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Eric wrote:
" .... Take it a step further: Among the uses and gratifications of  
any 

medium conveying news is that somehow it will burst forth an tell you 

about news events you didn't know to check on.  ........
An on-line paper on the Web cannot do this without E-mail or by 

providing so many additional services that it will become a habit 

because of those uses and gratifications. This mitigates strongly in 

favor of the commerical on-line services' approach. If you have to 

"pick up your newspaper" to check your mail, to do your banking or 

whatever, the news will be there in the background, just as it is 

with TV or radio.
The fact that traditional newspapers provide less and less of this 

relative to broadcasting may be one reason their circulations have 

declined. ....."

YES, Eric.  This is exactly what I think happens, and this is why  I  
tend to think we need a news delivery mechanism that help us NOT  
THINK ABOUT WHAT WE NEED every morning, but which at the same time  
leaves us the full FLEXIBILITY  of constructing our  search for   
in-depth information. So the whole mechanism should include the best  
features of e-mail and web, that are  1) passive "listening" , and 2)  
search capabilities and graphics.

Following your reasoning on how broadcasting works, it strikes me  
that there may be another crucial point, besides that of  the  
"passive acquisition";  just think at what you do when you are doing  
something else and in the background you hear something in the TV  
that interests you. You ONLY stops doing what you were doing and  
listen more carefully.  Can you imagine  an easier and more efficient  
procedure to go "from the headlines to only the single stories you  
are interested in"?  I don't know if the web techno-specialists can  
invent something that resembles this kind of procedure, but it is  
something I would think about, particularly if my market target  was  
a mass market.
Of course, I am not  saying that we should forget about the best  
features of the web (search and graphics), or the group discussions,   
but they should ADD uses and gratifications to the new medium, not  
replacing and loosing the existing ones (at least till we are sure  
the public has continued  to ask for them).

Ciao
Andreina

__________________________

Andreina Mandelli, EPH school of journalism. Indiana University
Bloomington (IN)  - std disclaimers

"IF I SPOKE A BETTER ENGLISH I COULD NOT SPEAK ITALIAN SO WELL"
Please come and visit my virtual Mass Communication class at
http://www.journalism.indiana.edu/~amandell/myhomep.htmld/index.html
But careful, it is PERMANENTLY under construction

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