MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH NATIONAL ACADEMY OF POLITICS ACADEMY OF JOURNALISM AND COMMUNICATION NGO BICH NGOC TRENDS IN USING MULTIMEDIA NEWS PACKAGE ON ONLINE NEW
Trang 1MINISTRY OF EDUCATION
AND TRAINING
HO CHI MINH NATIONAL ACADEMY
OF POLITICS
ACADEMY OF JOURNALISM AND COMMUNICATION
NGO BICH NGOC
TRENDS IN USING MULTIMEDIA NEWS PACKAGE
ON ONLINE NEWSPAPER (Research VnExpress, New York Times, The Guardian
from 2014 to 2016)
Major: Journalism Major code: 9 32 01 01
SUMMARY OF THE DOCTORAL DISSERTATION IN JOURNALISM
HANOI - 2020
Trang 2The dissertation was completed at
Academy of Journalism and Communication, Vietnam
Supervisors: 1 Assoc Prof Dr Nguyen Thi Truong Giang
2 Assoc Prof Dr Dinh Thi Thuy Hang
REVIEWER 1: ASSOC.PROF.DR HA HUY PHUONG
REVIEWER 2: ASSOC.PROF.DR DO CHI NGHIA
REVIEWER 3: ASSOC.PROF.DR DANG THI THU HUONG
The dissertation is defended at the National Council of Doctoral Assessment
Academy of Journalism and Communication
Trang 3INTRODUCTION
1 Rationale
On December 20, 2012, readers of the online newspaper New York Times (NYT) first experienced a new type of article called Snow Fall with a completely new performance In Snow Fall, NYT used achievements in both technology and visual design at the same time: loop-based background and auto-run video, full-screen video and embedded images with curtain effect transitions The whole multimedia news package is shown on the consistent background color and this color will gradually change to match the color of photo/video alongside the story The colors change when reader scrolls the mouse or uses the scrollbar to flip through the story This work alters previous notions of how to present an article on web in general and an online press work in particular The striking difference of Snow Fall is the visualization and the interactive content embedded throughout the length of the article Although the multimedia elements such as video, photo, interactive graphics are no longer new and have been used for many years, very few articles have a harmonious and seamless combination as Snow Fall Since then, multimedia news packages (not sophisticated as Snow Fall) have become more and more popular in newsrooms all over the world with weekly frequency Highlights of this period include "The Short Happy Life of Serengeti Lions” by David Quammen and Michael Nichols, National Geographic 2013, "The Confession of Reykjavik” by Simon Cox and team BBC.com 204, “Out in the Great Alone” by Brian Phillips posted, ESPN.com 2013 In the later stages, many multimedia news packages of the world's leading online newspapers such as NYT, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Le Monde, The Guardian, news agencies such as AP, Reuters, National Geographic continue to be produced and recognized by the prestigious press awards, including Pulitzer Prize and National Press Photography Association (nppa.org) It’s said that multimedia news package is specialty of modern journalism and an emerging style of journalism product with content and format different from traditional press works The 2016 annual report of WAN-IFRA affirmed: “Today's readers are no longer impressed
by devices They expect how the content of the press is "packaged up" and how it will be released "[70, 18].The production of news package on online newspapers is
a necessary job That is the trend of the world press, and Vietnam is not out of that trend The application of digital technology achievements on the Internet platform and high-tech equipment to produce journalism is a reality and also a requirement for the media to practise its political - social duties In order to convey large-scale issues or events, a few singular articles will not be powerful enough to properly
Trang 4and adequately display content in a sharp and attractive way It’s only multimedia news package that has capability to convey stories of sophisticated topic, big events or complicated processes
Even so, multimedia news package is still a new term in our country The general awareness of journalists, journalism trainers and press practitioners about news package is limited This term is used in many researches on online newspaper by researchers and journalists at international research institutes and centers Therefore, although still quite unfamiliar in Vietnam, the author of the thesis still decides to use the term "multimedia news package" to have scientific unity with the existing research and journalistic practice in the world The challenges for researchers is to clarify: what is the nature of this trend; strengths and weaknesses as well as the relevance of this trend with each journalism type; how to use this form of journalism to reflect different topics, should it be identified that this trend will take place in the short, medium or long term? And how is the specific response of press organizations with specific human and facilities resources; If applicable, what conditions are required and which criteria should be reached; how to combine each multimedia element to create a complete product; how and what factors would affect production decision; how are the development trends in the future?
