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Design recommendations for online newspapers: a genre perspective

TL;DR: Eight design recommendations for online newspapers are proposed based on features that mediate a specific purpose and use between publisher and audience, which are also based on genre change regarding design, and the heritage from print regarding form and shared content elements.
Abstract: Taking a genre perspective on design, this article proposes eight design recommendations for online newspapers. These recommendations are based on features that mediate a specific purpose and use between publisher and audience, which we describe as genre rules in terms of purpose, form, and positioning. They are also based on genre change regarding design, and the heritage from print regarding form and shared content elements. We have a) studied genre change through a web pa ge analysis of nine Swedish online newspapers in 2001 and 2003, using the genre concepts content, form, functionality and positioning, and b) derived genre rules by analysing publishers design purpose, and audience recognition and use, through qualitative interviews and usability tests. We have interviewed managers, designers and editors-in-chief at the nine newspapers as well as 153 members of their audience. Some examples of the design recommendations are: "Use the length of the front page to give an overview of the whole site.", "Use the broadsheet metaphor for layout." and "Provide news valuation through positioning and markers."

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Journal of Web Engineering, Vol. X, No.X (2004) 000-000
© Rinton Press
DESIGN RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ONLINE NEWSPAPERS:
A GENRE PERSPECTIVE
CARINA IHLSTRÖM
Halmstad University, Sweden
carina.ihlstrom@ide.hh.se
JONAS LUNDBERG
Linköping University, Sweden
jonlu@ida.liu.se
Received (to be filled by the JWE editorial)
Revised (to be filled by the JWE editorial)
Taking a genre perspective on design, this article proposes eight design recommendations for
online newspapers. These recommendations are based on features that mediate a specific
purpose and use between publisher and audience, which we describe as genre rules in terms of
purpose, form, and positioning. They are also based on genre change regarding design, and the
heritage from print regarding form and shared content elements. We have a) studied genre
change through a web page analysis of nine Swedish online newspapers in 2001 and 2003,
using the genre concepts content, form, functionality and positioning, and b) derived genre
rules by analysing publishers design purpose, and audience recognition and use, through
qualitative interviews and usability tests. We have interviewed managers, designers and
editors-in-chief at the nine newspapers as well as 153 members of their audience. Some
examples of the design recommendations are: "Use the length of the front page to give an
overview of the whole site.", "Use the broadsheet metaphor for layout." and "Provide news
valuation through positioning and markers."
Key words: Online newspapers, genre, genre change, genre rules, genre awareness,
genre characteristics, design recommendations
Communicated by: (to be filled by the JWE editorial)
1. Introduction
Newspapers as a phenomenon has a long history. Following the first daily publication in Germany,
daily newspapers were established in most Western countries throughout the 1700s and 1800s [38].
Given the long history of daily news, the wide recognition of today’s formats and layouts is no
surprise. As an example, the broadsheet format is recognized by audiences all over the world.
Recently, publishers have started to publish online versions of their newspapers. Despite early
attempts of electronic dissemination of text and graphics (e.g. Teletext), the first fully web based
newspaper, The Palo Alto Weekly, appeared as late as in 1994 [10]. Since then, the number of online
newspapers has exploded. In the US, for instance, there were already as many as 1.296 online editions

