Digital Documents, Work and Technology,
`three cases of Internet News Publishing
`
`Lars Bo Eriksen
`Göteborg University
`lars@adb.gu.se
`
`Abstract
`The introduction of new information technology can be
`a rationale for reconsidering what digital products
`organisations produce and reconsidering how work
`should be organised around the production of artefacts.
`In this article a pilot study covering three World Wide
`Web publishing cases is presented. Through a holistic
`view on documents, work and technology the three
`cases are described. The conclusion of the article is that
`the promises of digital documents are far from realised
`in the organisations studied and that the products
`provided are traditionally founded. This can be related to
`a number of factors but the little involvement of
`technical
`skilled people,
`inappropriate
`tools and
`uncertainty on how WWW technology
`can be
`integrated with the existing organisation are factors
`contributing to the weak implementation of digital
`documents.
`
`1. Introduction
`
`The promise of digital documents is not that of an
`end to paper, but the promise of new tools that enable
`humans to collaborate in new ways [1], that enables
`consumers to get the information they actually need
`[2], and tools that enables people to change the
`organisation of the way they produce, store and retrieve
`information in documents [3]. The Internet is the first
`infrastructure that enable these possibilities at a large
`scale. In this article the production of digital documents
`for the World Wide Web in
`three Scandinavian
`newspaper organisations is presented and discussed.
`the
`Newspapers are
`important
`institutions
`in
`western world of today. As sources of authentication
`they play a central role in the writing of modern world
`
`history. With a global computer network, the Internet
`or its successor, some expect this to change within a
`short period of time (cf. [4, 5]). Newspapers are turning
`to the WWW for several reasons. One possibility is the
`use of it to gather information material and do research
`with the purpose of writing articles, another kind of
`use is the provision of a WWW service, in other words
`some sort of digital newspaper. This last approach has
`gained much attention in the newspaper business and
`estimates spring 96 were that world wide more than
`800 newspapers provide such services [6].
`Introducing new technology into organisations can
`be a rationale for change [7]. This article documents a
`pilot study of three World Wide Web publishing cases,
`the aim of the study being to investigate how WWW
`technology is used to produce digital documents and
`how work is organised in relation to the documents
`produced. In this article we focus on the introduction
`World Wide Web publishing technology. The WWW
`can also be used for information retrieval but is not the
`focus of our study. As described by Blomberg, the
`same technology can have different impact on work in
`different settings[8], for which reason we have picked
`three newspapers to study.
`
`2. Research Background
`
`The digital documents produced, stored and retrieved
`in computer networks are not simply one-to-one
`analogue to prints on paper. Fundamental differences
`separate conventional documents from their digital
`counterpart. With the diffusion of computer networks
`these differences are becoming apparent to more and
`more people. Paper documents are typically limited to
`text and still images, while digital documents can
`contain sound and live images arranged in hypertext
`format (i.e. hypermedia). Where paper documents are
`static entities, digital documents can be “virtual”, they
`can be generated on demand to suit individuals needs,
`the document content dependent on when and where
`
`Proceedings of The Thirtieth Annual Hawwaii International Conference
`on System Sciences ISBN 0-8186-7862-3/97 $17.00 © 1997 IEEE
`1060-3425/97 $10.00 (c) 1997 IEEE
`
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`they are generated, the document being generated from
`underlying
`sources
`[3,9]. Having
`escaped
`the
`limitations of print on paper authors are no longer in
`complete control of what the readers view, making it
`harder to figure out what to write in the first place [1,
`4, 10].
`With the current use of Internet and World Wide
`Web, there is a discrepancy between technical potential
`and actual use. The World Wide Web protocols offer
`the change to go beyond static documents. The Web
`language Hypertext Mark-up Language (HTML) was
`initially designed as a language for communication
`over the Internet, deliberately designed so simple that
`computers as well as humans could generate it [11].