2 Research aims and tasks
Purpose of dissertation is to systematize the theoretical and practical issues
of the issue, and then build the theoretical framework on multimedia news package
on online newspaper; studying the situation of using news package on three surveyed newspapers, surveying its interaction with management, finance, technology issues of the editorial offices, understanding the factors affecting the trend development, from which to discover trends in using news package on online newspaper
Research tasks: To achieve this goal, within the thesis, the author identifies
the following research tasks: First, systematizing and initially building the theoretical basis related to multimedia news package: Clarifying concepts basically related to research issues; history of multimedia news package development; analyze the main categories of multimedia news package, clarify the purpose, object of reflection, structure, and language of this multimedia news package category; study creative ways and organize some typical cases Secondly, the thesis seeks for the situation of using multimedia news package on newspaper through three surveyed papers from Jan 1 2014 to December 31 2016; compare and evaluate multimedia news package in Vietnamese online newspapers with that on international newspapers Thirdly, analyze the factors affecting the
Trang 5use of multimedia news package on online newspaper, thereby determining the trends in using multimedia news package on online newspaper
3 Research object and scope
Research object of the thesis is the trends in using multimedia news package
on online newspapers
Scope of the dissertation is formation and transformation of the trends in using multimedia news package to have a comprehensive view of this subject, thereby studying and surveying multimedia news package on 3 online newspapers which are NYT, TG and VNE
4 Research questions
I propose the following research questions while conducting the research:
- Is multimedia news package a new form of journalism product with new flexible structures and the multimedia elements are at the level of sophistication and modern, helping to achieve effective storytelling and wide spreading?
- In multimedia news package, what are the new ways to incorporate new elements? Which elements and interfaces are used in the stories of multimedia news packages? Are there new ways to incorporate new elements in which new interfaces were created to produce these multimedia news package? what narrative structures are these multimedia news packages implemented? Follow the research frameworks of Landown, Nelson, Manovich or Murray? (These theories are presented in the Overview section)
- Among important factors affecting the decision of the editorial offices, is it possible that production costs can be the most important factor?
- News package on online newspaper has developed strongly in international newspapers, but in Vietnam, there are still few, assuming that domestic newspapers still have many financial difficulties Is there any recommendation of low-cost production?
5 Theoretical and practical background and research methods
5.1 Theoretical background
- The General Methodology: The thesis approaches research objectives and
tasks based on the following main theoretical frameworks: the Communist Party's and Vietnam State's views, law and policies; modern journalism theories about concepts, history of development, roles, functions, operational principles of author-work-audiences, communication and mass media theory
- Specialized methodology: The thesis uses the following theories:
(1) Theories on online newspaper: The concept, history of development,
characteristics for online newspaper, HTML programming language, presentation, changing role of online newspaper in the books: The basis of online newspaper
Trang 6by author Nguyen Thi Truong Giang (Political Publishing House - Administration,
2011, Hanoi); Journalism Online (Online Press) by Mike Ward (Oxford: Focal Press 2002); and Online Journalism - A critical primer of Jim Hall - Theory of multimedia, storytelling in the book Multimedia Storytelling for Digital Communicators in a Multiplatform World, Gossip story for digital media in the multi-platform world by Gitner, Seth (New York: Routledge 2015); Journalism and multimedia media edited by author Nguyen Thi Truong Giang (National University Publishing House, Hanoi 2017)
(2) Theory of Hierarchy of Influences: The theory of "Influence hierarchies"
in the mass media summarized by Pamela Shoemaker and Stephen D Reese in
1996, and by Reese development and expansion related to global communications
issues in 2001 This framework is introduced in the book Communication
Messages: Theories Affecting Mass Media Content by Shoemaker and Reese [60]
and scientific journalism Press research and model of influence hierarchies: Stephen D.Reese's global vision This is the theory of communication sociology analyzing the impact of the media ecosystem, analyzing the influence levels on the media content
(3) Multimodality theory of digital longform products: In the course of the
