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Comic Strips

Comic strips

:This article is about the sequential art form. See also Daily strip and Sunday strip. For the British comedy group, see The Comic Strip. A comic strip is a short strip or sequence of drawings, telling a story. Drawn by a cartoonist, they are published on a recurring basis (usually daily or weekly) in newspapers or on the Internet. In the UK and Europe they are also published within comic magazines, with a strip's story sometimes continuing over three pages or more. They usually communicate to the reader via speech balloons. As the name implies, they can be humorous (as in "gag-a-day" strips like Beetle Bailey, Hi & Lois, or Hagar the Horrible) but not by necessity. Serious soap-opera continuity strips (like Judge Parker or Little Orphan Annie) have serious story lines in serial form. They are, however, nonetheless known as "comics" – though the term "sequential art", coined by cartoonist Will Eisner, is becoming increasingly popular.

Origins

In America, the great popularity of comics sprang from the newspaper war between Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst. The Little Bears was the first American comic with recurring characters; The Yellow Kid the first color comic, part of the first Sunday comic section in 1897 and the source of the term "yellow journalism"); Mutt and Jeff the first daily comic strip, first appearing in 1907. The comic strip, in a manner of speaking, began in 1865 in Germany with Max and Moritz, a strip about two trouble-making boys. It was more a series of severely moralistic tales in the vein of German children's stories like "Struwwelpeter" ("Shockheaded Peter"): in one, the boys, after perpetrating some mischief, are tossed into a sack of grain, run through a mill, and consumed by a flock of geese. Max and Moritz did provide an inspiration for German immigrant Rudolph Dirks, leading to the debut of The Katzenjammer Kids in 1897, probably the first comic strip in the modern sense of the term. Familiar comic-strip iconography such as stars for pain, speech and thought balloons, and sawing logs for snoring originated in Dirks' strip. Hugely popular, Katzenjammer Kids was responsible for one of the first comic-strip copyright ownership suits in the history of the medium. When Dirks left Hearst for the promise of a better salary under Pulitzer (unusual, since cartoonists regularly deserted Pulitzer for Hearst) Hearst in a highly unusual court decision retained the rights to the name "Katzenjammer Kids", while creator Dirks retained the rights to the characters. Hearst promptly hired a cartoonist named Harold Knerr to draw his own version of the strip. Dirks renamed his version Hans and Fritz (later, The Captain and The Kids). Thus, two versions distributed by rival syndicates graced the comics pages for decades. Dirks' version, eventually distributed by United Feature Syndicate, ran until 1979. Hundreds of comic strips followed, with many running for decades.

Conventions and genres

Most comic strip characters stay the same age throughout the strip's life, but in strips like Lynn Johnston's award-winning For Better or For Worse characters age. The first strip to feature aging characters was Gasoline Alley. The history of comic strips also includes series that are not humorous, but tell an ongoing dramatic story. Examples include Prince Valiant, Dick Tracy, Mary Worth, Modesty Blaise and Tarzan. Sometimes these are spin-offs from comic books, for example Superman, Batman, and The Amazing Spider-Man. All the comic strips mentioned so far in this article are centered on human beings, but a number of strips have also included animals as main characters. Some are non-verbal (Marmaduke), some have verbal thoughts but aren't understood by humans, (Garfield, Snoopy in Peanuts), and some can converse with humans (Get Fuzzy). Other strips have centered entirely on animals, as in Pogo or Donald Duck. Gary Larson's The Far Side was unique, as there were no central characters. Instead The Far Side used a wide variety of characters such as humans, monsters, aliens, chickens, cows, worms, amoebas and more. Wiley Miller not only mixes human, animal and fantasy characters, he does several different comic strip continuities under one umbrella title, Non Sequitur. Newspaper comic strips come in two formats, daily strips and Sunday strips. Daily strips usually run Monday through Saturday, and are usually in black and white. Sunday strips are much larger and are usually in color.

Social and political influence

The comics have long held a distorted mirror to contemporary society, and almost from the beginning have been used for political or social commentary. This ranged from the staunch conservative values of Little Orphan Annie to the unabashed liberalism of Doonesbury. The aforementioned Pogo used animals to particularly devastating effect, caricaturing many prominent politicians of the day as animal denizens of Pogo's Okeefenokee Swamp. In a fearless move, Pogo's creator Walt Kelly took on Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, caricaturing him as a bobcat named Simple J. Malarkey, a megalomaniac bent on taking over the characters' birdwatching club and rooting out all undesirables. Kelly also defended the medium against possible government regulation in the McCarthy era. At a time when comic books were coming under fire for supposed sexual, violent, and subversive content, Kelly feared the same would happen to comic strips. Going before the congressional subcommittee, he proceeded to charm the members with his drawings and the force of his personality. The comic strip was safe for satire. Some comic strips, such as Doonesbury and Boondocks, are often printed on the editorial or op-ed page rather than the comics page, because of their regular political commentary. Conservatives have long warred against Doonesbury, and were recently successful in convincing a major printer of Sunday comics sections to refuse to print the strip (see Media bias in the United States). In another case, Dilbert is sometimes found in the business section of a newspaper instead because of the strip's commentary about office politics. The world's longest comic strip is 88.9 metres long and on display at Trafalgar Square as part of the London Comedy Festival. The record was previously 81 metres and held in Florida. The London Cartoon Strip was created by fifteen of Britain's best known cartoonists and depicts the history of London. The Reuben, named for cartoonist Rube Goldberg, is the most prestigious award for U.S. comic strip artists. Reuben awards are presented annually by the National Cartoonists' Society (NCS). Today's comic-strip artists, with the help of the NCS, enthusiastically promote the medium, which is considered to be in decline due to fewer markets and ever-shrinking newspaper space. One particularly humorous example of such promotional efforts is the Great Comic Strip Switcheroonie, held on April Fool's Day, 1997. For that day, dozens of prominent comic-strip artists took over each other's strips. Garfield’s Jim Davis, for example, switched with Blondie’s Stan Drake, while Scott Adams (Dilbert) traded strips with Bil Keane (The Family Circus). Even the United States Postal Service got into the act, issuing a series of commemorative stamps marking the comic-strip centennial in 1996.

Internet comics

The advent of the World Wide Web in the 1990s led to an explosion of amateur webcomics, comic strips created solely for Web sites. Webcomics differ from published comic strips, in that anyone can start his own comic strip and publish it on the Web; there is no longer any need to for a creator to meet the approval of a publisher or syndicate. Currently there are hundreds of webcomics, most of which are low-quality and sporadically updated. However, a number of webcomics have endured, and the best webcomics rival their newspaper and magazine counterparts in terms of quality and quantity. Megatokyo, Penny Arcade, PvP, Sluggy Freelance, and User Friendly are considered to be among the best of the webcomics. The majority of traditional newspaper comic strips now have some Internet presence. Syndicates often provide archives of recent strips on their websites. Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, started a trend by including his e-mail address in each strip.