`What we see today is that not only has HTML been
`accepted as a language of communication, but it has
`also become a de facto language in which many
`documents are encoded on the web. As a result, a large
`proportion of the World Wide Web has become a vast
`collection of documents in the classic sense: static and
`even preformatted documents. In this way the potential
`of Internet protocols as program interfaces is not used,
`the Internet solely being a distribution channel. Rice,
`Gruber and others argue that Web browser should not
`be seen as state of the art software for Internet use, but
`instead as neat and attractive interfaces for much more
`powerful applications yet to come [12].
`In their article [4] Levy and Marshall discusses
`digital documents as related to work and technology in
`libraries. Based on work by Yates [13] they establish
`and describe dependencies and
`relations between
`documents, work and technology. In this article we use
`the framework of Levy and Marshall to discuss how
`web technology relates to and influences documents and
`work in the three organisations studied. Any new
`digital document (library) product will be based on an
`enabling technology. In
`the cases of
`the three
`newspapers this enabling technology is WWW.
`The research approach to collect and analyse data for
`this article and the motivation for the data presentation
`is described in section 3. Section 4 presents the three
`cases. The cross case findings are summarised in
`section 5. Section 6 contains a discussion of the
`findings and section 7 concludes the article.
`
`3. Research Method
`
`The research presented in this article was mainly
`based on qualitative studies carried out
`in
`three
`Scandinavian newspapers. The aim of the study was to
`contribute to a clearer understanding of what challenges
`newspapers and other organisations currently face.
`From this desire to understand the impact of a new
`
`medium in such organisations, an applied research
`project was established [14].
`the study were
`The organisations chosen for
`purposefully selected: All are early starters with
`Internet. The studies were carried out in three different
`countries: Denmark, Sweden and Norway. The
`diffusion of Internet has taken different pace in these
`three countries, our impression (although not clear)
`being that Denmark lags behind in terms of number of
`users and in terms of experience in organisations with
`using the Internet. This factor is expected to contribute
`to higher variation between the selected organisations.
`With the terms of Patton this way of selecting cases
`can be described as intensity sampling [14].
`Within each organisation a chain sampling strategy
`was used to identify people with knowledge and skills
`of interest for the study. The unit of analysis were
`individuals. Some of these were interviewed (tape
`recorded and transcribed) while others were overtly
`observed in their everyday work. Parts of the interviews
`could not be taped, since we also talked about the
`topics when the interviewees showed us around in the
`newspaper organisations.
`The interviews carried out were all based on an
`interview guide approach [14]. On the one hand we had
`a desire to get a holistic view of the organisation and
`the production of the Internet edition, but on the other
`hand little was known in advance about what was
`actually going on. The interview guide was used to
`ensure that we got the information we needed in the
`interviews, but it did not determine the sequence or
`structure of the interview. Our aim was to allow new
`topics of interest to emerge as the interviews went on.
`A wide range of questions were discussed covering
`design aspects, user interaction, current status related to
`the future expectations, the impacts on everyday work
`processes, the production of articles and tools used in
`this process. The results reported,
`i.e.
`the case
`descriptions and the similarities and differences between
`the papers, have been derived in a bottom up approach.
`In two of the three organisations we observed the
`process that
`lead to the production of the Internet
`edition. In both organisations this observation was
`done within a four hour period. We also studied the
`Web services of the three papers. As a research method
`this can most appropriately be described as unobtrusive
`measures [15], although in principle our access to the
`Web services could be logged and hence was not purely
`unobtrusive.
`Through an inductive analysis [14] data has been
`analysed to yield the results presented in this article.
`
`Proceedings of The Thirtieth Annual Hawwaii International Conference
`on System Sciences ISBN 0-8186-7862-3/97 $17.00 © 1997 IEEE
`1060-3425/97 $10.00 (c) 1997 IEEE
`
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`4. Cases
`
`In this section the three cases are presented. For
`each case a brief history of the Internet publishing
`service is described to answer question on how and why
`the services were initiated. For each case we then
`presents aspects of products, technology and work from
`a perspective based on work by [13] and [4]. The digital
`product each newspaper provide is described at a general
`level. The Internet and WWW in itself is considered the
`enabling technology, but for the organisations to
`publish on WWW additional technology must be used
`to the produce the material for the Internet edition. The
`organisation of work in relation to the product and the
`technology is also described for each case. Finally each
`case description presents the rationale of the services in
`order to give a situational context for the design of the
`services.
