2004 Annual Report - Online Content Analysis

How multilayered are Internet stories? Do they take advantage of the unlimited space and ability to use multimedia components?

In the Project's first study of the Internet, in 2000, fully a third of the political stories studied, including 100 percent of those on AOL and MSNBC, had no audio or visual links. Links even to external sites or additional information were minimal.

Today, the Internet has become more multifunctional and links to background information in particular have become commonplace. Sites still vary widely, however, and some kinds of multimedia links are still not the norm.

Overall:

• Three-quarters of stories contained links to archival or background information.

• A third of the stories contained at least one link to video.

• A third also contained links to still photos or photo galleries.

• And a third of stories offered links to other sites.

• Audio links, however, were almost nonexistent.

The one thing all the sites seemed to do consistently was to link to their own archives so users could read past stories to get background on events. The proverbial newspaper "morgue" or clipping library is now more readily available to the public. These background links, moreover, were not restricted to old stories. They also included online-only features such as summaries of candidate positions, image galleries, profiles of people in the news and timelines of events.

When it came to multimedia elements, such as video or galleries of still photos, there were wide differences among sites.

Multimedia and Interactivity on the Internet
Percent of Stories With Link Present, By Site

Site	Video	Audio	Photo	Graphic	Archive	Chat/Feedback
Avg. Overall	32%	2	36	16	74	40
AOL	17%	0	6	8	82	97
CBS News	62%	3	39	4	92	7
CNN	44%	4	32	28	60	1
Fox	27%	7	61	42	72	6
LVRJ	1%	1	1	6	45	0
MSNBC	52%	0	44	26	89	99
NYTimes	15%	10	24	9	72	25
Yahoo	29%	1	73	1	79	99

In general, broadcast sites were the most likely to have links to videos or still photos in their lead stories. Cable sites were more likely to have map or graphic links. Internet-only sites as well as MSNBC.com were more likely to have a place for user feedback.

Sites also varied widely in how often they linked to outside sources. Almost every story on Yahoo has an external link, as did more than half of the stories at MSNBC.com (58 percent) and Foxnews.com (51 percent). Only 6 percent of NYT.com lead stories had external links, 13 percent at CBS News, and 12 percent at AOL.

How much opportunity did sites offer users to react to stories? In all, 40 percent of stories studied had some way for users to offer feedback or participate in online discussions about the topic. But the findings varied widely and had no correlation to the kinds of stories, the nature of the parent organization or the popularity of the site.