THE IMPORTANCE OF THE INTERNET FOR JOURNALISTIC RESEARCH

Abstract

This article reports how journalists integrate online research procedures into the overall research process, how they assess the Internet and search engines, and how highly developed their competences are in using search engines. Observation of 235 journalists from newspaper, radio, television and online media platforms provide the data base. To this is added a written survey of 601 journalists and the participation of 48 journalists in an experiment. The observation phase revealed that journalists employ computer-aided research tools more frequently but for shorter periods than classical, non-computer-aided research tools. The telephone remains the most important research tool. Search engines, in particular Google, dominate the source-determination process and thereby have a decisive influence on the entire course of journalists’ research. The survey showed that a high level of journalistic attention focused on only a few Internet offerings. The surveyed journalists exhibit a pragmatic attitude towards the Internet and search engines as a research tool, even though they are aware of possible problems. The search-engine experiment revealed that journalists only achieved moderate success in their research. The greatest search success was achieved by journalists who entered the search terms in a thought-out manner and combined them logically. Overall, the study shows that computer-aided research supplements but does not displace classical research. Instead, the Internet gains in significance in those tasks which it helps to fulfil more efficiently. However, the increased self-referentiality in journalism and the “Google-ization” of research represent a cause for concern.

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