Based on the research conducted, several general conclusions were reached:

1. The Content manager of Austin360 is largely aware of the audience and their habits.
2. The Content manager of Austin360 admits the audience has a greater impact on the production of Austin360 than in traditional news media.
3. Content manager of Austin360 values business ethical principles as well as journalistic ethical principles.
4. The Content manager of Austin360 thinks his job requires a greater understanding of journalism ethics than comparable jobs in traditional media.

The establishment of these perspectives is important, as they illustrate that the respondent does indeed think in terms of function within society in a way that is consistent with traditional social responsibility. The difference between the responses recorded here and the traditional philosophical writings on the subject can be summed up with the balancing between the commitment to the social responsibility principle in the face of market forces. It is clear that online portals do not have the freedom to rely only on their duty to the public interest. The introduction of investors as stakeholder in the publications’ performance adds an economic responsibility to the journalistic process that is not emphasized by the traditional literature.

Another interesting finding of this study is the manner of ethical dialogue recorded during the initial interview. Although the terms "ethical" and "responsibility" appeared several times throughout the professional discourse, their use appears to denote a reactionary element consistent with Gay Tuchman’s defensive ritual. Most of the dialogue concerning ethics is presented as justification for the solutions and choices made, as if engaging the medium’s critics in a debate. This observation is not especially surprising, as the literature indicated that when journalists address issues of ethical norms, they tend to do so in practical terms. The defensive ritual occurs because the issue is generally addressed by the professional in response to external criticism.

In addition to the general conclusions, four key ethical areas of ethical concern were identified for portal sites:

1. Clear distinctions between advertising and information content
2. The presentation of information gathered from external sites
3. The impact of the audience on content selection
4. Issues dealing with audience-generated material

The establishment of these issues was important to the study, as it allows future research a list of issues to examine in the real-world environment of the production area.

The findings of this study also have interesting potential impacts on the rise of public journalism as a proposed solution to the decline of the public sphere. A future study should review this literature to determine whether a "virtual" flavor of public journalism might ease the criticism concerning the breach in objectivity. A virtual public journalism might shift the control of the public sphere back into the hands of the audience members, by allowing journalists to provide the forum and the subject matter (though related stories collected in an easily accessible archive) without actively participating in the critical discussions themselves.

A New Model

By drawing on the perspective featured in the current study, a new model displaying the interactions and influence of various forces on the news production process was created. Based loosely on McManus’ (1994) model of market-driven journalism, this model has several distinct differences (see Figure1). Perhaps most importantly, the consumer interaction of monetary contribution has been removed, since the current business model of the WWW has failed to produce a viable method of getting customers to pay for access to specific Web sites. Instead, Customers pay the portals with their attention, and in particular, the level of salience they assign to a particular story by clicking on the link leading to it. This interaction allows the portal to track the number of page views and unique users to sell to advertisers.

The service provided by the portal site is to an extent gift of information, but this paper seems to indicate that in an information-rich environment, it is the salience, or organization of information into digestible packets, that is prized by the audience.

Third, the interpersonal influences were added, since email and other forms of mediated interpersonal communication play a stronger role in information distribution than ever before. Future portal studies should focus on this element, to discover how much traffic is generated by a virtual two-step flow involving one user sending a secondary user a link back to the primary source. If a portal could find a way to leverage this secondary interaction, it could increase the total number of eyeballs per page using potentially cheap activities.

Finally, all references to the public were removed (or where appropriate, changed to "audience") from the interactions. The rationale for this change was that the public that resides on the Web or Internet is a vague, immeasurable entity. This paper built its case on the premise that a public still exists (denoted by the inclusion of the public as an extension of the media audience). However, the literature and other information gathered seems to indicate that portal sites are not as concerned with public impact as the potential impact on a specific audience.

It is hoped that future studies will pick up on this issue and attempt to fill in some of the gaping holes in the literature addressing the journalistic element of online portals and Web sites in general.

Figure 1: A Model of Online Portal News Influences

Abstract

Introduction and Literature Review

Case Study

Conclusions

Reference List