Journalism and the Internet

The public rise and rapid adoption of the Internet beginning in the early 1990s upended traditional American—and global—journalism on every level. The Internet changed how news was gathered and how and where publics and audiences interacted with news—first on desktop computers, then laptops, then tablets, phones, and other “smart” technology, including virtual reality devices. The Internet compressed news cycles across media, collapsing established and predictable windows of presentation into a nonstop vortex of breaking news and updates. Thousands more “news sites” appeared—many of them aggregators that poached content from established news outlets without compensation; not a few of them were ideologically tinged or even proffered so-called fake news to draw traffic and/or accomplish ideological ends.

As the digital universe expanded, new platforms appeared and converged ceaselessly. ...