Videotex News: A Content Analysis of Three Videotex Services and Their Companion Newspapers

Videotex' was initially called an "electronic newspaper," and news was envisioned as a video form of its print predecessor, with full text of an unlimited number of publications available.* With the advent of commercial systems in the United States in the last few years, that notion has changed. These services have shown videotex news to look very little like newspaper news.) While those in the news industry realize that videotex is not a threat to their survival as first claimed, the potential of the medium to deliver news has not been i g n ~ r e d . ~ Videotex technology has often been said capable of providing diverse news faster than newspapers; however, few studies have been found that measure these contentions. This study compares videotex and newspapers by measuring the news content of three major videotex services and the news available in each system's companion newspaper during one-week samples. The systems used for the study are