Influence of the Internet

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Introduction The internet and the emergence of new technologies have changed the profession of journalism (Breunade, 2010; Cerf, 2006). The internet still continues to evolve and has provided new dimensions in journalism. The growth of the internet is on the infancy stage and there are more important changes that are expected in future (Atton & Hamilton, 2008). The emergence of the internet and technology has greatly changed the concept of journalism. The main strengths of the internet is that it provides unlimited amount of time, unlimited amount of space and is available worldwide.in print journalism space is limited whereas in radio and television the amount of time is limited (Cerf, 2006). Today Individuals rely on the internet in obtaining a wide variety of information. It is estimated that over a billion people access the internet regularly (Cerf, 2006). China has around 300 million internet users whereas the US has around 220 million internet users (Cerf, 2006). The PEW estimates that average American citizen spends about 10 hours a week on the internet whereas their Chinese counterparts spend about fifteen hours per week on the internet (Cerf, 2006). Today it is estimated that there are about a million bloggers (Bryeunade, 2010). The rapidly evolving internet has led to the increased distribution of audio and video content. Technologies such as RSS have enabled people to receive updates on webpages that are of interest. The wide range of information available on the internet has raised questions regarding whether people will be able to absorb and deal with this information (Pavlik, 2001). However, people do not need to read and absorb all the information that is available on the internet, in fact most readers select areas that are of interest to them. Information that has been put on the internet is easily archived and can be retrieved with ease
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