1What is online journalism? - Ayo Menulis FISIP UAJY

8 Journalism Online
Digital
The terms ‘digital’, ‘online’, ‘Internet’ and ‘World Wide Web’ are
sometimes used as if they were interchangeable. There is some
overlap, but their meanings are not identical. Let’s nail down some
definitions.
The digital process breaks down all information – be it data, text,
graphics, audio, still pictures or video – into a sequence of
numbers (digits), transports it by wire, cable or broadcast
frequency to a destination and then re-assembles it back into its
original form.
Digitally stored and transmitted information can be quantified
as ‘bits’. Until it is printed off, it does not have a physical form.
Once it is printed, it enters the real world of you and me, Nike
trainers and the Millennium Dome – the world of ‘atoms’.
It is not this digital concept per se which has instigated the
digital revolution. Rather, it is the recent quantum leap in our
ability to apply it powerfully. A technological surge has allowed
increasingly large amounts and complexities of digital information
to be transported anywhere at the speed of light and then be reassembled
– again at a rate that defies comprehension.
The technology has also reduced the hardware needed, such as
microprocessors, to a size that allows ubiquitous access to digitized
information – in your home, in your car, in your pocket.
Such technology is permeating the fabric of our daily lives. As
a result, we have become blasé about the incredible. We become
impatient if our PC takes ten seconds to download a picture from
the other side of the world. We have come to expect the
stupendous.
Of course, in the midst of such digital advance, the world of
atoms continues to exist. Even if you could download a pair of
jeans from a fibre optic cable, you would still want to wear them.
Virtual trousers could have their drawbacks.
Yet the world of atoms is also being transformed, literally bit by
bit. The jeans still exist as a physical entity, but the business of
making and selling them is also dependent on the communication
of information, and that is changing permanently. As you can now