Delivering Ireland

Much of the rhetoric surrounding new media has centred on their potential democratically to reform public communications through more diverse, more open and more accountable journalism and debate. This article details a study of Irish online news, based on observation of a variety of websites and on a series of interviews with journalists, to test whether this potential has begun to be realized and whether practitioners share such a vision. Enhancement of content, interactivity, immediacy, increased depth and new ways of telling stories are some of the possibilities that are present, or at least latent, in online news. But these possibilities are seldom or only partially brought to fruit. What emerges from observation of online news in action, and from discussions with those providing its content, is far from a revolution in media, but an expression of the cautious continuity, if not inertia, of media content and practice.