Online journalism : copywriting and conception for the internet ; a handbook for training and practice

197 Pages·2022·2.902 MB·English

by  Gabriele Hooffacker

Online
journalism
Copywriting and conception for the
internet. A handbook for training
and practice
Gabriele Hooffacker
Online journalism
Gabriele Hooffacker
Online journalism
Copywriting and conception
for the internet. A handbook
for training and practice
Gabriele Hooffacker
Leipzig, Germany
ISBN 978-3-658-35730-6 ISBN 978-3-658-35731-3 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-35731-3
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Preface
Online journalism and multi-modal, cross-media or trans-media work are omni-
present in editorial offices. In the process, it is easy to lose sight of the special
feature of the online medium: the participatory opportunities to involve users at
different levels of the online journalistic production process. They begin with blog-
ging, where the boundaries between authors and users become fluid, and extend to
the platforms of social networks with their possibilities of sharing and individual-
ized information selection, to interactive moving images and playful applications
in virtual worlds.
Forms and formats such as scrollytelling, data journalism or even automated
text creation, so-called robot journalism, have been added. More and more stan-
dardized activities are being taken over by “Editor Al Gorithm”. The fact that users
are increasingly shifting to mobile online use requires not simply apps for the fa-
miliar forms and formats, but new concepts for online media.
In the process, online journalism has emerged as the focal point of current jour-
nalism education: It demands journalistic knowledge and skills in all media and
technical understanding of everything hardware and software can do. Changes are
happening in this area just as rapidly as in related topics of online law or social
media applications. For this reason, reference is already made here to the website
for the book http://www.onlinejournalismus.org for current supplements.
This completely revised 5th new edition puts mobile working in the foreground,
especially in the conception. The two chapters on forms of presentation and par-
ticipative forms and formats deal in detail with working on several channels, each
in a media-specific, multi-modal way.
The description of the activities and requirements for online journalists have
been adapted to current requirements. Without the classical journalistic craft it does
v
vi Preface
not work. The essential difference compared to traditional media is that in online
journalism the activity of the users is included, i.e. interactivity is conceived and
user communication is organised and moderated. The first edition of this handbook
already described weblogs in detail, as well as participative forms and formats in
general, which were still called “communicative forms” in earlier editions.
Anyone who wants to work in online journalism must have no fear of contact,
neither with people nor with computers. We observe due diligence in our research,
integrate audiences and cooperations, organize, write quickly and linguistically
confidently, edit and process text, images, sound and film, get along with technol-
ogy, think economically and understand how to work effectively under time pres-
sure. In doing so, we are committed to the principles of the Press Code (see http://
www.presserat.info), adept in personal conversation, on the phone and, of course,
in online communication.
Anyone who feels addressed by this job profile will find the practical knowl-
edge he or she needs for the profession in this handbook. For all those who are al-
ready active in online journalism, it provides suggestions for daily work and for
training.
Much of what is inevitably described linearly in the book can only be made
vivid online. For this reason, and because the medium continues to change rapidly,
there is the site for the book. It emerged from the courses at the Journalism Acad-
emy in Munich as well as my courses at the HTWK Leipzig. Setting links or de-
signing hypertext or communities can be demonstrated better online than in a
printed textbook. Multi-media journalistic work only becomes clear online any-
way; online supplements ensure topicality: http://www.onlinejournalismus.org.
Knowledge and skills related to hardware and software are indispensable for
online journalists. Nevertheless, they are not covered in this book, nor is the neces-
sary business knowledge. Both can be found in numerous reference books; the
book contains information on literature and links. What this book is also not about
is online research. All journalists need research, both online and offline, no matter
what medium they work for, and online research is now a natural part of research
textbooks such as “Research (Recherchieren)” by Markus Kaiser, published in
2015 in the series “Journalistische Praxis”.
I would like to thank Martin Goldmann, Sebastian Gomon, Prof. Dr. Heinrich
Hussmann, Prof. Markus Kaiser, Prof. Dr. Uwe Kulisch, Prof. Dr. Marc Liesching,
Prof. Dr. Klaus Meier, Prof. Dr. Christoph Neuberger, Prof. Dr. Ulrich Nikolaus,
Bernd Oswald, Peter Welchering, Sarah Just, Theresa Möckel, Kristina Mohr, Ru-
ben Voss and other students and graduates of the HTWK Leipzig, to the p articipants
of the online journalism courses for their ideas and the implementation of http://
www.onlinejournalismus.org, especially to the courses OC-19 and PC-19, to
Preface vii
Bettina Pelzer for support in setting up the site for the fifth edition and to Peter