`
`4.1 Jyllandsposten
`
`In number of printed newspapers Jyllandsposten
`(JP) currently is circulated in 170.000 copies and is
`thereby the largest newspaper in print in Denmark.
`Through an aggressive market campaign and an
`increased focus on journalistic competence (an increase
`in employees) this status has been achieved over the
`last two years. In comparison with other Danish
`newspapers, Jyllandsposten has the largest journalistic
`staff in Denmark and corespondents around the world.
`The focus on journalistic competence has meant that
`less attention has been given to technical aspects of
`newspaper production. The paper, although its name
`refers to a specific part of the country, is distributed and
`read in the whole country. At the time of the
`interviewing, Jyllandsposten was
`the only major
`newspaper in Denmark providing a Internet service.
`Jyllandsposten became visible on the Internet in the
`summer of 1995. Initially the motivation for going on
`the net, was the establishment of a "computer club", a
`service that provided Internet access and software to
`subscribers of the printed newspaper. This evolved
`through autumn 95 into a service which provided news
`in brief. In November 1995 it was decided that
`Jyllandsposten should have a substantial service on the
`Internet. The 15th of January 1996 “Internetavisen
`Jyllands-Posten” was launched. The initiative was the
`work of three individuals involved in the establishment
`of the first service. During autumn 1995 these three
`people, one journalist, one with a Master's degree in
`media science and a student, designed a full blown
`Internet news service and got upper management
`approval for their idea. Through the use of a consulting
`firm specialised in Internet services, the requirements
`
`for the service were balanced with the technical
`possibilities.
`
`Product
`“Internetavisen Jyllandsposten” mainly consisted of
`replicated articles from the printed newspaper. There
`was little use of pictures in conjunction with the
`articles. A search facility enables registered users to
`search all material published in the Internet edition
`since it was established. Beyond these facilities, the
`“JP Computer Club” offered downloadable software.
`Registered users had full access to all articles, where
`non registered users had access to a few news articles
`without any depth. The fee for using the service was
`1,800 DKK a year, a price similar to the subscription
`rate of the printed newspaper. The access control
`mechanism was in the process of establishment when
`this study was carried out.
`The layout and design of the service reflected the
`desire to duplicate the printed newspaper. The Internet
`edition was separated into section and within each
`section a number of articles was available through an
`overview bar that was designed with the aim of
`allowing flexible navigation through the service.
`
`Technology
`The technical system used for the production of the
`printed newspaper was a dedicated text-based interface
`system ATEX introduced in
`the early 80'es. At
`Jyllands-Posten articles for the printed paper were
`arranged manually. The articles were printed out on
`transparent film and by hand arranged on pages that
`eventually become
`the master
`from which
`the
`newspaper was printed. In comparison with many other
`newspapers
`in Denmark
`the
`technical
`level of
`sophistication was low at Jyllands-Posten.
`When an article leaves the hands of the journalist a
`copy is spooled into a separate directory of the ATEX
`system. Within this directory a dedicated software
`program
`automatically
`converts
`the ATEX
`representation to HTML, the language of the Web.
`When all articles have been converted and checked for
`major errors the HTML representations are transferred
`by file transfer protocol to the Web server, situated
`outside the organisation at an access provider, for
`further processing. At the server additional software
`indexes the articles and arranges them in a file structure
`that allows consumers
`to navigate
`through
`the
`material.
`
`Proceedings of The Thirtieth Annual Hawwaii International Conference
`on System Sciences ISBN 0-8186-7862-3/97 $17.00 © 1997 IEEE
`1060-3425/97 $10.00 (c) 1997 IEEE
`
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`Work
`The Internet publishing division at Jyllandsposten
`was formed as a project group with three members. The
`editor of the printed papers IT section was responsible
`for the journalistic issues of using of the Internet and
`in charge of the project. Besides working with the
`Internet edition he was involved with the production of
`the IT section for the regular paper. The media expert
`was responsible for further development of the service
`and for attracting advertisers. The third participant in
`the project was responsible for the daily routine of
`creating HTML versions of the articles and transferring
`the articles to the Web server. None of these people had
`any specific technical skills. The initiative for new
`products was largely the responsibility of these three
`people. By entering into a dialogue with the consulting
`firm, the software needed for realising new designs is
`developed.
