From the layman's point of view watching new on television or reading a copy of the rocky mountain news is no different from reading a news blog on msnbc or cnn. It is no doubt easy to fall in this category of people if you do not consider the vital factors almost required to make a good read out of a blog. In this post I would take a look at who what when where and why as cues one needs to place at the back of their minds to fully grasp the stories told on this website or other similar ones.
To explain the five Ws above I would take for example searching on a State of the Union Address speech by the President of the United States.When I enter the cnn website the first thing I would be looking for is at least an image of the President delivering an address on a platform or a title with the phrase "state of the union" in it. This will explain the what a reader will need to have at the back of their mind about the site.
The Who will be the president of the United States about whom the reader expects to see the state of the union address. And also the who will be the person presenting to the reader the news for example the journalist. Each new website has its own style of presenting but for cnn it is not unusual if you expect to see a video of the state of the union address or the full manuscript.
The when of the website a reader will need to be aware of is the timing of the broadcasts. Old stories are constantly giving way for new ones and if you expect to see what happened a week ago on the first page of the blog you may be totally disappointed. When the news is happening or at least a day old you can expect to see it but when it is more that a couple days old the only hope to get access to the story you may be looking for will be to look in the archives.
The why defines the category of the website or ganre of writing this websites falls under. In this case it is a website of news broadcasting so the style of writing or presentation is totally different from say a movie,comedy or shoes and apparell website. This will explain why a reader should understand that this particular website is not going to provide to you anything outside of what it ganre such as comedy or car auction. This is not entirely true because some news websites or blogs provide commercials for many products including cars.
The where is the most fundamental context of the website in serving the purpose for which it was built. In this instance provide news to readers or people who prefer to listen or watch.In fact this is tied up to the previous point in that it offers direction to location of the website, its affiliates or sub ganres if you will.
There are many items that may not fit for a newpaper article well but are more ideal for a blog.
It not just the technology of moving images that may push for such choice of a web page over a tradional paper but the need to provide intimate details of an event that may not be possible with a stationary image on a piece of paper. This provides answer to the question that the main thing blogs are conerned with transcends limitations imposed by broadcast on a radio station or television.
This is not intended to prove the fact that blogs are superior to tradional newpapers but to explain that the cultural context of a web page are much more easily conceivable than a traditional paper.
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