Related articles


- List of comic strips
- Comic book
- List of movies based on comic strips
- Webcomic
- Yonkoma - Japanese comic strip

External links


- [http://forums.delphiforums.com/bhob2 Fusebox Vintage Newspaper Comic Strips]
- [http://www.HavenWorks.com/comics/links HavenWorks' list of comic strips available online]
- [http://cartoons.osu.edu/ Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library]
- [http://www.reuben.org/ncs/awards2.asp Reuben Awards]
- [http://www.marklansdown.com/pinbacks Comic strip pinbacks]
- [http://www.mainada.net/comics Comics @ Mai'Nada.net - Sketch your own comics online]
- Category:Comics Category:Pop culture ko:연재 만화

Daily strip

See also Comic strip and Sunday strip. A daily strip is a newspaper comic strip that appears in newspapers Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip which appears on Sunday. Daily strips are usually in black and white, though a few newspapers, beginning in the later part of the Twentieth Century, published them in color. The major formats are strips -- wider than they are tall -- and panels -- taller than they are wide. Strips usually, but not always, are broken up into several smaller panels, with continuity from panel to panel. Panels usually, but not always, are not broken up and lack continuitity. The daily Peanuts is a strip, the daily Dennis the Menace is a panel. Early daily strips were large, often running the entire width of the newspaper, and were sometimes three or more inches in height. At first, one newspaper page only included one daily strip, usually either at the top or the bottom of the page. By the Nineteen-twenties, many newspapers had a comics page on which many strips were collected. Over the years, the size of daily strips became smaller and smaller, until by the start of the Twentyfirst Century four standard daily strips could fit in the area once occupied by a single daily strip. NEA Syndicate experimented briefly with a two-tier daily strip, Star Hawks, but after a few years Star Hawks dropped down to a single tier.

Sunday strip

See also Comic strip and Daily strip. A Sunday strip is a newspaper comic strip format, where comic strips are printed in the Sunday newspaper, usually in a special section called the Sunday comics, and vritually always in full color. It is contrasted with daily strip, where strips are published Monday through Saturday, usually in black and white. Many comic strips appear both daily and Sunday, in some cases, as with Little Orphan Annie, telling the same story daily and Sunday. In other cases, as with Flash Gordon for most of its long run, telling different stories daily and Sunday. Some strips, such as Prince Valiant appear only on Sunday; others, such as Rip Kirby, are daily only, and have never appeared on Sunday.

Early strips

Early Sunday strips usually filled a full newspaper page, but with time they have grown smaller and smaller, until today there are no Sunday strips that stand alone on a page, and some newspapers crowd as many as eight Sunday strips on a single page. The last full page Sunday strip was Prince Valiant, which was published as a full page in some newspapers until 1970. Shortly after the full page Prince Valiant was discontinued, Hal Foster retired from drawing the strip, though he continued to write it for several more years. Manuscript Press published a print of his last Prince Valiant strip in full-page format; this was the last full page comic strip, though it did not appear in that format in newspapers.

Other formats

Other formats for Sunday strips include the half-page, the third of a page, the quarter page, the tabloid page or tab, and the half tab, short for half of a tabloid page. Today, with the ever shrinking size of Sunday strips, many other, smaller formats abound. Usually, only the largest format is complete, with the other formats dropping or cropping one or more panels. Exceptions to this rule include Steve Canyon and, until its last few years, On Stage, which are complete only in the third format. Currently, the largest and most complete format for most Sunday strips, such as Prince Valiant, is the half page. A few strips have been popular enough for the artist to insist on the Sunday strip being run in a half page format, though not necessarily in a half-page size. Calvin and Hobbes was the first strip to do this, followed by Outland and later Opus. The Asbury Park Press is one of the few newspapers that still run half-page Sunday strips. Famous full-page Sunday strips include Prince Valiant, Bringing Up Father, Flash Gordon, Thimble Theater, Little Orphan Annie, Buck Rogers, Captain Easy, Blondie, and Alley Oop. Many of these pages also included a topper. During the 1950s, there were a few short-lived attempts to revive the full page Sunday strip, tet such examples as Lance and Frank Giacoia's Johnny Reb and Billy Yank proved artistic though not commercial successes.

Cartoonist

A cartoonist is an artist who specializes in drawing cartoons. The term can also be applied to those who produce comic books, anime, manga, as well as comic strip creators and those working in animation. Those artists whose work is said to have a "cartoony" style are also called cartoonists. A cartoonist traditionally sketches the picture out roughly in pencil first, before going over the sketches in black ink, using either brushes or metal nibbed pens. Cartoonists whose work is intended for online publication increasingly work in digital media. Large comic book publishers (such as Marvel or DC) utilize teams of cartoonists to produce the art (typically one doing the pencil work and another doing the inking, with the coloring added digitally by colorists). When a consistent artistic style is wanted among different cartoonists (such as Archie Comics), character model sheets may be used as reference. Traditional animation houses employ specialized cartoonists, called "inbetweeners", to draw the motions connecting the broad movements of a character.

See also


- List of cartoonists
- Editorial cartoonist
- Comic strip creator
- Comic book creator
- Mangaka

External links


- [http://www.cartoon-crn.com/index.htm Cartoonists Rights Network] Category:Art and design workers
- Cartoonist ja:漫画家 simple:Cartoonist

Newspaper

A newspaper is a publication containing news and information and advertising, usually printed on low-cost paper called newsprint. It may be general or special interest, most often published daily or weekly. The first printed newspaper was published in 1605. The newspaper industry survived competition from 20th-century technologies, especially radio and television, but 21st-century developments on the Internet are posing major threats. General-interest newspapers are usually journals of current news. Those can include political events, crime, business, sports, and opinions (either editorials, columns, or political cartoons). Many also include weather news and forecasts. Newspapers use photographs to illustrate stories; use editorial cartoonists, usually to illustrate writing that is opinion, rather than news; and also often include comic strips and other entertainment, such as crosswords and horoscopes. horoscope, South Carolina, United States]]

Overview

A daily newspaper is issued every day, often with the exception of Sundays and some national holidays. Saturday, and where they exist Sunday, editions of daily newspapers tend to be large, include more specialized sections, and cost more. Weekly newspapers are also common and tend to be smaller and less prestigious than daily papers. However, those Sunday newspapers that do not have weekday editions are not considered to be weekly newspapers, and are generally equivalent in size and prestige to daily newspapers. Most nations have at least one newspaper that circulates throughout the whole country: a national newspaper, as contrasted with a local newspaper serving a city or region. In the United States and Canada, there are few truly national newspapers, with the notable exceptions of USA Today in the United States and The Globe and Mail and The National Post in Canada. Large metropolitan newspapers with expanded distribution networks such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Toronto Star can fill the role of de facto national newspapers. The owner of the newspaper, or person in charge, is the publisher. The person responsible for content is the editor, editor in chief, or executive editor. Newspapers have been developed around very narrow topic areas, such as news for merchants in a specific industry, fans of particular sports, fans of the arts or of specific artists, and participants in the same sorts of activities or lifestyles.

