The digital broadsheet: an evolving genre

The digital version of the newspaper broadsheet is the basis of an evolving genre capable of supporting more than just the presentation of electronic news. The phrase, "broadsheet genre", refers to both the broadsheet form and the characteristics of the content presented in this form. When the content is electronic news, it is not unlike a print newspaper supplemented with video and radio components. The broadsheet genre provides a consistent familiar metaphor for reading news and is very appropriate for the integrated presentation of text, photographs, video clips, and advertisements. It also supports the ludenic or play theory of newsreading in which there is no well-articulated information need and the process of reading the news is as important as the information gained. We suggest that the genre also supports a ludenic or play theory of Internet access, i.e., the browsing, skimming, or surfing of largely temporary data, such as that culled from the Internet, in which the process of access is as important as the information gained. As an example of the broadsheet genre for Internet access, a prototype has been developed as a "net-top" for integrated access to e-mail, newsgroups, Web searching by agents, video display, and Internet phone and radio.