1What is online journalism? - Ayo Menulis FISIP UAJY

What is online journalism? 3
raised user expectations far beyond a level attainable by anyone at
the present time’. 3 Influential commentators, such as Jakob
Nielsen, deride Wap for its ‘miserable usability’. 4 We live in
confusing times.
Hard-headed businessmen are not immune to the excitement.
At the height of the mobile Internet frenzy, the UK telecommunications
group BT paid the British government £4 billion
pounds for a licence to use ‘third generation’ mobile phones at
some future date. At least they cannot be accused of not putting
their money where their mouth is.
New economic models have been floated. In his excellent
collection of ‘Web studies’, David Gauntlett (2000) expands on
Michael Goldhaber’s concept of the ‘attention economy’. With so
much to see on the Web, and so little time to look, attention has
become the new gold standard.
You can’t buy attention . . . you can’t make (people) interested
in what you have to say, unless they actually find the content
of what you have to say engaging. So money is less powerful
than usual on the Web. But if you can gather a lot of attention,
you can then, potentially, translate that into money.
Note the word ‘potentially’. As Gauntlett acknowledges, some of
the ‘money’ made in the attention economy is based on stock
market valuation. And we have seen what can happen to that.
However, he cites others such as Netscape and Vincent Flanders,
who have benefited in more tangible ways.
Of course, the problem is that for every Netscape there have
been a thousand net losses. Much of this has been the fault of the
digital evangelists, some of whom have elevated hyperbole
beyond an art form.
As Greg Knauss explains:
Twice a year or so, like clockwork, a new technology or
paradigm sweeps over the face of the Internet, promising to
3 It-director.com quoted in Dot Journalism. (www.journalism.co.uk/ezine_plus/
dotjark/story 141.shtml).
4 www.useit.com