History

According to the World Association of Newspapers: 59 BC: Regular publications have been created and distributed by governments for millennia, including Acta Diurna, a listing of events ordered by Julius Caesar in ancient Rome. A.D. 713: The first newspaper, Mixed News in Kaiyuan, was published as a hand-written newssheet in Beijing, China. Kaiyuan was the name given to the year in which the paper was published. 1605: Johann Carolus published the first printed newspaper Relation aller fürnemmen und gedenckwürdigen Historien (Collection of all distinguished and commemorable news) in Strasbourg, now in France but at the time an independent city within the (mostly) German-speaking Holy Roman Empire. In the same year Abraham Verhoeven of Antwerp (Low Countries/Belgium) publishes Nieuwe Tydingen (source : Encyclopaedia Britannica).The continuous publication of the Nieuwe Tijdingen indicates that the demand for newspapers soon became well-established. 1621: The first English-language private newspaper, The Corante, was first published, in London. 1631: La Gazette, the first French newspaper, was founded. 1632: Courante uyt Italien ende Duytschlandt, the first Dutch newspaper, was founded. 1645: the oldest newspaper still in circulation, Post-och Inrikes Tidningar of Sweden, began publishing. 1650: The world's first daily printed newspaper, Einkommende Zeitungen (Incoming news) founded in Leipzig, Germany. 1665: The oldest surviving English newspaper, The London Gazette begins publication. 1666: The first Danish newspaper, Den Danske Mercurius is published in Ribe by Anders Bording. 1690: Worcester Post-Man founded, which became Berrow's Worcester Journal in 1753, The Worcester Post-Man/Berrow's Worcester Journal is the world's oldest surviving unofficial newspaper. Also, Publick Occurrences Both Foreign and Domestick in Boston became the first newspaper published in British North America. It was suppressed after one issue. 1701: (September 6) Estimated first issue of the Norwich Post in England, which was probably the first provincial newspaper. 1702: The first English daily newspaper, the Daily Courant, was founded by Samuel Buckley on 11 March. (Publication ceased in 1735). 1728: St. Petersburg Vedomosti, the oldest Russian newspaper still in circulation, is founded in Saint Petersburg. 1749: Berlingske Tidende, the first surviving Danish newspaper, is founded by E.H Berling. 1763: Norske Intelligenz-Sedler, Norway's first newspaper, was published. 1780: The Bengal Gazette, India's first newspaper, was founded. 1785: The Daily Universal Register was founded by John Walters. It became The Times on January 1, 1788. 1803: Just 15 years after the first British penal colony was established, Australia's military government published the Sydney Gazette and the New South Wales Advertiser, Australia's first newspapers. 1821: The Guardian was founded. 1827: El Mercurio, the oldest continually-published Spanish language newspaper, was founded in the port city of Valparaíso, Chile. 1833: (September 3) The New York Sun, the first truly successful penny press in the United States, was first published by Benjamin H. Day. By 1936, the paper was the largest seller in the country, with a circulation of over 30,000 copies. 1851 The New York Times was first published. 1871: Yokohama Mainichi Shimbun (Yokohama Daily News) is launched as the first daily newspaper in Japan. Today, on a per-capita basis, Japan ranks first in the world in circulation of newspapers. 1884: Otto Merganthaler invented the Linotype machine, which casts type in full lines using hot lead, a quantum leap in newspaper publishing, and ushering in the era of "hot lead." The systems remained in general production in the industry well into the 1980s, when computerized pagination became prominent. 1962: The Los Angeles Times drives Linotype hot metal typesetters with perforated tape created from RCA computers speeding up the typesetting. The key was development of a dictionary and method to automate the hyphenation and justification of text in columns (tasks that had taken 40 percent of a manual operator's time). 1973: Harris introduced editing terminals, which were quickly followed by terminals from Raytheon, Atex, Digital Equipment Corporation and others. The output was strips of type on film from phototypesetters ("cold type" replacing the "hot type" of Linotype machines)). Atex worked with the Minneapolis Star to develop the first pagination system that allowed the creation and output of full editorial pages, eliminating the need for manual paste-up of strips of film. The Atex system featured "Atex Messaging" which is widely believed to be the forerunner of both e-mail and instant messenger applications.

Format

Most modern newspapers are in one of three sizes:
- Broadsheets: 600mm by 380mm (23½ by 15 inches), generally associated with more intellectual newspapers, although a trend towards 'compact' newspapers is changing this.
- Tabloids: half the size of broadsheets at 380mm by 300mm (15 by 11¾ inches), and often perceived as sensationalist in contrast to broadsheets.
- Berliner or Midi: 470mm by 315mm (18½ by 12¼ inches) used by European papers such as Le Monde in France, La Stampa in Italy or, from 12 September 2005, The Guardian in the United Kingdom. Newspapers are usually printed on inexpensive, off-white paper known as newsprint. Since the 1980s, the newspaper industry has largely moved away from lower-quality letterpress printing to higher-quality, four-color process, offset printing. In addition, desktop computers, word processing software, graphics software, digital cameras and digital prepress and typesetting technologies have revolutionized the newspaper production process. These technologies have enabled newspaper to make publish color photographs and graphics, as well as innovative layouts and better design. To help their titles stand out on newsstands, some newspapers are printed on coloured newsprint. For example, the Financial Times is printed on a distinctive salmon pink paper, the Italian sports newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport is printed on pink paper, while L'Équipe (formerly L'Auto) is printed on yellow paper. Both the latter promoted major cycling races and their newsprint colours were reflected in the colours of the jerseys used to denote the race leader; thus, the leader in the Giro d'Italia wears a pink jersey, while the Tour de France leader wears a yellow jersey, or maillot jaune.

Circulation and readership

The number of copies distributed on an average day is called the newspaper's circulation, and is one of the principal factors used to set advertising rates. Circulation is not the same as copies sold since some newspapers are distributed without cost. Readership figures are usually higher than circulation figures because of the common assumption that a typical copy of the newspaper is read by more than one person. maillot jaune, February 2005]] According to United Nations data from 1995 Japan has three daily papers - the Asahi Shimbun, Mainichi Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun - with circulations well above 4 million. Germany's Bild, with a circulation of 4.5 million, was the only other paper in that category. In the United Kingdom The Sun is the top seller, with around 3.2 million copies distributed daily (late-2004). In India, The Times of India is the largest English newspaper with 2.14 million copies daily. In the United States and the United Kingdom at least, overall newspaper circulation has been declining for many years, although some individual titles have thrived. USA Today has a daily circulation of approximately 2 million, making it the most widely distributed paper in the country. However, the validity of USA Todays circulation figures are disputed by some in the newspaper community. This is because of the newspaper's contracts with hotels; many of its papers are delivered to hotel guests who do not realise they are being charged for it. (However, this technique of increasing circulation, sometimes known as bulk sales, is not unique to USA Today.) In 2004, several large U.S. newspapers were found to have overstated their circulation.