`The use of the Internet for distributing the contents
`of the newspaper did not mean any changes in the work
`of people not active in the Internet publishing division.
`Being based on the printed paper, the main task was
`that of transforming the representation of the articles in
`ATEX to HTML, this process being highly automated
`through the use of dedicated software. Although the
`process was supposed to be fully automated, some
`minor mistakes did occur from time to time, and the
`staff at Jyllands-Posten had to manually edit the HTML
`files in order to make the text appear in a proper way.
`Further the articles needed to be categorised manually
`for the indexing software running at the server to place
`the articles correctly into the digital paper.
`
`Rationales
`Two distinct rationales existed at Jyllandsposten for
`having an Internet service. The first and initiating
`rationale was
`that of experimenting with
`the
`technology. There was a feeling of a need to be up-to-
`date with the new technology. A combination of future
`fear and fascination of the technology lead to the
`establishment of the WWW service, as expressed:
`
`important for a
`is
`“No doubt what so ever, it
`newspaper to be on the Internet. Because it will have
`an impact, in one way or the other ... without anyone
`knowing exactly how
`it will make a difference,
`therefore you have to be [on the Internet]”
`
` P.N., Jyllands-Posten
`
`Jyllandsposten had a clearly stated short term goal
`of earning money on the service. Although experience
`show that this can lead to a dramatical drop in number
`of consumers (cf. [16]) two arguments are stated in
`
`service.
`the
`on
`earning money
`favour of
`Jyllandsposten is specialised with regard of news
`concerning Denmark, no other Web service in the
`world1 offers the same coverage of events and sports in
`Denmark. Further by being written in Danish it is
`aimed at people who prefer this language, thereby
`being specialised with regard of
`language. The
`statement being that if not economical sound from the
`beginning, the service never will be.
`
`Jyllandsposten
`
`URL:
`Age of service when
`studied
`Estimated accesses a day
`Staff
`Main digital Product
`
`Product Technology
`
`Production Technology
`
`Work
`
`Rationale for design of
`service
`
`Internetavisen
`Jyllandsposten
`http:www.jp.dk
`3 month
`
`4000 people/day
`3 part time employee
`Electronic copies of articles
`from printed newspaper
`External filebased
`Webserver
`Conversion scripts,
`html-editors.
`Development and
`duplication
`distribution to people not
`having access to printed
`edition.
`
`Figure 1. Characteristics of Jyllandspostens service.
`
`4.2 Göteborgsposten
`
`Göteborgsposten (GP) is a regional newspaper
`covering the city of Göteborg and the region of the
`Sweden in which Göteborg is situated. GP is circulated
`in 270,000 copies a day. The journalistic strength of
`GP is the extensive covering of events in the local area
`and sports. The paper is what journalist defines as a
`regional market maker, an
`information
`source
`extensively covering the region.
`the world
`Göteborg city was
`the host of
`championships in athletics in August 1995. In order to
`provide information for participants and the public, an
`intensive use of WWW as a channel of information on
`the games and the city was established. One of the
`organisations involved in this was Göteborgsposten. It
`seemed obvious to the management to use the WWW
`for distribution of news as well and 14. of august 1995
`“GP Direkt” was in existence. In October 1995 the
`
`1 When the studies were carried out, Jyllandsposten was
`the only major Danish newspaper publishing on the
`Internet.
`
`Proceedings of The Thirtieth Annual Hawwaii International Conference
`on System Sciences ISBN 0-8186-7862-3/97 $17.00 © 1997 IEEE
`1060-3425/97 $10.00 (c) 1997 IEEE
`
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`service was heavily redesigned, the amount of content
`increased and the “fact databases” were established. In
`November “GP Direkt” started providing updated news
`on the Internet throughout the day. In November a
`classified adds service DAGS2 was started as the result
`of a joint venture between SISU3 and Göteborgsposten,
`Sydsvenska Dagbladet4 and Dagens Nyheter. Through
`December 95 to February 96 additional service on film
`reviews and more “fact databases” were initiated.