2 A genre perspective on online newspaper front page design
in 2002 [46]. In the process of designing online newspapers, publishers seek to identify good ways to
use web technology for establishing their online editions. Today, there is a demand from both
academics and practitioners for more knowledge about how to design the online newspapers to become
as recognizable and familiar as the printed ones [6; 18].
To address the perceived need of knowledge about design, this article uses genre theory [50; 35]
for developing empirically based design recommendations for online newspapers. Newspapers and TV
news broadcasts can be perceived as sub genres of the news genre [4] and the integration of the web
medium and the traditional news paper genre defines a genre for online newspapers.
Genres are produced, reproduced and changed over time [50]. A genre can be characterized by the
concepts; content, form, functionality [35] and positioning [21], and a specific genre consists of a set
of genre rules that are recognized and enacted by human actors in their use of the genre [50]. The
genre rules of online newspapers, for instance, are enacted by both publishers and audience in the daily
production and consumption of news. Genre awareness is a notion of how users and designers reduce
the complexity of the web [15]. When establishing a new site with a purpose similar to existing sites,
the genre characteristics may be copied and refined to reflect resemblance to an existing genre, i.e.
designers may want to draw on already accepted genres that correspond to their design purpose [12]. It
is also essential to be aware of the users’ expectations of the genre [12].
Earlier research on design or use of online newspapers has so far mostly relied on experimental
design and surveys [6]. Research on design of online newspapers concerns e.g. location of information
[44; 45], content features [42; 17] and interactive functions [42; 22; 17]. Several studies of the use of
online newspapers have also been conducted [e.g. 25; 11; 19; 2; 41].
In order to obtain a comprehensive understanding of online newspaper design we have conducted
a qualitative study. We have conducted web page analysis in 2001 and 2003, using the genre concepts
content, form, functionality and positioning to identify genre characteristics and to study design
changes of the genre. We have also derived genre rules by analysing publishers design purpose, and
audience recognition and use, through qualitative interviews and usability tests.
A genre perspective on online newspaper design is presented in the following section. The
methods used in this study is described in section 3 followed by a presentation of the empirical results
in section 4. In section 5 we discuss the findings and present the design recommendations. Section 6
concludes the paper.
2. A genre perspective on online newspaper design
Aristotle's original concept of genre was adopted as a tool to help with the analysis of popular texts
[23]. According to the online version of Encyclopedia Britannica [14], genre is defined as “a
distinctive type or category of literary composition, such as the epic, tragedy, comedy, novel and short
story”. Genre theory has been used within the field of discourse analysis of textual units [40; 5; 29] but
was introduced to the Information Systems (IS) field in 1992 by Yates and Orlikowski [50]. The
concept of genre has proven its value as an analytical tool in IS research on topics spanning from
organizational communication to web enabled communication [50; 52; 47; 48; 31; 35]. Furthermore
the concept of genre has been advocated as a potential tool for structuring design of new IT appliances
[9].

C. Ihlström and J. Lundberg
3
Genre concepts
There are different views of what characterizes a genre. A genre could be characterized by having
similarities in substance (i.e. the semantic meaning) and form [24; 50], or it may be characterized by
its purpose and form [40; 28; 12; 51]. Swales [40] argues that the communicative rationale of a genre
will constrain content, positioning and form. In addition to content and form, purpose and function
have become most relevant to modern genre analysis [8].
Digital genres are often characterized by its content, form and functionality as the medium have
functional capabilities [35; 32]. Content refers to themes and topics [35], whereas form refers to
observable physical and linguistic features [50]. Functionality refers to capabilities available through
the new media [35; 36]. According to Shepherd and Watters [35], functionality cannot be discussed
without reference to the goal or purpose of the genre. The purpose must be viewed from the
perspective of the author of the site and thus, the functionality incorporated into the site is driven by
this purpose.
It is the content that gives a genre its uniqueness and this is important when discussing genres like
online newspapers [3]. When looking at a web page from a genre perspective, all page elements can be
seen as content items. Each content element is presented in one or several forms, is sometimes
requiring functionality and is positioned on the web page [21]. Genre specific content elements for the
online newspaper genre have been identified by Eriksen and Ihlström [15], e.g. the news stream, the
archives and the headlines. The news stream presents recent stories ordered by publishing time. The
main criterion for arranging articles is the time stamp of the article. Neither broadcast nor print media
applies this form of organization. The archive has also become a part of the online newspapers. This
construct allows users to search or browse historical content. Headlines are the presentation of stories
that are valued as most interesting, these are presented at the front page of the online newspapers.
Genre rules
A specific genre consists of a set of genre rules that are recognized and enacted by human actors in
their use of the genre [50]. Yates and Orlikowski describe genre rules as social rules that “…associate
appropriate elements of form and substance with certain recurrent situations” [50, p. 302]. Genre rules
may operate tacitly, through socialized or habitual use of the communicative form and substance, or
they may be codified by an individual or body into specific standards designed to regulate the form
and substance of communication…genre rules may also be standardized by being embedded in a
medium…” [50, p. 303]. The genre rules of online newspapers are enacted by both publishers and
audience in the daily production and consumption of news.
Genre change
Genres are produced, reproduced and changed over time [50]. They are altered both deliberately
and in response to conditions in the situation and community using the genre [5]. When changes to
established genres become widely shared among members of a community, genre variants or even new
genres may emerge. Such changes may be triggered by the introduction of a new communication
medium [50; 51]. Yates and Sumner [52] describe how technology first has a disruptive force on
genre, but that in use, the documents changed in response to social needs and technological
opportunity, towards a generic form. According to Erickson [16] change of media may even speed up
the evolution of a genre. One example of a genre enabled by new media is the online newspaper genre.