study, there is no term corresponding to longform found in Vietnamese, the thesis allows to use the form from the longform to bring the full meaning of this journalism The theory of multimodality of digital longform products is actually developed from the theory of semantic, semiotics in communication, which is led
by Arthur Saga Berger in Semiotics Analysis in Media Analysis article Techniques; 1998 was then inherited and developed perfectly with the work of
Daniel Chandler “Semiotics - the basic” in 2007 and Sigrid Norris and Carmen Daniela Maier in “Interaction, image and text - a reader in multimodality” The
thesis writer uses these theories in the study of how multimedia news package are encoded and formed using semantic and symbolic modes
(4) Theory of Use and Gratifications: This theory was born in the 40s of the
XX century in the US This theory studies the behavior of media exposure by the public In the 1940s and 1950s, research on the theory of "Use and Satisfaction" was quite sketchy, studies in the early stages only inducted the types of "use" and
"gratification" There is no breakthrough in theory; the main method is interviews, not forming a strict survey analysis process Until the 1960s, the value of these studies was reaffirmed and research activities were more active, among that the most typical results were from the surveys of British media expert Denis McQuail, (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands) The researchers found that the public's exposure to the media was based on basic needs, such as information,
Trang 7entertainment, social relations and mental and psychological needs The content and form of the media all meet those basic human needs The media audiences in the Internet environment is also characterized by "anonymity" so their needs are more individualized, their behavior is to some extent affected by this characteristic In addition to practical reports on the trend of using and receiving press information, the thesis author uses this theory to assess the current situation
of audience consuming multimedia news package
5.2 Research methods
General research methods: Based on the principles of dialectical logic,
research uses some common research methods such as analysis - synthesis, logic - history, modeling - generalization, inductive - interpretation
Specific research methods:
Methods of document analysis: Selecting research studies, works of
relevant domestic and foreign authors, websites of survey subject newspapers, websites of research organizations to synthesize and analyze, on that basis, draw out the arguments and arguments for the research subjects; At the same time, inheriting available studies, serving as a basis for evaluating survey results, finding
trends of research issues Media content analysis method: The author uses
Google search engine and search engine on 3 surveyed newspapers with the keywords "Interactive", "Multimedia, "Megastory", “Longform” in order to find the right articles according to criteria Each newspaper also has a summary list of outstanding articles using the yearly distribution - this is a very well-integrated synthesizer, a data source that helps to understand research issues from perspective
of each editorial office The articles that are read and studied in detail are selected
by the systematic random method, with the first selected by the random method (jump = 3) The author chooses each newspaper 20 articles per year according to this method for specific research The total number of papers in each newspaper is
60 articles The two researchers coded the packages, with 10.43% overlap (n = 16) The average consistency is 93%, with the reliability measured by the Krippendorf Alpha average of 0.8245 The thesis uses SPSS quantitative information processing software and Nvivo qualitative information processing software
Scope of research: Choose 3 large online newspapers in 3 countries: New
York Times (USA), The Guardian (UK), VnExpress (Vietnam)
Sample: multimedia news packages on 3 surveyed online newspapers, from
January 1, 2014 - December 31, 2016
Research unit: Full-text content, the elements of the components used in
the lesson
Trang 8Case study method: I selected two well-invested and outstanding cases
which are the United States Presidential Election 2016 and Rio Olympic Games
2016 to analyze indepth and to compare content and format of the multimedia news package among the newspapers Since then, the development trends in using multimedia news package have been found I analyze the multimedia news package in terms of storytelling, news value, and media formats The dissertation lists all the news packages on these two topics in 3 newspapers
Interview method: The researcher used this method to study the awareness,
situation and trends of using multimedia news package at these editorial offices, especially the 3 selected newspapers to verify and add the missing theoretical and practical parts, also explore organizing implementation and producing process of multimedia news package Specifically, we conducted in-depth interviews with 17 cases of the following groups:
+ Group 1 (9 cases): those who directly implement and produce the news package in many different newspapers including 4 editors, 2 reporters, 2 designers