Advertising

Most newspapers make nearly all their money from advertising. The income from the customer's payment at the news-stand is small in comparison. For that reason newspapers are not expensive to buy, and some (such as AM New York) are free. The portion of the newspaper that is not advertising is called editorial content, editorial matter, or simply editorial, although the last term is also used to refer specifically to those articles in which the newspaper expresses its opinions. Publishers of commercial newspapers strive for higher circulation so that advertising in their newspaper becomes more effective, allowing the newspaper to attract more advertisers and charge more for the service. But some advertising sales also market demographics: some newspapers might sacrifice higher circulation numbers in favor of an audience with a higher income. Many paid-for newspapers offer a variety of subscription plans. For example, someone might only want a Sunday paper, or perhaps only Sunday and Saturday, or maybe only a workweek subscription, or perhaps a daily subscription. Some newspapers provide some or all of their content on the Internet, either at no cost or for a fee. In some cases free access is only available for a matter of days or weeks, after which readers must register and provide personal data. In other cases, free archives are provided.

Newspaper journalism

Since newspapers began as a journal (record of current events), the profession involved in the making of newspapers began to be called journalism. Much emphasis has been placed upon the accuracy and fairness of the journalist - see Ethics. In the yellow journalism era of the 19th century, many newspapers in the United States relied on sensational stories that were meant to anger or excite the public, rather than to inform. The more restrained style of reporting that relies on fact checking and accuracy regained popularity around World War II. Criticism of journalism is varied and sometimes vehement. Credibility is questioned because of anonymous sources; errors in facts, spelling, and grammar; real or perceived bias; and scandals involving plagiarism and fabrication. In the past newspapers have often been owned by so-called press barons, and were used either as a rich man's toy, or a political tool. More recently in the United States, a greater number of newspapers (and all of the largest ones) are being run by large media corporations such as Gannett (the largest in the United States), Cox, The Tribune Company, etc. Many industry watchers have concerns that the growing need for profit growth natural to corporations will have a negative impact on the overall quality of journalism. Even though the opinions of the owners are often relegated to the editorial section, and the opinions of the readers are in the op-ed ("opposite the editorial page") and letters to the editors sections of the paper, newspapers have been used for political purposes by insinuating some kind of bias outside of the editorial section and into straight news. For example, The New York Times is often criticised for a leftist slant to its stories, or, by others, for supporting the American political establishment in nearly all cases, whereas The Wall Street Journal has a history of emphasising the position of the right. Some ways newspapers have tried to improve their credibility are: appointing ombudsmen, developing ethics policies and training, using more stringent corrections policies, communicating their processes and rationale with readers, and asking sources to review articles after publication. Many larger newspapers are now using more aggressive random fact-checking to further improve the chances that false information will be found before it is printed.

The future of newspapers

The future of newspapers is cloudy, with overall readership slowly declining in most developed countries due to increasing competition from television and the Internet. The 57th annual World Newspaper Congress, held in Istanbul in June 2004, reported circulation increases in only 35 of 208 countries studied. Most of the increase came in developing countries, notably China. A report at the gathering indicated that China tops total newspaper circulation, with more than 85 million copies of papers sold every day, followed by India with 72 million—China and India are the two most populous countries in the world—followed by Japan with 70 million and the United States with 55 million. The report said circulation declined by an average of 2.2 percent across 13 of the 15 countries that made up the European Union before May 1. The biggest declines were in Ireland, down 7.8 percent; Britain, down 4.7 percent; and Portugal, where numbers fell by 4.0 percent. One growth area is the distribution of free newspapers, which are not reflected in the above circulation data. Led by the [http://www.metro.lu Metro] chain of newspapers, they grew 16 percent in 2003. Another growth area is high-quality tabloids, particularly in the UK, where several of the major broadsheets are experimenting with the format (see Broadsheet#Switch to smaller sizes). Smaller and easier to hold than broadsheets, but presenting serious journalism rather than traditional tabloid fodder, they appear to have drawn some younger readers who are otherwise abandoning newspapers. Newspapers also face increased competition from the Internet for classified ads, especially for jobs, real estate, and cars, which have long been a key source of revenue.

Newspapers in different countries

:Main article: List of newspapers

Afghanistan

Printed in Afghanistan and other countries by Afghan nationals. List of newspapers in and out of print:

- Kabul Weekly
- Annis
- Issla
- Kabul Times
- Saraj-ul-Akhbar
- Omaid
- Khorasan

Argentina

In Argentina, the broadsheet format is almost non-existent. The only remaining national newspaper published in that format is La Nación.

Belgium

:Main article: List of newspapers in Belgium Belgium's quality newspapers:
- De Standaard [http://www.standaard.be] (christian, patriotically Flemish - 80,000 copies per day)
- De Morgen (left - 40,000 copies per day)
- Le Soir (French-language, centre - 100,000 copies per day) Popular newspapers:
- Het Laatste Nieuws (right, a lot of sports news - 291,000 copies per day)
- Het Nieuwsblad (christian, a lot of sports news - 200,000 copies per day)
- Vers l'avenir (French-language, catholic roots - 99,000 copies per day)
- Het Volk (left, christian - 92,000 copies per day) Source: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3737311.stm BBC: The press in Belgium]

Brazil

Most important newspapers of Brazil are:
- Folha de São Paulo
- O Estado de São Paulo (also known as Estadão)
- O Globo
- Jornal do Brasil
- Correio Braziliense
- Zero Hora

Chile


- El Mercurio
- La Tercera
- Las Últimas Noticias
- La Cuarta
- La Nación

Europe

There are several newspapers that target Europe, or the European Union, as a whole. Many are published in English, being owned both by USA-based or European-based companies.
- European Voice: Owned by the British (European Union) The Economist Group
- The Wall Street Journal Europe: Owned by the USA-based Wall Street Journal
- International Herald Tribune: Owned by USA-based The New York Times Company
- New Europe: Owned by USA-based News Corporation
- EU Reporter: (ownership unchecked), distributed without charge

Germany

:Main article: List of German newspapers Important national newspapers are the daily Die Welt and the weekly Die Zeit as well as the daily tabloid Bild, but local ones draw a much wider readership. Some local or regional newspapers assume the role of national papers, such as the Frankfurter Allgemeine of Frankfurt and the Süddeutsche Zeitung of Munich. The taz (long form: Die Tageszeitung) was founded 1978, partly in reaction to the terrorist events of the German Autumn, and considers itself as an alternative to the (in 1978) mostly conservative newspaper market. The now independent Neues Deutschland was the newspaper of the Socialist_Unity_Party_of_Germany, which ruled the communist East Germany until 1989. The largest publishing companies are located in Hamburg, notably the Axel Springer Verlag and Gruner und Jahr. About one half of Germany's nation-wide newspapers and magazines are produced in Hamburg. The Axel Springer Verlag dominates the newspaper market with its tabloid Bild and a large number of local papers.

