| Abstract |
This
paper investigates how online news media report an international air disaster
in which two planes crashed in mid-air above Germany. The paper has two
parts. The first part puts forward a "reporting model on tragedy" which
depicts how traditional media cover tragic news. The second part of the
paper examines how the coverage of the online news media on the German airplane
crash differs from this model. A content analysis of the news coverage by
31 news websites was conducted. The news website samples come from five
regions including the United States, United Kingdom, Taiwan, Mainland China
and Hong Kong. Findings indicate that online news reporting on tragedy does
not differ much from the traditional mass media in terms of news content
and news perspective. However, online news media offer greater immediacy
and better multimedia presentation format. It is interesting to find that
among the five regions, websites in China offer the largest amount of news
stories on the accident, indicating that Chinese online news media are aggressive
in reporting international news.
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