Abstract: In this paper I describe a genre analysis for on-line newspapers, revealing how their mediating form affect news related activities. A repertoire of elements was developed during the analysis of three on-line newspapers, to describe them. It is a repertoire of content, information structure and interaction elements together with with a repertoire of mediationg roles. The analysis in terms of the repertoire of elements revealed that the papers support activities unsupported by the printed papers, constituting a genre development. The analysis suggest that the genre is still a variant of the newspaper. It revealed a cosiderable space for development of the genre, supporting novel news related activities. However, it also revealed some problems which must be overcome by the mediators, if the papers are developed along the suggested lines. Furthermore it revealed some problems when using these popular formats for other purposes at other sites, and some problems with their current treatment of the digital material.
Lundberg, J (2001). On-Line Newspapers and Genre Development on the World-Wide-Web. In Proceedings of the 24th Information Systems Research Seminar in Scandinavia, Ulvik, Norway, 505-518. [pdf]