Beyond Modernism

After reviewing the emergence of online newspapers, we offer observations based on historical and design analyses of major US sites, supplemented top-down by innovators in the Americas and Europe and bottom-up by sites serving one locality in Massachusetts. Despite losing typical print elements, the late modern designs emphasize text, with minimal multimedia content, especially on local sites. Instead of giving outlet to news handicraft, corporate and promotional models abound. The web flattens hierarchies, exposes content sources, and deforms journalistic authority by disarticulating the audience. Historical parallels include 19th-century flows of design innovation from advertising into news and of informational tasks from reporting into photojournalism. Newspapers can coexist with the internet while surrendering some tasks, such as archiving factual background, becoming instead more analytical advocates.