`
`Product
`The “GP Direkt” service offered selected articles
`from the printed newspaper. These were kept on the
`Web server for a week and then discarded. Besides the
`mirror of the printed paper a variety of information was
`available. Lists of film and CD reviews could be
`accessed, these list were updated regularly and formed
`an ever growing archive of reviews. As an experiment
`aimed at schools, a series of “fact databases” were
`available. These “databases” cover such events as the
`war in ex-Yugoslavia. The material in the databases
`was mainly articles from “GP Direct”, but in order to
`make a consistent source of information, additional
`documents and text have been added. The “GP Direkt”
`is free of charge.
`
`Technology
`The printed newspaper was produced by the use
`“Quark Express” a high-tech graphical interface system.
`Through
`the use of Macintosh Computers and
`graphical displays, the newspaper was edited and
`arranged directly on screen. Images and text was
`presented in a “WYSIWYG” manner
`that enables
`Göteborgsposten to print out the master for the printed
`newspaper directly from “Quark Express”. The process
`of producing the Internet edition is in itself an add-on
`to Quark Express.
`Two software programs written specifically for
`Göteborgsposten allows the staff to extract articles
`from Quark Express. One program
`is used
`in
`conjunction with Quark Express to extract and convert
`articles. The second program assembles the separation
`articles
`into a hyperlinked structure of HTML
`documents arranged in a file system.
`The product provided was based on the use of an
`external placed Webserver to which files were uploaded
`on a daily basis.
`
`2 http://dags.gp.se
`3 Swedish Institute for System Development, established
`1984, URL: http://www.sisu.se
`4 http://www.sds.se
`
`Work
`Five people were, in various degrees, working with
`the production and maintenance of the Internet service.
`The manager in charge of the Internet service was
`responsible
`for electronic media
`and
`electronic
`publishing. Besides working with the Internet edition,
`he had several other tasks at Göteborgsposten to attend.
`Two journalists were the “core” of the Internet edition.
`They were responsible for maintaining a consistent set
`of pages and also worked on the establishment and
`development of ”fact databases”. And they were
`responsible for continuously updating the content of
`the service throughout the day as new stories arrived
`from their newsbrooker, a Swedish equivalent to
`Reuters. Besides this they updated the different archives
`on music,
`film and Internet material. Another
`journalist is responsible for developing new uses of the
`Internet, with a special concern to technical issues. The
`last of the five is responsible for developing the
`commercial side of the product and selling space for
`Internet commercials.
`The production of the Internet edition contained
`much trivial work. The aim of the Internet staff was to
`be “on the net” around 9.30 in the morning. To reach
`this goal they started at 8 o'clock by deciding what
`articles to put on the Internet. This was done by going
`through a printed paper, taking notes of which articles
`to put on the net. When the selection process was over,
`one hour was spent on the extraction of the material
`from Quark Express
`into preliminary HTML
`documents. This was done by the use of the add-on for
`Quark Express, that enabled a journalist to click on
`text blocks in a particular order, thereby specifying
`which text was the header, which was the author and
`which was the main body of text for a particular article.
`The preliminary HTML files were named in a particular
`way to indicate their contents. The add-on unit could
`not fully transform “Quark Express” representation to
`HTML, therefore the journalists had to check and to
`some extent rewrite the HTML extracts in order for
`them to conform to the HTML syntax. When all
`articles had been extracted, the files were transferred to a
`PC, where a script processed the files. This script
`added navigational links to all documents and generates
`indexes for the Internet edition. This new set of HTML
`documents was then transferred back to the Macintosh,
`from where it was transferred to the server situated at an
`access provider. Thereby the Internet edition became
`available to the rest of the world. By transferring the
`articles the process was far from over. Over the next
`two to three hours the product is polished as bugs are
`reported (often by users) and further by using HTML
`editors to insert images and additional headers.
