Communications and Media

Reading a newspaper is no longer a physical activity where one touches the newspaper and flips over the pages. (Thiel, 1998) As the other activities, reading a newspaper is also a digital activity now due to which the newspaper industry has evolved completely. (Electronic newspapers, 2002)  It was before 1995 that world had not imagined that a newspaper could be read on the digital medium but then this new concept was laid down to the world. America Online had the first newspaper service which was initiated in May 1992 by Chicago Tribune. In 1995 a complete concept of going online and reading the newspaper was developed through CNN as the worldwide engine. This new concept was then well appreciated by the world as in April 2001 American trade journal Editor  Publisher Interactive had a total of registered 12,878 online news mediums in their database. (Krumsvik, 2006)

Today almost every newspaper has its E-paper available in most of the countries. It is believed by the researchers that in the future the printed newspapers will be replaced by their electronic versions especially in case of the young readers (Waal, Lauf,  Schnbach, 2005). This has not only increased the viewership of the newspaper but has also increased its revenues from advertisements as now people with their respective target audience that is there on the internet have started giving their advertisements on the newspapers as well. Other than that companies are also paying the newspapers huge amounts in order to advertise on the webpage through selling the companies the banners and other advertising options on the website. (Farhi, 2008)

Differences between the e-papers
The newspapers that I have selected to analyze are The Washington Post, The Boston Globe and The New York Times. All the three newspapers are the most popular ones among their competitors. The E- papers of the three newspapers have been used in order to compare them. The comparison or the similarities would be based on the various factors like the layout, easy access, easy navigation and other important aspects of an E- newspaper. The newspapers have been analyzed by viewing the websites of the respective newspapers of which the sources are available in the references.

Layout
The Boston Globe and The New York times have a pretty reader friendly layout as they have a complete summary or an abstract of the whole newspaper on the first page of the electronic edition. This makes it convenient for the reader to access any article that he wants as it is right there on the front page. The New York Times is more efficient than The Boston Globe is this respect because it also provides the page number and the section number of the article very precisely on the first page of the electronic edition. This makes The New York Times more convenient according to me because then a person could refer to the news in the conventional edition as the location is described very precisely over there.

The Washington Post is not reader friendly in this aspect. It does not specify the name of the articles in the newspapers on its first page. This may make it difficult for the reader to look for a particular article as he has to go through each of the page to find the article.

The Boston Globe and The New York times also have the picture of the print edition on the front page of the electronic edition of the newspaper while The Washington Post does not have it right it the front you have to go to another webpage to access it, though the link to the print preview is available on the front page of the e- edition.

Accessibility
The easiest access of all the E- editions is that of The New York Times where the button for E- edition is right there in front and the person does not have to search for it. The website does not even require any sort of subscriptions of signing up for anything at all. It can be accessed by anyone very easily. The Boston Globe is also easily accessible as it does not require any subscriptions but on its website it does not say anywhere about the electronic edition and thus a person has to look for it a little bit. This makes it a little less easily accessible than The New York Times. Out of all the three, The Washington Post is accessed with the most hassle because in order to view the electronic edition a person has to subscribe for it and then is able to view the paper. Subscription required the input of personal data and a one page form has to be filled up by the viewer.

Easy Navigation
Navigating from one page to another is not difficult in all three of them as there is an option in all three newspapers to go to any page without going back to the homepage. All the three have a bar which lists down the other pages in the newspaper and it is easy to go from one page to another.

The difference in the three papers is the way in which the bar that lists the pages is presented. The Washington Post has the name of all of its pages listed down. The Boston Globe and The New York Times are pretty similar in this case as they have the name of the pages listed along with that a few articles are also listed along with a little preview of the story and the picture. The only difference is that in The New York Times the two things are listed together while in the other they are there at different places.

Advertisements
The Boston Globe has the most advertising on its webpage. It has a branded banner along with more advertising columns. The New York Times has not branded any banner and has only placed advertisements that are related to various sections of the newspaper itself. The Washington Post is in the middle of the two as it does have advertisements over the webpage but the amount is very less as compared to The Boston Globe.

Similarity with the printed version
Out of three newspaper I feel that the electronic version of  The New York Times looks more like its printed version because it has all the news articles in the straight column as in case of the printed newspaper. Not only that but I also feel that the text is also quiet similar to the text of printed newspaper which makes it look like that.

Ownership
Looking at the factors that have been assessed we can find a lot of similarities in The New York Times and The Boston Globe. We can say that the two newspapers are almost on the same lines as they follow the similar rules. Both prefer a reader friendly outlook as we can find the names of the article and the name of the section there on the front page in the electronic edition.

Other than that the complete page layout for the two is pretty similar as mentioned above. Both have a preview of the first page of the newspaper which is also there on the front page of the webpage. If we observe the two WebPages very closely one more similarity that will be found is that both of these newspapers have an easy access to the previous editions of the last 7 days. The most similar thing is that the two websites present this option in the same manner. Looking at the similarities above one can safely assume that the two newspapers are from the same owners.

Print Vs. Electronic Edition
In order to compare the print and the electronic edition I have selected is The Boston Globe. I did not find much of the difference in the two as the most important things that is the news stories are the same. The format is of coarse different and that is because of the medium itself.

The most important difference is in the advertisements that are there on both the mediums. While going through the print version I found out that some of the advertisements are different in print from that of the electronic edition.

I prefer the printed version because I find it easier to read. Though the e- version is accessible anywhere but still I personally feel that the face that since all the stories and articles are right there in front of me so I find the printed version easier to read. I can very easily decide on what to read and can switch to a different article by only flipping a page.

Though the literature says that the online version gives the reader a more control but I am still of the opinion that the print version is better as in a conventional newspaper all the articles are visible so a person could easily find out what he or she is looking for. The electronic version has issues regarding the download time which makes it a hassle to read.

Another important factor that I feel makes print more favorable for me is the whole experience of reading the newspaper. Reading a newspaper to me has always referred to as a paper which has to be read in order to get the news. The whole digital aspect has taken out this whole experience of touching the newspaper and flipping its pages physically. Thus, to me it does not give a complete experience of reading a newspaper. To me reading a computer screen for hours and hours is very difficult and it causes a lot of sprain to my eyes. This serves as another very important factor for choosing conventional newspaper over its electronic edition.

Conclusion
The conventional newspaper has found its counterpart which is its electronic version. Since the first online newspaper in 1995 today almost every newspaper is available in the cyber space. (zer) The most important need of digitalization of the newspaper was because of reducing the geographical boundaries in the readership of the newspapers.

The three very important newspapers in the US have been analyzed which are The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post. The differences and the similarities among the three have been analyzed. In my opinion, print version of the newspaper is still better than the electronic version as the e-version lacks the whole newspaper reading experience. Though the Electronic version has many advantages over the conventional paper but I still prefer reading the conventional newspaper.