France

Daily: Le Figaro Libération Le Monde Weekly: Les Échos Le Canard Enchâiné

Hong Kong

:Main article: Newspapers in Hong Kong Hong Kong has a vibrant newspaper publishing industry. Most papers use the broadsheet size. Almost all newspapers focus on the local Hong Kong market, but some may also target at the markets in Macau and Pearl River Delta. Although they are broadsheets, the three papers with the largest circulation are all considered tabloid-style, with large and colourful photos and sensational coverage to attract readers. Most papers adopt a daily magazine approach, with coverage ranging from local and international news, entertainment, culture, lifestyle, economic and finance, sport and horseracing. Hong Kong Economic Journal, Hong Kong Economic Times and South China Morning Post have are stronger focus on economics and finance. Ta Kung Pao, Wen Wei Po, Singtao Daily and Oriental Daily are the mouthpieces of the communist government in Beijing (Peking). There are also papers specifically published for horse racing tips.

India

Compared with many other developing countries, the Indian press has flourished since independence and exercises a large degree of independence. In 2001, India had 45,974 newspapers, including 5364 daily newspapers published in over 100 languages. The largest number of newspapers were published in Hindi (20,589), followed by English (7,596), Marathi (2,943), Urdu (2,906), Bengali (2,741), Gujarati (2,215), Tamil (2,119), Kannada (1,816), Malayalam(1,505) and Telugu (1,289). The Hindi daily press has a circulation of over 23 million copies, followed by English with over 8 million copies. There are several major publishing groups in India, the most prominent among them being the Times of India Group, the Indian Express Group, the Hindustan Times Group, The Hindu group, the Anandabazar Patrika Group, the Malayala Manorama Group, the Sahara group, the Bhaskar group, and the Jagran group. India has more than forty domestic news agencies. The Express News Service, the Press Trust of India, and the United News of India are among the major news agencies. See Also: Mass media in India

Isle of Man

The Isle of Man publishes three weekly newspapers; Isle of Man Courier, Manx Independent and Isle of Man Examiner. All three newspapers are printed by Isle of Man Newspapers who have their publishing house in Douglas, the capital. The Courier is free and is distributed to all households on the Island every Thursday. They have no official political affiliations. The Courier is distributed to approximately 30,000 households weekly.

Mexico

In Mexico there is no publication that can be considered a national newspaper. The most important ones, such as El Universal, La Jornada and Reforma are in Mexico City, and because of a heavy national centralisation, a lot of redistribution happens (newspapers from Mexico City are sold in almost every city in the country, some with a day or two lag). The only attempts to create a national newspaper originate in Monterrey. One of them is Milenio, a midi format newspaper, which is distributed in Mexico City; Monterrey, Nuevo León; Veracruz, Veracruz; Guadalajara, Jalisco; Tampico, Tamaulipas; and the state of Tabasco. The other attempt to make a national newspaper is from the Reforma News Group, which also originated and is run in Monterrey but that has big coverage from Mexico City. Reforma publishes different newspapers with the same main content, but with specific local content in the major cities of the country: El Norte in Monterrey, Reforma in Mexico City, Mural in Guadalajara and Palabra in Saltillo. All of the newspapers by Reforma are published in the broadsheet format. Reforma is one of the most prestigious, and often considered among the most reliable news sources in Mexico, in spite of its youth (it appeared in Mexico City in 1993). It has gained its prestige with its attractive editorial design, wide-spectrum editorialists and denouncements of government corruption. Until very recently, newsprint in Mexico was a product made only by the government-owned monopoly. Importing the product from other countries was illegal. This allowed the Mexican government, for many years, to put out of circulation any dissident newspaper. Reforma survived the boycott and fought heavily until the government allowed for importing the product in the 1990s. Since then, the Mexican press has been undergoing a process towards more freedom of speech, especially after the election of President Vicente Fox in the year 2000.

Netherlands

The biggest left winged quality paper in the Netherlands is the "de Volkskrant" [http://www.volkskrant.nl De Volkskrant]. Its opposite is the right winged "NRC Handelsblad", which stands for "Nieuwe Roterdamse Courant"[http://www.nrc.nl NRC]. A right winged paper of inferior quality is "de Telegraaf". [http://www.telegraaf.nl de Telegraaf] Further there is "Trouw", a conservative and good paper. It is founded in the second World War by the Dutch resist. [http://www.trouw.nl Trouw]

Norway


- Verdens Gang (VG) (tabloid)
- Aftenposten
- Dagbladet (tabloid)
- Morgenbladet
- Stavanger Aftenblad
- Rogalands Avis (tabloid)

Philippines

The Philippine press has been flourishing, with a large number of newspapers and tabloids. A partial list is provided below:
- Philippine Daily Inquirer
- The Philippine Star
- Manila Bulletin
- Malaya
- The Manila Times
- Manila Standard Today
- BusinessWorld
- Business Mirror
- The Daily Tribune
- Abante (tabloid)
- Balita (tabloid; owned by the Manila Bulletin)
- Bulgar (tabloid)
- Pilipino Star Ngayon (tabloid; owned by the Philippine Star)
- Tonite (tabloid)
- Tiktik (tabloid)

Poland

:Main article: List of Polish newspapers List of Polish newspapers (the most popular ones)

- Gazeta Wyborcza
- Fakt (tabloid)
- Rzeczpospolita
- Super Express (tabloid)
- Życie Warszawy
- Trybuna
- Nasz Dziennik

United Kingdom

:Main article: List of newspapers in the United Kingdom :See also: History of British newspapers In the United Kingdom, newspapers can be classified by distribution as local or national, and by page size as tabloids and broadsheets. The principal newspapers of England are all nationals edited in London. Wales and Northern Ireland are also dominated by the London-based press; in Scotland, although the London-based press is widely available and widely read, two Scottish newspapers can claim quasi-national status: The Scotsman (based in Edinburgh) and the Glasgow Herald. There is often an implication that tabloids cater for more vulgar tastes than broadsheet. Within the tabloid category the most down market titles are classed as red-tops because of the design of their front pages. This term is often used deprecatingly by newspapers that consider themselves more serious. There are also "middle-market" tabloids such as The Daily Mail and The Daily Express. This distinction began to be blurred in October 2003 as two broadsheet newspapers, The Independent and The Times, began tabloid editions in some parts of the U.K. The Independent switched entirely to producing what it prefers to call a "compact" edition from May 2004, and The Times changed to this format at the beginning of November 2004, despite initial opposition from its more traditional and conservative readership. The Guardian changed to a Berliner format (larger than a tabloid, more compact than a broadsheet) in September 2005. This leaves The Daily Telegraph and The Financial Times as the UK's only daily national broadsheets. Aside from The Guardian, The Independent and the Daily Mirror (combined circulation of approximately 2,500,000), all of the other daily national newspapers (combined circulation of approximately 9,500,000) are known for holding conservative or right-wing political views. Due to this, many people (especially those on the political left) argue that there is a conservative bias amongst British newspapers. The fact that many of these (e.g. The Times, The Sun, the News of the World) are owned by Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch strengthens these claims. There are daily paid papers in most of the larger cities, and weekly paid papers in some other areas. These focus on local news and generally do not attempt to be a direct substitute for the London-based national newspapers, although some such as The Western Mail (based in Cardiff), Eastern Daily Press in Norwich and Yorkshire Post in Leeds offer competition to the London newspapers within their limited home territories. Most areas also typically have one or more free local papers, with extensive classified advertising. Many towns with professional football teams also have a weekly paper dedicated to that sport, usually published on Saturdays. Free morning newspapers for commuters have been launched in major metropolitan areas, offering a concise summary of the news designed to be read on public transport. In London, Glasgow and a number of other urban centres this is the Metro. There are also a wide variety of English language national newspapers catering for ethnic minority readers including The Voice, Eastern Eye and Desi Xpress.