`In an attempt to utilise the Web as a resource one
`journalist each morning appended links to articles when
`
`Proceedings of The Thirtieth Annual Hawwaii International Conference
`on System Sciences ISBN 0-8186-7862-3/97 $17.00 © 1997 IEEE
`1060-3425/97 $10.00 (c) 1997 IEEE
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`he knew of WWW resources that related to an article.
`Through the use of his own archive and the use of
`public WWW search mechanisms he tried to find
`interesting links to append to the articles.
`
`Rationale
`At Göteborgsposten the editor in charge was very
`carefully with not expressing thoughts on what the
`Internet Edition would evolve
`into. The main
`arguments for being on the Internet in this organisation
`was to experiment with the technology, to learn by
`using the technology. With regard of the product the
`aim was to use the Internet for products that either were
`not fit for the printed edition or to expensive to produce
`by using traditional paper, for this reason the “fact
`bases” had been developed.
`
`Göteborgsposten:
`URL:
`Age of
`studied
`Estimated accesses a day
`Staff
`
`service when
`
`Main digital product
`
`Product technology
`
`Production technology
`Work
`
`Rationale for design
`
`GP direkt
`http://www.gp.se
`7 month
`
`3000 people/day
`3 part time employee, 2
`full time
`Electronic copy of selected
`articles
`from
`printed
`newspaper
`and Web-
`tailored article bases.
`External
`filebased
`Webserver
`scripts for conversion
`Development, maintenance
`and duplication
`Experiment with
`technology
`
`the
`
`Figure 2. Characteristics of Göteborgspostens service.
`
`4.3 Dagbladet
`
`Dagbladet is Norway's third largest paper, with an
`average circulation of 209,000 copies in 1995. It is
`published in Norway's capital Oslo. Dagbladet is a
`tabloid paper, with few subscribers and many copies
`sold over counters in kiosks, cafes and shops. It was
`founded in 1869 as a liberal, democratic paper, strongly
`supporting the opposition fighting for parliamentarism
`in Norway. It became associated with the liberal party
`Venstre. Since 1977 Dagbladet
`is politically
`independent, with no formal
`ties
`to any party.
`Dagbladet is in heavy competition another tabloid,
`Verdens Gang - VG, which is Norway's largest paper
`with a circulation of 371,000 in 1995. Both Dagbladet
`and VG lost readers in 1995, whereas Aftenposten (a
`
`morning paper with a circulation of 282,000) gained
`readers.
`The service was launched the 8th of March 1995,
`then the first such service in Norway. The idea of
`making a WWW version had been mentioned very
`informally after the paper got connected to Internet in
`the autumn of 1994, but this did no lead to any
`decision. In February 1995 Dagbladet was contacted by
`an access provider, Scandinavia Online, which was
`going to launch its services in March the same year.
`They offered Dagbladet free “access out” for one half
`year, if Dagbladet provided the material. The idea was
`supported by the editor-in-chief, and also by the IT-
`department, and the decision to accept the offer was
`made at the editor meeting. Within 14 days decisions
`were made and the service was established. The decision
`was motivated by the paper's slogan “Alltid foran”
`(always first). Clearly, there was a positive attitude to
`trying out new technology.
`
`Product
`Dagbladet's service on the World Wide Web had an
`opening page pretty much like the newspaper itself. It
`appeared well-designed, with
`lay-out and colours
`similar to
`the newspaper. “Dagbladet
`:på nettet”
`contained a selection of the day's articles, in general
`with the same textual content, but sometimes with
`shorter headings. Previous articles in some categories
`(editorials,
`theatre and film reviews, etc.) were
`available. There was a considerable amount of non-
`news material, and there were even facilities whereby
`readers could enter
`into discussion groups, give
`feedback to the editors, place ads in the electronic paper
`(the service was free), etc. All the interactive services
`required the user to register with a user-name and
`password chosen at the user's discretion. To register,
`users also answered a few questions about sex, age,
`profession and educational background. "Dagbladet :på
`nettet" also contained some commercial advertisements.
