The Form and Development Direction of E-newspaper (2)

Future development of electronic newspapers

First of all, the physical form of electronic newspapers must have the advantages of paper, that is, easy to carry, easy to read, and display content on the plane. The currently widely used laptops and other portable readers that can wirelessly access the Internet do not have these advantages.

Since the 1990s, people have been exploring and developing paper alternatives for print media. Some companies in Europe, America and Japan, including electronic ink, Sony, Xerox, and Philips, have made gratifying progress in the development of “electronic paper”. The so-called “e-paper” (e-paper), also called “digital paper”, is actually a thin and light electronic display, or a thin film. The key to displaying images and text is a layer of “coating”. The charged chemical substance (“electronic ink”), when the “electronic ink” is energized, enables hundreds of millions of particles to change colors, thereby constantly displaying patterns and texts according to people's settings. The content displayed on the "electronic paper" can be updated and modified so that it can be reused. In 2000, the United States Electronic Ink Corporation announced the development of the world's first curlable black and white "electronic paper". In 2002, the first color "electronic paper" appeared in Japan. In 2006, the newly developed "e-paper" in Japan was only 0.1 mm in thickness and could be folded and curled appropriately. Although the popularity of "electronic paper" will not take long, we will see "electronic newspapers" with the physical form of traditional newspapers.

What should the "electronic newspaper" dissemination form be like?

The openness of online communication enables any individual, government department, company, or company to directly publish information to the public on the Internet. This has led to further proliferation of information that was already in an explosive state. People refer to surfing the web as surfing the web, but surfers are likely to be swamped by the vast ocean of information. In today's world, information is no longer scarce, and the information provided on the Internet has far surpassed anyone’s actual needs and ability to accept it. Every day readers under the massive information "indiscriminate bombing" are highly selective in their reading. They need to find the topic they are most interested in within a short time. Therefore, for the mass media, what is scarce is the attention of the audience. The media is not faced with the problem of how to send information out, but how to win the attention of the audience.

The rise of radio and television in the 20th century has made newspapers no longer the most important sources of information for the audience. However, newspapers, especially serious newspapers, have long cultivated a high level of trust and authority among their respective readerships. They compete with broadcasts and televisions that are fast but inevitably faced with superficial reports that lack depth, and thus compete in the media. Can be invincible. Moreover, the newspapers, especially the well-known traditions and brands formed by well-known large newspapers for several decades or more, and their influence in the audience, are not replaced by other new media in the short term. Today, when information explosions, especially when the audience is confused about the large amount of false information and extreme remarks appearing on the Internet, they often turn to the traditional newspapers they trust. When a major news incident occurred, the newspaper was still one of the most important sources of information for the public. When the public talks about a certain social issue, the newspaper's commentary can still be one of the centers of public opinion.

When readers open the "electronic newspaper", what is displayed before them is a plane. This plane should not be a web page, but should be a layout. In other words, the editors should give full play to the advantages of the “layout language” of traditional newspapers and reflect the media’s positions and viewpoints through such elements as titles, fonts, font sizes, pictures, colors, lines and shading.

The domestic newspaper media actively explored in this regard and achieved some results. Open the "People's Daily", "Liberation Daily", "Guangzhou Daily" and "Zhejiang Daily" and other large newspaper websites, can see their electronic newspapers. Taking the Zhejiang Daily as an example, the Zhejiang Daily Newspaper Group and the Founder of Peking University developed the "digital newspaper and cross-media publishing system" after more than three years of cooperative development. To open the newspaper website, you can see the newspaper layout displayed on the website. Click on the content of interest on the layout. The content is displayed on the right side of the page as an htm file. Using this system, the editorial office of the newspaper can be transmitted to the internet at the same time as the newspapers sign and print. In other words, once the newspapers are printed, readers can see the newspapers of the day in advance. 2 However, the problem is that readers must read online. Of course, readers can also download the newspaper layout as a pdf file to their computer, and then use the Adob ​​ereader software to read it. This is not very convenient for readers, and reading pdf files is not as convenient as flipping through paper newspapers.

The ongoing exploration of the US newspaper media has a certain reference value for us. The University of Missouri School of Journalism at Columbia University launched the Digital Publishing Platform (eMprin t) in 2005 and published the e-paper “Missouri newspaper in Colombia” through this platform. This e-newspaper is different from the newspaper's online version and is also different from the newspaper's website. It does not merely paste the contents of the media on the Internet for users to read online, but for users to download to their computer and then read off-line. If users use "electronic paper" download, they can carry it like a paper newspaper and read it at any time. 3eMprin t gives full play to the intuition and readability of traditional print media and integrates it with multimedia and hyperlinks of online media. After users download via the Internet, they see the layout of the newspaper, not the web page of the online media. The first thing users see is the layout of traditional newspapers. They won't be distracted by the dense headlines on the web pages. At the same time, they can read pages one by one like a paper newspaper, or they can use menu tools or through various layouts. The hyperlink jumps directly to the column or article that interests you without having to turn pages. With regard to the mode of transmission, the network media expertise that traditional print media lacks has also been brought into full play. For example, in the user feedback column, users can express their opinions and send them directly to the editors through the Internet, which increases the interactivity of the editors. At the same time, the users can also directly contact the advertisers by clicking on the email addresses in the advertisements. For another example, in addition to text and pictures, multimedia information such as scrolling pictures, audio files, and video files is provided. Users can print any layout if they are interested or necessary.

In order to facilitate the user to download, each issue of the "Missouri newspaper in Colombia" file size is about 5 ~ 6M. If the user wishes to obtain more updated information, he can go online and click on the hyperlink provided on the layout to log on to the newspaper's website and read the follow-up coverage of a story and the background information or a different point of view of a review. This combination of offline and online meets the different needs of different users. However, the problem of the “Missouri newspaper of Colombia” is that the “depth” of the report is not enough, and readers cannot read it when reading offline. This requires readers to use a computer or other reader that can access the Internet to read, and if you use the "electronic paper" mentioned above, "electronic paper" must also have Internet access.

The progress of information technology often exceeds our imagination. Therefore, it is very difficult to predict the development prospects of communication technology. However, technological progress is not the only factor in the development of communication. According to the law of the development of human communication, based on the development path of traditional media, it is not difficult for us to discover that the physical characteristics and propagation characteristics of “old” media are the magic weapon for dealing with “new” media challenges. In other words, only those irreplaceable "old" media can coexist with "new" media. In the foreseeable future, the newspaper media will not die out, because the physical and communication characteristics of newspaper media are irreplaceable to other media. Therefore, the development direction of electronic newspapers should be to use the network to spread this digital communication platform to give full play to the newspaper's paper media and print media expertise to meet readers' needs.

(Author: School of Journalism, Fudan University)

Notes: 1 Mr. Murdoch’s speech at Singapore Broadcasting Bureau on January 12, 1999, Singapore Straits Times, March 17, 1999

2 Chen Kai and Wang Yuguang: "Digital newspapers and cross-media publishing system solutions", "China Press" 2006 the fourth period

3The Missouri newspaper in Colombia