External link


- [http://www.abc.org.uk The Audit Bureau of Circulation] provides circulation figures for British newspapers. Their research is also reproduced in digested form at [http://media.guardian.co.uk/circulationfigures/ this Media Guardian index] along with commentary.

United States

:Main article: List of newspapers in the United States List of newspapers in the United States, November 11, 1918.]] The majority of American newspapers are printed as broadsheets. A small number of daily papers are printed in the tabloid format. U.S. dailies commonly separate the physical newspaper into sections on particular topics. Most major American cities' papers will have sections covering at least a few of the following topics:
- National and international news, usually the first section. In the most prestigious newspapers like the New York Times, the majority of articles in this section are dispatched by the paper's own journalists from bureaux around the world. Smaller papers usually fill almost all of this section with stories taken from newswires like the Associated Press or Reuters.
- Local and regional news, usually the second section. This is often called the metro (from metropolitan) section. Many large newspapers use "zoning," with different zones, receiving somewhat different articles, or the same articles arranged differently. Zoning is most predominant in the local section, but also plays a role in the front page.
- Sports
- Business
- Classified ads
- Features: This may include Arts, Home furnishing, Fashion, Style, or some combination. This section usually also includes general advice columns and amusements, such as comic strips, horoscopes and puzzles.
- A weekly general-interest magazine-type feature, usually appearing on Sunday, such as Parade, USA Weekend, or their own magazine (for larger papers) such as The New York Times Magazine or the Washington Post Magazine.
- Weekend or Entertainment. This section includes advertisements for entertainment events; this section usually appears on a Friday, or the last newspaper printed before the weekend.
- Comics. Typically only a separate section on Sundays; daily papers will include a page or more of comics in another section. Although colour printing technology has seen the use of colour in comics (and other editorial content) to daily editions, for many years the expense of colour printing meant that only the Sunday editions of many newspapers carried most comics in full colour.
- Opinion or Editorial. Includes both editorials by the newspaper's editorial staff and letters to the editor from readers. Typically only a separate section on Sundays; daily papers will include these materials in the back of the national, regional, metro, or local news sections. Sometimes may include commentaries or "op-ed pieces" from nationally renowned writers.

See also


- Alternative weekly
- Canadian Journalists for Free Expression
- Freedom of the press
- Graphic design
- Gazette
- History of British newspapers
- International Freedom of Expression Exchange
- Journalism
- List of newspapers (by country)
- List of common newspaper names
- Magazine
- Mass media
- Muckraker
- News design
- Newspaper circulation
- Newspaper archives online
- Newspapers on demand
- Photojournalism
- Printing
- Propaganda model
- School newspaper
- Trade newspaper
- Underground press
- Weekly newspaper

External links


- [http://www.allyoucanread.com/ AllYouCanRead.com - 23,000 Newspapers and Magazines from 200 Countries]
- [http://www.newspaperindex.com/ Worldwide Newspaper Directory by country]
- [http://rni.nic.in/ Registrar of Newspapers for India]
- [http://www.hotbulletin.com Read hundreds of newspapers online]
- [http://library.prakashan.org/newspapers-worldwide-directory/ Newspapers List Worldwide]
- [http://www.wan-press.org/ World Association of Newspapers]
- [http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/ Daily showcase of newspaper front pages from around the world]
- [http://www.gazetelerin.com/ Turkish Newspapers]
- [http://www.gutenberg-museum.de/index.php?id=32&language=e Exhibition on the Occasion of the 400th Anniversary of the Newspaper in the Gutenberg-Museum Mainz (Germany)] Category:Newspapering Category:Ephemera Category:Serials, periodicals and journals ja:新聞 ms:Akhbar simple:Newspaper th:หนังสือพิมพ์ zh-cn:报纸 zh-tw:報紙

Internet

:For the more general networking concept, see internetworking. The Internet, or simply the Net, is the worldwide system of interconnected computer networks which makes information stored on it accessible. This information is transmitted by packet switching using a standardized Internet Protocol (IP) and many other protocols. It is made up of thousands of smaller commercial, academic, domestic and government networks. It carries various information and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, and the interlinked web pages and other documents of the World Wide Web.

Creation of the Internet

During the 1950s, several communications researchers realized that there was a need to allow general communication between users of various computers and communications networks. This led to research into decentralized networks, queuing theory, and packet switching. The subsequent creation of ARPANET in the United States in turn catalyzed a wave of technical developments that made it the basis for the development of the Internet. Contrary to popular myth, the DoD did not create the ARPANET so that they could communicate to the US Government after a nuclear war. The first TCP/IP wide area network was operational in 1984 when the United States' National Science Foundation (NSF) constructed a university network backbone that would later become the NSFNet. It was then followed by the opening of the network to commercial interests in 1995. Important separate networks that offered gateways into, then later merged into the Internet include Usenet, Bitnet and the various commercial and educational X.25 networks such as Compuserve and JANET. The ability of TCP/IP to work over these pre-existing communication networks allowed for a great ease of growth. Use of Internet as a phrase to describe a single global TCP/IP network originated around this time. The collective network gained a public face in the 1990s. In August 1991 CERN in Switzerland publicized the new World Wide Web project, two years after Tim Berners-Lee had begun creating HTML, HTTP and the first few web pages at CERN in Switzerland. In 1993 the Mosaic web browser version 1.0 was released, and by late 1994 there was growing public interest in the previously academic/technical Internet. By 1996 the word "Internet" was common public currency, but it referred almost entirely to the World Wide Web. Meanwhile, over the course of the decade, the Internet successfully accommodated the majority of previously existing public computer networks (although some networks such as FidoNet have remained separate). This growth is often attributed to the lack of central administration, which allows organic growth of the network, as well as the non-proprietary open nature of the Internet protocols, which encourages vendor interoperability and prevents any one company from exerting too much control over the network.

