The ‘Mediatization’ of the Internet

European online newspapers are “subordinate and subservient to print newspapers, and therefore still in search of their own online role,” but they have a great influence on the Internet. An interesting analysis recently published by Gazette magazine concludes that there is both an “internetization” of traditional media and a “mediatization” of the Internet going on. But while the former is having less impact, the latter “threatens making the Internet a monological space.”

This is one of the main conclusions of the “Impacts of the Internet on Newspapers in Europe” issue, which puts together different scholarly investigations.

So, it seems that although Internet interactivity puts the basis for more users’ participation in the making of news, the dominance of traditional media makes the end result more a monological than a dialogic space. One may think that “mediatization” of the Internet also would mean that the professional norms of the old media would apply for the good. But some studies of this issue show that it is not always related, because publishers hire “inexperienced, low-paid journalists” who cannot cope with so much work and exigency.