Abstract

This study examined how traditional newspapers in China have been making use of new communication technologies, focusing on their efforts to develop newspaper websites. Content analysis was used to analyze the features enabled by new technologies on newspaper websites in China, such as publishing journalists’ email addresses, posting stories from the print newspapers, presenting news photos, providing breaking news, offering news content for exclusive use online, providing news archives and search engines for archived stories, using videos/audio related with news stories, maintaining online forums not attached to blogs, maintaining journalists’ blogs/readers’ blogs. Differences between websites of city newspapers and national newspapers were investigated, too. The study found that half of the newspaper websites in China did not go beyond their printed newspapers to provide additional information. Great attention has been paid to enrich the visual presentations of the websites. Interactivity with readers were realized to some extent through the websites. It was also found that city newspaper websites have focused more on interactivity, while national newspapers have put more emphasis on providing information. In conclusion, newspapers in China have begun to emerge into the digital era. New communication technology helps them to better reach the audience and enable the two-way communication, which further influence the way how information is being processed in mass communication.