Today's Internet

FidoNets, FTP client, and Telnet client]] Apart from the complex physical connections that make up its infrastructure, the Internet is held together by bi- or multi-lateral commercial contracts (for example peering agreements) and by technical specifications or protocols that describe how to exchange data over the network. Indeed, the Internet is essentially defined by its interconnections and routing policies. In an often-cited, if perhaps gratuitously mathematical definition, Seth Breidbart once described the Internet as "the largest equivalence class in the reflexive, transitive, symmetric closure of the relationship 'can be reached by an IP packet from'". Unlike older communications systems, the Internet protocol suite was deliberately designed to be independent of the underlying physical medium. Any communications network, wired or wireless, that can carry two-way digital data can carry Internet traffic. Thus, Internet packets flow through wired networks like copper wire, coaxial cable, and fiber optic; and through wireless networks like Wi-Fi. Together, all these networks, sharing the same high-level protocols, form the Internet. The Internet protocols originate from discussions within the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and its working groups, which are open to public participation and review. These committees produce documents that are known as Request for Comments documents (RFCs). Some RFCs are raised to the status of Internet Standard by the Internet Architecture Board (IAB). Some of the most used protocols in the Internet protocol suite are IP, TCP, UDP, DNS, PPP, SLIP, ICMP, POP3, IMAP, SMTP, HTTP, HTTPS, SSH, Telnet, FTP, LDAP, SSL, and TLS. Some of the popular services on the Internet that make use of these protocols are e-mail, Usenet newsgroups, file sharing, Instant Messenger, the World Wide Web, Gopher, session access, WAIS, finger, IRC, MUDs, and MUSHs. Of these, e-mail and the World Wide Web are clearly the most used, and many other services are built upon them, such as mailing lists and blogs. The Internet makes it possible to provide real-time services such as Internet radio and webcasts that can be accessed from anywhere in the world. Some other popular services of the Internet were not created this way, but were originally based on proprietary systems. These include IRC, ICQ, AIM, and Gnutella. There have been many analyses of the Internet and its structure. For example, it has been determined that the Internet IP routing structure and hypertext links of the World Wide Web are examples of scale-free networks. Similar to how the commercial Internet providers connect via Internet exchange points, research networks tend to interconnect into large subnetworks such as:
- GEANT
- Internet2
- GLORIAD These in turn are built around relatively smaller networks. See also the list of academic computer network organizations In network schematic diagrams, the Internet is often represented by a cloud symbol, into and out of which network communications can pass.

Internet culture

The Internet is also having a profound impact on work, leisure, knowledge and worldviews. worldviews]]

ICANN

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is the authority that coordinates the assignment of unique identifiers on the Internet, including domain names, Internet protocol addresses, and protocol port and parameter numbers. A globally unified namespace (i.e., a system of names in which there is one and only one holder of each name) is essential for the Internet to function. ICANN is headquartered in Marina del Rey, California, but is overseen by an international board of directors drawn from across the Internet technical, business, academic, and non-commercial communities. The US government continues to have a privileged role in approving changes to the root zone file that lies at the heart of the domain name system. Because the Internet is a distributed network comprising many voluntarily interconnected networks, the Internet, as such, has no governing body. ICANN's role in coordinating the assignment of unique identifiers distinguishes it as perhaps the only central coordinating body on the global Internet, but the scope of its authority extends only to the Internet's systems of domain names, Internet protocol addresses, and protocol port and parameter numbers.

The World Wide Web

Through keyword-driven Internet research using search engines like Google, millions worldwide have easy, instant access to a vast and diverse amount of online information. Compared to encyclopedias and traditional libraries, the World Wide Web has enabled a sudden and extreme decentralization of information and data. Some companies and individuals have adopted the use of 'weblogs' or blogs, which are largely used as easily-updatable online diaries. Some commercial organizations encourage staff to fill them with advice on their areas of specialization in the hope that visitors will be impressed by the expert knowledge and free information, and be attracted to the corporation as a result. One example of this practice is Microsoft, via whose product developers publish their personal blogs in order to pique the public's interest in their work. For more information on the distinction between the World Wide Web and the Internet itself — as in everyday use the two are sometimes confused — see Dark internet where this is discussed in more detail.

Remote access

The Internet allows computer users to connect to other computers and information stores easily, wherever they may be across the world. They may do this with or without the use of security, authentication and encryption technologies, depending on the requirements. This is encouraging new ways of working from home, collaboration and information sharing in many industries. An accountant sitting at home can audit the books of a company based in another country, on a server situated in a third country that is remotely maintained by IT specialists in a fourth. These accounts could have been created by home-working book-keepers, in other remote locations, based on information e-mailed to them from offices all over the world. Some of these things were possible before the widespread use of the Internet, but the cost of private, leased lines would have made many of them infeasible in practice. An office worker away from his or her desk, perhaps the other side of the world on a business trip or a holiday, can open a remote desktop session into his or her normal office PC using a secure Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection via the Internet. This gives him or her complete access to all their normal files and data, including e-mail and other applications, while they are away.

Collaboration

This low-cost and nearly instantaneous sharing of ideas, knowledge and skills has revolutionized some, and given rise to whole new, areas of human activity. One example of this is the collaborative development and distribution of Free/Libre/Open-Source Software (FLOSS) such as Linux, Mozilla and OpenOffice.org. See Collaborative software.

File-sharing

A computer file can be e-mailed to customers, colleagues and friends as an attachment. It can be uploaded to a website or FTP server for easy download by others. It can be put into a "shared location" or onto a file server for instant use by colleagues. The load of bulk downloads to many users can be eased by the use of "mirror" servers or peer-to-peer networking. In any of these cases, access to the file may be controlled by user authentication; the transit of the file over the Internet may be obscured by encryption and money may change hands before or after access to the file is given. The price can be paid by the remote charging of funds from, for example a credit card whose details are also passed - hopefully fully encrypted - across the Internet. The origin and authenticity of the file received may be checked by digital signatures or by MD5 message digests. These simple features of the Internet, over a world-wide basis, are changing the basis for the production, sale and distribution of many types of product, wherever they can be reduced to a computer file for transmission. This includes all manner of office documents, publications, software products, music, photography, video, animations, graphics and the other arts. This in turn is causing seismic shifts in each of the existing industry associations, such as the RIAA and MPAA, that previously controlled the production and distribution of these products.

Streaming media and VoIP

Many existing radio and television broadcasters have provided Internet 'feeds' of their live audio and video streams (for example, the BBC). They have been joined by a range of pure Internet 'broadcasters' who never had on-air licences. This means that an Internet-connected device, such as a computer or something more specific, can be used to access on-line media in much the same way as was previously possible only with a TV or radio receiver. The range of material is much wider, from pornography to highly specialised technical web-casts. The simplest equipment can allow anybody, with little censorship or licencing control, to broadcast on a worldwide basis. Time-shift viewing or listening is not a problem as the BBC have shown with their Preview, Classic Clips and Listen Again features. Web-cams can be seen as an even lower-budget extension of this phenomenon. In this case the picture may update only slowly - perhaps once every few seconds or slower, but Internet users can watch animals around an African waterhole, ships in the Panama Canal or the traffic at a local roundabout live and in real time. Video chat rooms, video conferencing, and remote controllable webcams have become popular. Some people install webcams in their bedrooms that can be accessed by other voyeurs, often with two-way sound. VoIP stands for Voice over IP, where IP refers to the Internet Protocol that underlies all Internet communication. This phenomenon began as an optional two-way voice extension to some of the Instant Messaging systems that took off around the turn of the millennium. In recent years many people and organizations have made VoIP systems as easy to use and as convenient as a normal telephone. The benefit is that, as the actual voice traffic is carried by the Internet, VoIP is free or costs much less than an actual telephone call, especially over long distances and especially for those with always-on ADSL or DSL Internet connections anyway. The disadvantages are that it is still difficult to initiate a call with someone, unless they also have a VoIP phone or are at their computer and that there are still several competing standards that are mitigating against universal acceptance. In all of these cases, existing large organisations, that have grown accustomed to regular incomes for their services, are finding increased competition in their service areas, coming directly from the Internet. While newcomers strive to make these inroads, the traditional industries are having to adapt, adopt, complain or suffer. Meanwhile the consumer in each case most probably benefits from the increased range of services and possible price reductions. Some worry about censorship and control while others see a continuing globalisation of culture and norms.