4 A genre perspective on online newspaper front page design
Genre awareness
Genre awareness is a notion of how users and designers reduce the complexity of the web [15].
Rather than learning and recognizing each and every site, users categorize sites as belonging to
distinctive genres. For designers, genre awareness is a tool to target audiences. When establishing a
new site with a purpose similar to existing sites, the genre characteristics may be copied and refined to
reflect resemblance to an existing genre, i.e. designers may want to draw on already accepted genres
that correspond to their design purpose [12]. It is imperative for designers of new media to have a good
understanding of who are using the media and how they are using it [1]. It is also essential to be aware
of the users’ expectations of the genre [12].
The idea of genre as an interface metaphor was discussed by Toms and Cambell [43], who means
that a document provides various cues that enable users to quickly grasp its form, purpose and
functionality. They argue that a user can recognize, even before reading the content, e.g. a newspaper
through the appearance of headlines and columns. Watters, et al., [49] discussed the newspaper
metaphor for electronic use, which was preferred by the users according to their results. This so called
broadsheet metaphor is also described as “a newspaper layout of text and photographs…integrated into
a coherent presentation (p.151)” by Shepherd, et al. [37].
To gain good quality in design different approaches could be taken, e.g. the use of guidelines.
Guidelines could be used as checklists against a design [39; 27; 33; 26]. Genre theory helps to look at
the design problems from a different perspective than prevailing usability engineering strategies [8].
3. Research Approach
In order to obtain a comprehensive understanding of online newspaper design, we have conducted a
qualitative study. We have conducted interviews with management, designers and editors-in chief at
the nine Swedish newspapers with online editions and interviewed and usability tested 153 of their
users, in order to derive genre rules based on publishers design purpose and audience recognition and
use. We have also analysed the front pages of the nine online newspapers in 2001 and again in 2003 to
identify genre characteristics and to study design changes of the genre. The analysis of 2001 was also
used to interpret the statements of the respondents, whereas the 2003 analysis showed what features
had gained dominance two years later.
There are three reasons for why it is relevant to study the publishers, the online newspapers and
their audience in Sweden, to gain more knowledge of the design and use of online newspapers. First,
Sweden had the fourth largest newspaper consumption per capita in the world in 2002, only Norway,
Japan and Finland had larger consumption [46]. Second , most Swedish daily newspapers have online
editions today [18]. Third, reading newspapers online was the forth activity (after e-mail, surfing and
banking) regarding time spent on the net in Sweden in 2002 [53].
We define online newspapers, as the online editions of daily newspapers, not branch specific or
other newspapers. To get a good representation of Swedish newspapers we contacted Citygate, which
is an association of newspapers located from Halmstad in the south of Sweden to Umeå in the north.
Nine of their ten newspaper members agreed to participate, giving us access to their audience as well,
resulting in a sample that is representative for Sweden. The URL:s, the daily average circulation of the

