ABSTRACT
Anticipating the capabilities of tomorrow’s broadband delivery technology, numerous efforts are being made at building digital news delivery platforms that exploit the technology and serve the news related information needs of readers, journalists and advertisers. These advanced functionalities according to Watters et al. (1998: 144) include: the generation of personal editions with customized news content; the integration of news media, such as video clips, live television and radio newscasts, photographs, news text, full support documents; hyperlinks based on media versions, timelines, structure and content; interactive advertisements and advertisements targeted to specific market groups; two-way interaction, such as letters to the editor, requests for supplemental documentation; and dynamic access to rapidly changing data, such as that now available at specific Web sites for sports, financial data and the weather. Dynamic assembly and presentation allows readers to specify the ‘look and feel’ of the news display format. The broadsheet or newspaper format seems to support activities of browsing or skimming while the single document display may be more suitable to satisfying an articulated information task.
