This dissertation assesses news workers' perception of obstacles to routinization and sophisticated conceptualization of news at three prominent news sites on the World Wide Web: USA Today Online, ABCNEWS.com and National Public Radio Online. During the time of research, Internet news workers faced a variety of challenges, many technologic in nature, that impeded their ability to maximize the medium. This study, grounded in pragmatism, logic and functionalism, is intended to be a helpful guide to understanding, conducting and managing online news as the industry rushes toward multimedia convergence.
Devised to analyze perceptions of technology's impact on online performance, the qualitative study revealed multiple interdependencies and secondary factors that impede efforts to optimize presentation of content online. Using an interpretive approach and comparative case study design, I employed a functional analysis framework to assess the extent that technology and other factors influenced online news and its practitioners as they applied, adopted or discarded various journalistic techniques on an evolving interactive multimedium that disperses auditive, visual, numerical and textual messages. The research centered on 20 interviews, field observations and an online survey.
After analysis and interpretation of the data, I suggest further investigation into a systems theory unique to the performance of multimedia journalism. This developmental theory blends multimedia logic, production pressures and technological determinism. It blends theories of chaos, organizational dissonance, core competencies, digital literacy, technological Darwinism, postmodernism, frontierism and diffusion, of both technology and ability. I call this the node of thinking. This dissertation attempts to assess impediments to performance as perceived by online news workers and to ascertain characteristics of technologic journalists, who must possess a node of thinking in order to maximize the medium.
Presenting information well involves software, hardware and mindware. In an online context, the manner in which technologic journalists perform their jobs requires that they possess a node of thinking. This trait encompasses terminal competence, multimedia logic and proclivity toward chaos. This investigation, in theory and praxis, explicates obstacles that today's technologic journalists face in reaching operational excellence.