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A Descriptive study of Interactive, Multimedia Features of
Online News Portal
Dr. Bharat Dhiman, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication & Media
Technology, J.C. Bose University of Science and Technology, YMCA, Faridabad, Haryana,
India
Interactive features are one of the most important aspects of the news portals that can allow
active participation of the audience. Interactive features are the add-ons that are available on
news portals in which users can easily access these add-ons .There are lot of add-ons interactive
features available on news portals. Users really enjoyed its service. The interactive features
include News, Photographs, Videos, Email, Bulletin board, Chat rooms, Polls survey and many
more. The Jagran.com news portal has a capacity for interactivity features that allows users to
participate in a survey, voting, winning prizes and watching videos.
This research paper used descriptive analysis of Dainik Jagran news portals discusses the use of
interactive features available on it. The News portal was analyzed with respect to three
dimensions: Information collection, exchanging of Information and Personalization. Bulletin
boards, chat rooms, polls/surveys, E-mail functions, were among the operational tools of
interactivity used in this study. The study finds that which interactive feature was more used by
the audience.
Keywords – Online News Portal, Jagran.com, Interactive Features, Add-ons, Convergence, New
Media
Introduction to Dainik Jagran - The Jagran Prakashan Ltd. is one of the India’s leading media
house, with its focus area includes Magazines, Newspapers, Outdoor, Internet, and Mobile Value
Added Services. Dainik Jagran is the successful brand in the media today. In today’s media
world, where consumers have an ample of choices, Dainik Jagran is one of the big brand in the
media industry that is the choice of millions of Indians and foreigners as they start their day.
With a total readership of 5.59 crore, it has been the largest read daily newspaper of India for the
last consecutive 21 rounds of the Indian Readership Survey (IRS).With total of 37 editions, It
covers almost 11 states of India. It has also been declared by the World Association of
Newspapers (WAN) as the largest read daily in the world. Not just the largest read, Dainik
Jagran has also been voted as the Most Credible Source of News in a BBC-Reuters survey.
Dainik Jagran.com News Portal - The Dainikjagran.com which is the largest online Hindi
news portal in the media today. Jagran.com has entered into a strategic alliance with Yahoo India
to launch a co-branded news portal site. Jagran.com is the largest online news portal in India
Abstract
Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4235012
with over 60 million page views/month with 37 pages per visitor and a unique user base of 1.6
million per month .It covers almost every news genre with latest gossips and photographs. It is
bilingual news portal so the natizens can access news feed in both the language i.e. Hindi and
English.
Jagran.com Interactive Features –
1. Bulletin boards
2. Chat rooms
3. Polls/surveys
4. E-mail functions
5. News
6. Photographs
7. Videos
8. Search Option
9. Live Chat
10. Comments/ Feedback
Introduction to Convergence – Convergence may be defined as the communication means,
modes and processes that can be characterized as one of the important changes in media
technology in the present scenario. The recent developments such as interactivity, fragmentation
convergence of the audience have implications not only for exchanging of ideas but also for
social relations and maintain better relationship. The active participation of audience in public
discussion, social websites, news portals as the reflection of new public arena. Audience can
easily share their views, ideas, opinion on news portals regarding news, photographs, videos and
other interactive features.
Definition of Interactivity - Interactivity has been defined as a natural feature of interpersonal
communication and it has been applied to ICTs, such as the Internet, News portals. This research
paper focuses on mediated interactivity rather than interpersonal interactive communication. But,
in this mediated environment, both user-to-user interactive communication and user-to-medium
are taken.
As Gunter (2003: 146) defined interactivity and how it works is fundamental for understanding
the likely success of Internet services. Interactivity is a critical concept in computer-mediated
communication since it is seen as the essential advantage of the medium (Pavlik1996, van Dijk
2000, Rafaeli and Sudweeks 1997, Durlak 1987, Sundar et al. 2003). However, different
researchers have used different conceptualizations of interactivity. Ideally, an interactive system
is illustrated by an immediate involvement between the human and the system, or, as Lippman
puts it, as a working technical definition, by “mutual and simultaneous activity on the part of
both participants, usually working toward some goal, but not necessarily.
Online News Portal and Interactivity - The Dainik Jagran news portal provides more and more
content in a free of cost. Audiences are very much aware of these online add-ons features that are
available on news portal. You can surf, upload and download the content in bilingual language
i.e. Hindi and English. This stuff you can only find on news portal not the print paper.
Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4235012
Hyperlink is the most important and simplest level of interactivity, which allows audience to
move from point to point within the same page, within the same site or to external sites and
pages. Online news portal offers not only content but also in various advanced features. These
interactive features of news portal will allow building new relationships with each other.
Research Question –
RQ 1. From where this news portal collecting the information?
RQ 2. To what extent is the news portal utilizing personalization features?
Methodology - The research on the news portal interactive features such as e-mail, chat rooms,
which are unique to the news portal. In terms of methodology, the study examines online news
portals by using content analysis. The unit of analysis was the news portal which include home
page, URL, http etc. News portal features was analyzed like and forums, polls, e-mail, bulletin
boards and personalization option. The News portal was analyzed with respect to three
dimensions: Information collection, exchanging of Information and Personalization.
Findings - To pursue the interactivity options, two variables were considered. Email and Search
function were observed on the news portal. To measure the extent of use of the exchange of
information dimension, two variables were observed message boards and feedback option at the
end of the news/ article. The option of writing feedbacks at the end of news or a news piece,
comments written by active users were observed only in top most stories of the day. The total 58
feedback was counted on Salman khan tubelight film poster/teaser. It is very important to note
that in this study, websites were analyzed and observed only for one time.
Dimension
Interactive Features
Frequency
Total
Exchange
Feedback function at
the end of article
58
58
Exchange
Message Board
12
12
Exchange
Email Search
30
30
Total
F+MsG+Email
100
100
Personalization feature was observed as Feedback function at the end of article, email search and
message board. Jagran.com is not provided specific community information or event calendar at
all. Personalization feature was more used than other available features on news portal.
Conclusion – Personalization interactivity feature on Dainik Jagran news portal is one of the
major features that challenge traditional journalism. Through personalization feature, active users
can feel themselves as a part of the community of the portal and also share their experiences with
Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4235012
other users. This study shows that it was the very important option on Jagran.com. Thus, further
researches will definitely work on what users do with the available interactive features will help
understand how these features may affect social dynamics of life.
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Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4235012