Wk 3: What is Text?

Listening to Skye Doherty’s lecture this week, I learnt a lot about the benefits and uses of text in relation to journalism. Both online and on paper, the written word is vital, and mastery of it is increasingly important. I also learnt that text makes up almost every part of a news story, each part having its own style and purpose. These included the headline, photo captions and break out boxes. Reflecting on this, I could see that text is not just important to journalism, but almost every part of our lives.

In western society, text is everywhere. It helps us follow directions, derive meaning, identify objects and keep in contact with people. Since its simple beginnings tens of thousands of years ago, the written word has become increasingly important to human life. From hieroglyphs to neon lights we really have come a long way (see images below). Now it is almost impossible to go through a day without reading something; perhaps this is why those in news and advertising have to be such talented wordsmiths. This applies especially to those involved in online news.

Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs (left) and Times Square New York (right) show how text has changed over the milenia

Text used in online news has different purposes again. I leant in this lecture that headlines in a newspaper may differ completely from those used on the internet. This has to do with search engines, as text on the internet is “searchable”. Because of this, online headlines must include a lot more key words than those in newspapers. 

This feature of online journalism has a lot to do with metadata. Metadata is used to facilitate and improve the retrieval of information (Dr.W Cathro - Metadata: An Overview). Usually when we search for a specific item on the internet, we are presented with tens of thousands of results. Metadata, tags and links are being improved every day to make it easier to find what you want online. 

I find it pretty interesting that text, the most important part of newspapers and online news sites, is used so differently in each media. Perhaps this is the beginning of their separation. Text is never going to disappear from our lives, but the way we use it is rapidly changing. Print and online news are making those changes now so that eventually, both can operate side by side successfully.