`These did not cover the costs of the service, however.
`“Dagbladet :på nettet” being the oldest service was
`also the most diversified service. The users were
`prompted with a variety of different choices when
`entering the Dagbladet web service. With regard of
`layout and content the service was aimed at the casual
`male user aged 305. The interface which has been
`redesigned several times was complex and hard to
`overlook, a challenge for the user, one can not from the
`pages overlook the service and its content. The service
`had turned into an entertainment mall, where the user
`
`5 This user profile is known from the users who register
`with the service in order to use classified services and
`discussion group facilities
`
`Proceedings of The Thirtieth Annual Hawwaii International Conference
`on System Sciences ISBN 0-8186-7862-3/97 $17.00 © 1997 IEEE
`1060-3425/97 $10.00 (c) 1997 IEEE
`
`Twitter-Google Exhibit 1024
`Page 6 of 10
`
`

`

`through interaction could spend time with or without
`any specific purpose.
`
`Technology
`Dagbladet was produced with a typesetting system
`from CCI in Århus, Denmark. Text for “Dagbladet :på
`nettet” is captured by copying the files transmitted to
`the printing house. In this way it is guaranteed that
`“Dagbladet :på nettet” is based on exactly the same text
`as Dagbladet itself. CCI has developed a generator of
`HTML, and it is expected to switch to this generator
`soon in order to reduce mark-up overhead.
`As for the two other cases the service was based on
`a external filebased server to which HTML-files were
`uploaded. The production of the material for the
`Internet Edition was based on a script that supported
`the processes of conversion from the type setting
`system.
`
`Work
` The production of the Internet edition involved
`people from several parts of the organisation. In the
`beginning “Dagbladet
`:på nettet” was produced by
`people from the IT-department and from the news desk,
`but already in May an experienced journalist was
`assigned to the project. In the summer of 95 one of the
`senior personnel in IT joined the project. In September
`an experienced administrator was appointed project
`leader and in January 1996 another journalist joined the
`project. In addition one and a half man year of work by
`editorial assistants are assigned to the project.
`The daily routine of duplication began at six
`o’clock in the morning where an editorial would start
`the production of the Internet newsservice. The first
`hour was spent on extracting all the articles from the
`text system and converting them to a local variant of
`HTML. Tools were used for this, but mistakes often
`arise and had to be corrected manually. Then he or she
`will leafed through the day's paper and select articles for
`“Dagbladet :på nettet”. Some were given, like the
`editorials, the chronicle, some columns and some
`reviews, while other news were picked out quite
`selectively. The selection process
`leads
`to an
`automatically generated front page.
`
`Rationale
`At Dagbladet, having been on the Web for more
`than a year, the purpose of the Internet edition had
`become
`to advertise for
`the printed newspaper.
`Charging money from the users was not considered an
`option currently, too many other newspapers are on the
`market and offers free services similar to that of
`
`Dagbladet. The printed paper, of which most issues are
`read during lunch break, have few regular subscribers
`and is read as much for its entertainment value, the aim
`is to reflect this in the service.
`
`dagbladet
`URL:
`Age of service
`when studied
`Estimated
`accesses a day
`Staff
`Main digital
`Product
`
`Product
`Technology
`Production
`technology
`Work
`
`Rationale for
`design
`
`dagbladet: på nettet
`http://www.sol.no/dagbladet
`12 month
`
`5000 people/day
`
`4 part time employee, 3 full time
`Electronic copies of few articles
`from printed newspaper and games,
`discussion & reviews.
`External filebased Webserver
`
`Scriptbased conversion
`
`Development, maintenance
`duplication
`Advertise the printed edition
`
`and
`
`Figure 5. Characteristics of dagbladets service.
`
`5. Cross Case Summary
`
`Overall, the three newspapers studied were in an
`experimental phase, using the World Wide Web with
`the primary purpose of experimenting with technology
`rather than to provide a specific digital product. One
`reason for the presence of these newspapers on the
`Internet is the belief that the Internet technology
`eventually will have an impact on the way people and
`organisations
`exchange
`information. Newspaper
`organisation