

A US study into the use of the internet has found that journalists and PR professionals are relying increasingly on the net in order to communicate with one another. The study, conducted by the Institute for Public Relations and the Worldcom Public Relations Group, found that journalists feel the quality of their work has improved and that reporting is easier as a result of the internet and email. Email was found to have become the preferred method of communication between PR people and journalists.

However, while PR professionals have welcomed the easier access to journalists that email provides, just over half of the PR respondents thought that the need to disseminate information with rapid speed via the internet “has compromised the truth, credibility and believability of news journalism”.

If this compromise is occurring, however, it is doing nothing to detract from the popularity of internet news. The study found that internationally, the popularity of online news sources is growing, while the use of conventional news media such as TV and newspapers is declining. Newspaper websites were found to have the same credibility as the printed media, and more credibility than TV news. Younger people were found to like the organisation of information, while older users liked the depth of news available online.

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