Examining an emergent medium: A case study of the development of the TimesUnion.com (New York)

"Revolutionary," "evolutionary," and "new" are typically used to describe major technological advances in communicative media. When viewed in a historical context, media appear to be evolving as emergent forms remove the temporal and spatial constraints of older, legacy media. Implicit in this evolutionary model of communicative media is the premise that an emergent form will improve upon its predecessors, and this development or emergence occurs through the influence of one form upon another.; This dissertation is a study of the invention process of a new medium. It looks closely at the relationship of an emergent and a legacy form as a way to better understand both how a new medium evolves and how one medium influences another. The process whereby an established institution, the American newspaper, converts its print product to a digital form offers rhetoricians, social and political scientists, and journalism and media scholars, a rare opportunity to examine precisely how this occurs. The process is a combination of both revolutionary and evolutionary forces, which collectively result in novel social practices, institutions, and systems.; This dissertation is a historical case study of the development of the TimesUnion.com, the online edition of the Albany Times Union newspaper, located in Albany, N.Y. It provides the context and explains the constitutive choices individuals made in response to rhetorical exigencies: such decisions to shift conventional practices, which ultimately culminate in a new media form.; The study focuses specifically on the TimesUnion.com "Web-First" news strategy, inaugurated during the coverage of the famous Amadou Diallo case (Diallo was an unarmed African immigrant shot to death by four New York City Police officers in 1999) as a way to identify the evolutionary characteristics of online newspapers. The Times Union "Web-first" strategy is a harbinger of future journalism practices. Their strategy for reporting on the Diallo case provides important insights into the future of journalism in America. Solutions to the structural problems of American media will come as hierarchical, linear, and chronological news and information delivery systems become networked and decentralized.