C. Ihlström and J. Lundberg
5
printed newspaper, unique visitors online per day and the number of staff at their Internet divisions
from 2001 are presented in table 1. In the remainder of the paper we refer to the newspapers by their
numbers in table 1.
Table 1 The online newspapers in the study
Nr Online newspaper Average circ. Unique visitors Staff
1 www.ekuriren.se 33.000 3500 6
2 www.hallandsposten.se 32.500 2400 4-5
3 www.nerikes.se 69.000 8000 5
4 www.nt.se 49.900 4000 3-4
5 www.stonline.se 38.600 1100 2-3
6 www.unt.se 62.100 9000 6-7
7 www.vlt.se 47.600 7000 4-5
8 www.vk.se 45.000 10000 6
9 www.corren.se 67.300 5000 8
3.1. Web Page Analysis
We have conducted a web page analysis in 2001 and again in 2003 in order to identify genre
characteristics and to study design changes of the online newspaper genre. To study design change we
have used a repertoire of page elements consisting of elements from general web design, i.e.
navigation and search elements and genre specific elements, i.e. the news stream, the headlines and
the archives. Advertisements, finally, were included in this analysis, since they cover a lot of space in
the printed edition, and to a great extent is what currently brings revenue to the online edition [20; 7].
All page elements in the repertoire can be seen as content elements, which are presented in one or
several forms and are sometimes requiring functionality and are positioned on the web page. All page
elements were analysed according to this view. The focus of our web page analysis was on the front
pages since it is the most complex page, containing all page elements. We used a column and section
grid to position the elements on the front page (see figure 1), and we have applied this grid on paper 3
to further clarify this system (see figure 2).
The results from the first web page analysis and the audience response was reported back to the
newspapers at the end of 2001. The forms and position of all page elements of the front pages from
2001 and 2003 are presented in appendix A.

Citations
More filters
Proceedings ArticleDOI
20 Jan 2009
TL;DR: The theoretical contribution is to show how Actor Network Theory (ANT) can be used in combination with other theories - in this case genre theory - to analyze emergent value networks in the e-newspaper genre.
Abstract: We have studied a two-year project aiming at exploring the potentials of the e-newspaper, i.e. a news service published with e-paper technology. Different actors have interests in this process, e.g. newspaper publishers, device producers, readers and advertisers. These actors are forming value networks by negotiations of interests and positions. The contribution of the paper is twofold: firstly we show how the value network created around e-newspaper is dependent on the convergence of different actors and their interests; secondly our theoretical contribution is to show how Actor Network Theory (ANT) can be used in combination with other theories - in this case genre theory - to analyze emergent value networks. ANT captures the general process of how the value network takes form, while genre theory captures the domain specific context of e-newspapers, and how this structures negotiations between different stakeholders who want to form the e-newspaper genre.

7 citations


Cites background from "Design recommendations for online n..."

  • ...the e-newspaper genre, also requires a new value network supporting the genre [6]....

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01 Jan 2008
TL;DR: In this article, a combination of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and Genre Theory can constitute a theoretical framework for understanding how digital genres evolve, which can capture the process of how a genre takes form in negotiations with different stakeholders.
Abstract: In this paper we argue that a combination of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and Genre Theory can constitute a theoretical framework for understanding how digital genres evolve. Genre theory states that genres evolve over time through reciprocal interaction between institutionalized practices and individual action; that they develop from actors’ responses to recurrent situations, and are shaped around characteristics as content, form, functionality and purpose. Genres emerge out of practice and at the same time they shape that practice. While genre theory can describe the characteristics of a genre, it cannot handle the process of how a genre is formed and what powers and forces are involved in this shaping process. In order to address this problem, several authors have incorporated structuration theory into genre analysis. However, structuration theory can only catch these constitutional processes of genre in a very broad manner. As a genre is evolving and stabilizing over time in interplay with different actors, it goes beyond what is possible to explain only by means of structuration theory. Instead, ANT could work as a tool to capture the process of how a genre takes form in negotiations with different stakeholders. In this paper we discuss how genre theory and ANT can be combined in a framework for analyzing emerging genres. We apply this theoretical framework on an e-newspaper project that embodies a new genre in the making. We will here show how evolving genre characteristics are developed, formed and stabilized in a negotiation and struggle between the involved actors when they translate their interests in ways that finally are resulting in a new genre.

5 citations


Cites background from "Design recommendations for online n..."

  • ...The combination of computing devices and the Internet has broadened the genre research agenda beyond organizational communication to include digital genres (Shepherd and Watters, 1998; Crowston and Williams, 2000; Ihlström and Lundberg, 2004, Ihlström and Henfridsson, 2005; Breure, 2001)....

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"Design recommendations for online n..." refers methods in this paper

  • ...Guidelines could be used as checklists against a design [39; 27; 33; 26]....

    [...]