Seven characteristics defining online news formats:Towards a typology of online news and live blogs.

Abstract

Whilst live blogs have become an established part of the news media ecology, corresponding research is still in its infancy, especially that which examines the crucial question of sourcing practices. In this article we address some of the gaps in previous research by conducting a large comparative sourcing analysis of three UK news organisations - BBC News, the Guardian, and the Telegraph - that all regularly publish live blogs. We analyse sourcing practices across three different genres of live blogging and corresponding online news articles, through a comparative analysis of events broadly categorised as crisis, politics, and sport. Our findings suggest that there are some aspects of sourcing practices that are distinct to live blogs, such as directly embedding social media. However, when it comes to polyvocality (the diversity of who gets to speak), genre-specific journalism norms seem to account for more than the affordances of the platform itself and only in sport live blogs are demotic voices habitually included. Based on these findings we develop a typology of live blogging and online news articles, that documents the nuances in sourcing patterns across different news formats and genres, and provide a theoretical basis for future research in this field.