Browsing by Author "Wright, Bianca Maria Teresa"

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    The looking glass : a comparative study of the way in which technology and health print publications use the Internet
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2004-04) Wright, Bianca Maria Teresa; Claassen, G. N.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Department of Journalism
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT : The use of the Internet as a publishing tool is often seen as a threat by those in the traditional media. Claims that online publishing will one day supplant magazines, newspapers and books fuel this negative perception of the medium, yet the Internet holds a host of possibilities for those in these traditional media. Magazine publishers in particular can leverage the Internet as an audience research tool and bridge the gap between long lead-time, thereby cementing the relationship with readers. By examining what magazines in South Africa and the United States are already doing with the Internet and by surveying the views of South African and US media and the general South African public, this study hopes to propose a set of flexible guidelines for the successful utilisation of the Internet as a supplement to and complement of the traditional print magazine. This study has found the importance that media and users place on the creation of an online community as part of Internet use by media as particularly interesting in light of the fact that very few of the sites surveyed in this study offer chat rooms to their users. This implies a broadening of the term "community" to encompass a range of possibilities, including but not limited to online forums and bulletin boards, email links and newsletters and access to original content. The study has found that value-added services, which can be free or pay-toview, are the crux of the success of online magazine web sites. Users will pay - though not large amounts - if publishers give them what they want. The recommendations made in this study include the drafting of a clear vision for online operations to ensure that the online brand complements the existing print brand, the creation of value-added subscription services and online communities, the use of the Internet as a mini-focus group to glean information from users and cement a two-way relationship and the leveraging of existing content in dynamic ways, particularly in offering archives online. In this way, the study proposes that the Internet can indeed be a supplement to and complement of existing print media.