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Diversity of Journalisms. Proceedings of ECREA/CICOM Conference, Pamplona, 4-5 July 2011
account created under the wing of his professional image? Can media and journalists
profiles co-exist in the same Social Network?
The previous implicates new professional and ethical challenges that are important to
study.
The paradoxical diversity of online news: the case of Quebec’s infomediairies
Goyette-Côté, Marc-Olivier
Université du Québec à Montréal, Faculté de Communication, Marc-Olivier Goyette-
Côté, Canada
With the alleged democratization of digital tools and lower distribution costs for
digitalized contents, observers saw the Internet as a medium able to break the longstanding
stronghold of news corporations’ role as gatekeepers . The Web was
believed to foster a broader span of news outlets. However, where the Internet
succeeded in bringing more companies and individuals into the journalism realm, it
did so mostly in the distribution and reproduction end of the spectrum. Indeed, it
appears that whilst there is a vast array of non-professional journalism practices
online, we are witnessing a paradoxical movement of news content concentration.
In this presentation, we will address the growing importance of the “infomediairies” in
the reconfiguration of the news sector online, with a focus on the case of Quebec.
The “infomediaries” are composed mainly of aggregators and portals, including
Internet pure players (Yahoo! or Google) and telecommunication and information
conglomerates (Sympatico and Canoë). This category of actors use their knowledge
of the network’s architecture and mechanisms to aggregate contents produced by
third journalistic parties in their web pages, and offer it to a public constituted of
regular users of their services (emails, search engines, software debugging, etc.). The
advantages for the “infomediairies” lies in the fact that 1) they already have a
technological knowledge of content circulation and syndication on the Internet, 2) they
have web platforms that generate vast amounts of user traffic and 3) they possess
the know-how of making profits with their visitors through advertising.
Hence, this presentation, based on a research funded by the FQRSC, explores how
news circulates on the web and how the new technological tools linked with the socalled
“web 2.0” have contributed to a paradox - the way we access news have been
broadened, but the amount of sources the public consumes is limited.
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