Question of the Week 11/07

I think that other forms of media are changing to be more like the Web because since the Web is becomming so popular and people are becomming more and more used to Web writing, they don't have the attention spans to be able to sit down and read a longer article in a newspaper or magazine. People want everything they read to be scannable like Web writing, and so magazines have increasingly made sub-headlines to articles. Book chapters now have sub-headings breaking down and categorizing information.

However, as popular as the Web becomes, there are some things in other forms of media that haven't yet changed to be more like the Web. We may see a series of shorter newspaper articles, for example, but a headlining story will most likely be a full article written in newspaper form, not broken down into categories written so that it can be scanned through.

Newspaper articles may have simpler language to make it easier to read, but I think magazines still experiment with language and use different words, because they have more specified audiences who editors know what language they understand. Varied language in magazines is what keeps the articles interesting and keeps people drawn in.

Although some writing may change to be more like Web writing, other forms of media writing ultimately still have a distinct way they are written.