+ Group 2 (3 cases): online newspaper managers;
+ Group 3 (5 cases): experts in the field of media and journalism; journalists, researchers, organizational leaders, reporters, editors, technicians Interview conducted directly and via phone or email
Method of using secondary sources: secondary sources from research
institutions such as American Institute of Journalism, Reuter Institution…are used
to measure the relevance, interest in the products
6 Scientific contribution of thesis
The thesis studies a new form of online journalism product: multimedia news package, so there will be many scientific discoveries The thesis clarifies the concept of multimedia news package, ways of storytelling, purposes, classification, creative methods, production organization; deeply analyze some of the multimedia news package cases of leading newspapers in the world to see the peak development of the current online newspaper; from that, an objective assessment of Vietnam's multimedia news package products is proposed to improve the quality, and find trends in using news package in the current online newspapers research results of the thesis will be orientation for online newsrooms This is a reference for researchers, managers, lecturers and journalists
Trang 97 Theoretical and practical significance
- Theoretical significance
Newspapers are constantly evolving and in the digital age, newspapers have changed drastically The most stable parts of the press like genres are also changing Up to now, very few domestic published research papers have a definition of article genre that has both text, images, sound, graphics, interactive maps, in the scope of thousands of words, dozens of full screen sized photos, videos, while intertwined with express spaces and continuous narration Communication technologies have changed the public media approach, and turned back to change content of the press itself Modern journalism theory precedes the need for additional research issue This thesis clarifies the history of formation, concepts, characteristics, classification and development trends of one of the new types of press works, a representative of the digital journalism era - that is multimedia news package on online newspaper
- Practical significance
This is also a problem that domestic journalism practice has to study and learn to keep the loyal audiences, as well as to find new because if readers, there cannot exist and perform the social political tasks of the press
8 Structure of thesis
In addition to the Introduction, Conclusion, Literature review, List of Abbreviation, List of Tables, Table of Contents, Appendix, the thesis consists of four chapters as follows:
Chapter 1: Theoretical and practical basis of using multimedia news packages on online newspapers
Chapter 2: Current situation of the trend in using multimedia news packages
on online newspapers
Chapter 3: Trends in using multimedia news packages on online newspapers through case studies of Olympics Rio 2016 and the US Presidential Election 2016
on the New York Times, The Guardian and VnExpress
Chapter 4: Evaluation of successes, limitations, trend prediction and recommendation to enhance the quality of multimedia news packages on the online newspapers in Vietnam
Trang 10
is still thin, mainly analysis conducted by and from the perspective of journalists
The theoretical perspective on multimedia news package is still a gap and in need of additional research Among a few significant researches, there are some remarkable works such as Dowling and Vogan [28] found that long articles often try to create a "A cognitive container, an environment that protects readers from the inconveniences caused by the typical web browsing processes of the previous day, allows them to become immersed in the story” This contrasts with the consumption of rapid information and fragmentation of online news in the theory
of author Barnhurst (2012) [23] In the study of Jacobson, Marino and Gutsche [35, 14], "paralax scroll" technique - which means content floating on the page at different speeds is considered to be the main feature of this genre The authors concluded that the combination of technology in storytelling helped the longform improve recontextualize the traditional techniques of literary journalism This may lead to an argument that: longform is not just about displaying technological power, but (in fact) that multimedia structure is at the core of the narrative structure Other features related to longform identification include video looping, including a single image, and a transition between text content and image content The combination of minimal interface with many visual elements creates a cinematic effect [66]
Trang 11Tuomo Hiippala has described the diverse structure of 12 longform-type articles published in 2012-2013, to characterize the emerging genre of digital longform [64] The author explained how the longforms combine language writing, photo magazines, short videos and other contextual modes, allowing them
