`Interactive' Online Journalism at English-Language Web Newspapers in Asia

Abstract

Using measures of socioeconomic development, this benchmark study of online journalism attempts to account for differences in the degree of interactivity associated with English-language Web newspapers in Asia. Two hypotheses are tested. The first, that the interactivity of online newspapers will decrease from the region's economically developed centre through to its least developed periphery; and second, that this association between economic development and `quality' of online newspapers also will be reflected in subregional centre-periphery divisions. Based on a content analysis of 44 Asian English-language online newspapers, neither hypothesis is robustly supported. The implications of these findings for understanding the emergence of this new form of journalistic communication and for dependency theory more generally are discussed.