Lokk for accompanying the book through all phases of the development process.
Special thanks to Barbara Emig-Roller, Chief Media Editor at Springer VS, and
Monika Mülhausen for project management!
Munich, Germany Gabriele Hooffacker
January 2020
Contents
1 The Profession: Activities and Fields of Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 A ctivities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 F ields of Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.3 S taff and Editorial Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2 T he Medium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.1 What Is Online Journalism? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
2.2 Terms, Forms and Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.3 Workflow and Content Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3 T he Online Users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.1 User Research and Market Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.2 Being Found with Search Engines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4 Hypertext and Storyboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.1 H ow to Write Hypertext? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.2 Links Structure the Reading Flow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
4.3 Navigation for Mobile Touch and Voice Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
4.4 Storyboard for the Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
4.5 U sability and UX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
4.6 Planning the Site and Homepage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
ix
x Contents
5 Presentation Forms and Multimodal Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.1 D esigning for the Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
5.2 Inform: News, Slideshow, Interview, Podcast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
5.3 Narrative Formats: Onepager, Newsgame, Web Reportage, Web
Documentary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
5.4 Analyze: Commentary, Criticism, Gloss, Cartoon . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
5.5 Provide Service, Write Conversion-Oriented: FAQ, Chatbot,
Newsletter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
6 Participatory Forms and Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
6.1 Online: Participation and Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
6.2 S ocial Media Platforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
6.3 I ndividual Communication Online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
6.4 Ancestors: Blogs, Microblogging, Forums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
6.5 C ommunity Building. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
7 T he Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
7.1 Fundamentals and Responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
7.2 C opyright . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
7.3 Right of Personality and Likeness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
7.4 D ata Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
8 E ducation and Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
8.1 U niversities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
8.2 J ournalism Schools and Traineeships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
8.3 C ontinuing Vocational Training, In-service and Distance
Learning Courses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
8.4 Short Courses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
8.5 Networks and Contact Exchanges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Further Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .191
List of Figures
Fig. 1.1 Gabriele Hooffacker, HTWK Leipzig, on online journalism
and its special features (https://www.gelbe-r eihe.de/online-
journalismus/prof- dr- gabriele- hooffacker- online- journalismus/
or directly https://youtu.be/mOvHkK6jWWU) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Fig. 1.2 Martin Wagner, Bavarian Radio (Bayerischer Rundfunk), on
trimediality in public service media (https://www.gelbe- reihe.de/
online- journalismus/martin- wagner/ or directly https://youtu.be/
RVjGs69THjo) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Fig. 2.1 Christoph Neuberger, Free University of Berlin, on journalism
on the Internet and the identity crisis in journalism (https://www.
gelbe- reihe.de/online- journalismus/prof- dr- christoph- neuberger/oder
direct https://youtu.be/Ul9InZoXCxo) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Fig. 4.1 Linear navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Fig. 4.2 Hierarchical navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Fig. 4.3 Peer-to-peer navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Fig. 4.4 Storyboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Fig. 4.5 Siemens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Fig. 5.1 http://www.tagesschau.de combines the news overview in text
and image with the program accompaniment. The TV camera
shows where video streams are waiting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Fig. 5.2 The “Tagesschau in 100 s” offers the shortest news in moving
image format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Fig. 5.3 Malte Burdekat on video journalism (https://www.
gelbe- reihe.de/online- journalismus/malte- burdekat/ or directly
https://youtu.be/vAb_cjnC4F4). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
xi