to realize a seamless story, and therefore, to provide user experience differs from other press categories, such as landing pages, photo exhibitions, and story stories The author also studies text flow, image flow and page flow to capture how writing, language, images, videos and other types of content are combined, analyzes showing that longform categories tend to organize content according to linear structure This means that unlike displaying the home page/landing page that presents different types of content for the reader, the longform spends the entire screen for a single mode at one time Longforms combine these contents together by using some major transformations such as scanning and dissolution (wipe - dissolve) - the same way as in movies
R Hernandez, J Rue (2015), The Principles of Multimedia Journalism: Packaging Digital News, Routledge Publishing House, New York is a study that summarizes some of the common manifestations of some outstanding news package [33] The book contains 10 chapters, in which Chapter 1: Introduction to multimedia news package The authors acknowledge that the term "news package"
is still unpopular in the web industry Chapter 2, the authors examine the evolution
of digital news package, from the advent of personal computers in the 1980s to today's more modern browsers Chapter 3, the authors present this development process of the multimedia news package classification principle Through research and recognition of repeating factors, the author has built a model that helps us better understand the different forms of news This model can be considered as a framework for additional research into systematizing news package
2 Research situation of multimedia news package on online newspaper
in Vietnam
Through researching the documents, the thesis author found that domestic studies have just conducted basic researches on online newspapers, general arguments about multimedia journalism Some studies have mentioned multimedia news packages on online newspapers but there are very few, and the research results are small and non-systematic, only at the level of sketching the panorama, and listed some manifestations of multimedia news package in several local newspapers It can be affirmed that this is still a comprehensive and comprehensive study of both the theory and practice of the first multimedia news package on the online newspaper
3 Summary of the Literature review
Trang 12In the Literature Overview section, the dissertation presents the system of asymptotic researches/projects related to the topic to provide an overview for research issues, specifically: 1 researches around the world are close to the multimedia news package on online newspaper issue 2 indepth and direct researches about the issue of multimedia news package in the world; 3 research projects on online newspaper and multimedia news package on online newspaper
in Vietnam
Trang 13CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL BASIS OF USING MULTIMEDIA NEWS PACKAGE ON ONLINE NEWSPAPER
1.1 Basic concepts related to the topic,
The thesis clarifies basic concepts: trend, news packages, multimedia, electronic newspapers, multimedia news packages on oline newspapers.
Multimedia news package is understood as: an emerging form journalism product published on online newspaper, or a collection of news and articles reporting multiple aspects a complex, multi-dimensional and/or data-driven topic; with linear or non-linear structure, vivid and realistic storytelling by many high- quality multimedia elements including text, photos, audio, video, graphics, data visualization, interactive elements, communication participation and social media, which are creatively assembled as unified whole, closely linked with each other with smooth transitions
1.2 Composition of multimedia news package on online newspaper
The thesis clarifies the constituent elements of a multimedia news package
on the online newspaper and their characteristics, evidenced by specific examples
of multimedia news package that stand out in many newspapers around the world The elements are: text, images, audio, video, graphics, interactive programs
1.3 Characteristics of multimedia news package on online newspaper
1.3.1 Characteristics of content in multimedia news package on online newspaper
The thesis points out that the news package usually includes the following characteristics: 1 news package often draws on big, unique topics with high social value; 2 Storytelling in multimedia news package using both linear and non-linear methods; Using many literary methods
1.3.2 Characteristics of format of multimedia news package on online newspaper
Format characteristics include 1 Large and unlimited work capacity; 2 Diversified and very creative multimedia elements; 3 Interactive elements are seamlessly integrated; news package can be in closed or opened format with custom design
1.4 Multimedia news package classification on online newspaper
Before presenting their views on the news package classification, the thesis presents a classification perspective of international authors
1.4.1 Classification of Paul Grabowicz (2014) Grabowicz classifies according to
two principles: 1 the classification depends on the narrative characteristics of story in the article (including the narrative structure and the narrative means) 2