Language

Main article: English on the Internet The most prevalent language for communication on the Internet is English. This may be due to the Internet's origins or to the growing role of English as an international language. It may also be related to the poor capability of early computers to handle characters other than those in the basic Latin alphabet (see Unicode). After English (32 % of web visitors) the most-requested languages on the world wide web are Chinese 13 %, Japanese 8 %, Spanish 6 %, German 6 % and French 4 %. (From [http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm Internet World Stats]) By continent, 33 % of the world's Internet users are based in Asia, 29 % in Europe and 23 % in North America.[http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm] The Internet's technologies have developed enough in recent years that good facilities are available for development and communication in most widely used languages. However, some glitches such as mojibake still remain.

Cultural awareness

From a cultural awareness perspective, the Internet has been both an advantage and a liability. For people who are interested in other cultures it provides a significant amount of information and an interactivity that would be unavailable otherwise. However, for people who are not interested in other cultures there is some evidence indicating that the Internet enables them to avoid contact to a greater degree than ever before.

Censorship

Some countries, such as Iran and the People's Republic of China, restrict what people in their countries can see on the Internet, especially unwanted political and religious content. In the Western world, it is Germany that has the highest rate of censorship. Internet Service Providers are required by law to block some sites that contain child pornography or Nazi or Islamist propaganda. Censorship is sometimes done through government sponsored censoring filters, or by means of law or culture, making the propagation of targeted materials extremely hard. At the moment most Internet content is available regardless of where one is in the world, so long as one has the means of connecting to it.

Internet access

Germany Common methods of home access include dial-up, landline broadband (over coaxial cable, fiber optic or copper wires), Wi-Fi, satellite and cell phones. Public places to use the Internet include libraries and Internet cafes, where computers with Internet connections are available. There are also Internet access points in many public places like airport halls, in some cases just for brief use while standing. Various terms are used, such as "public Internet kiosk", "public access terminal", and "Web payphone". Many hotels now also have public terminals, though these are usually fee based. Wi-Fi provides wireless access to computer networks, and therefore can do so to the Internet itself. Hotspots providing such access include Wi-Fi-cafes, where a would-be user needs to bring their own wireless-enabled devices such as a laptop or PDA. These services may be free to all, free to customers only, or fee-based. A hotspot need not be limited to a confined location. The whole campus or park, or even the entire city can be enabled. Grassroots efforts have led to wireless community networks. Apart from Wi-Fi, there have been experiments with proprietary mobile wireless networks like Ricochet, various high-speed data services over cellular or mobile phone networks, and fixed wireless services. These services have not enjoyed widespread success due to their high cost of deployment, which is passed on to users in high usage fees. New wireless technologies such as WiMAX have the potential to alleviate these concerns and enable simple and cost effective deployment of metropolitan area networks covering large, urban areas. There is a growing trend towards wireless mesh networks, which offer a decentralized and redundant infrastructure and are often considered the future of the Internet. Broadband access over power lines was approved in 2004 in the United States in the face of stiff resistance from the amateur radio community. The problem with modulating a carrier signal onto power lines is that an above-ground power line can act as a giant antenna and jam long-distance radio frequencies used by amateurs, seafarers and others. Countries where Internet access is available to a majority of the population include Germany, India, China, Chile, Iceland, Finland, Sweden, Greece, Italy, Australia, Denmark, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea and Norway. The use of the Internet around the world has been growing rapidly over the last decade, although the growth rate seems to have slowed somewhat after 2000. The phase of rapid growth is ending in industrialized countries, as usage becomes ubiquitous there, but the spread continues in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and the Middle East. However, there are still problems for many. ADSL and other broadband access are rare or nonexistent in most developing countries. Even in developed countries, high prices, mediocre performance and access restrictions often limit its uptake. Within individual countries, wide differences may exist between larger cities (often having multiple providers of broadband access) and some rural areas, where no broadband access may be available at all. The expansion of the availability of Internet access is a way to bridge the so-called digital divide.

Capitalization conventions

In formal usage, Internet is traditionally written with a capital first letter. The Internet Society, the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the World Wide Web Consortium, and several other Internet-related organizations all use this convention in their publications. In English grammar, proper nouns are capitalized. Most newspapers, newswires, periodicals, and technical journals also capitalize the term. Examples include the New York Times, the Associated Press, Time, The Times of India, Hindustan Times and Communications of the ACM. In other cases, the first letter is often written small (internet), and many people are not aware of any convention of using a capital letter. Some argue that internet is the correct form. Since 2000, a significant number of publications have switched to using internet. Among them are The Economist, the Financial Times, the London Times, and the Sydney Morning Herald. As of 2005, most publications using internet appear to be located outside of North America although one American news source, Wired News, has adopted the lowercase spelling.

Leisure

The Internet has been a major source of leisure since before the World Wide Web, with entertaining social experiments such as MOOs being conducted on university servers, and humor-related USENET groups receiving much of the main traffic. Today, many Internet forums have sections devoted to neta; short cartoons in the form of Flash movies are also popular. The pornography and gambling industries have both taken full advantage of the World Wide Web, and often provide a significant source of advertising revenue for other Web sites. Although many governments have attempted to put restrictions on both industries' use of the Internet, this has generally failed to stop their widespread popularity. One main area of leisure on the Internet is multiplayer gaming. This form of leisure creates communities, bringing people of all ages and origins to enjoy the fast-paced world of multiplayer games. These range from MMORPG to first-person shooters, from role-playing games to online gambling. This has revolutionized the way many people interact and spend their free time on the Internet. Online gaming began with services such as GameSpy and MPlayer, which players of games would typically subscribe to. Non-subscribers were limited to certain types of gameplay or certain games. With the release of Diablo by Blizzard Entertainment, gamers were treated to a built in online game service that was free of charge. With Blizzard's next game, StarCraft, the gaming world saw an explosion in the numbers of players using the Internet to play multi-player games. StarCraft may have been the first non-MMO game in which most players utilized the online gameplay as opposed to the single-player gameplay. Online gaming has progressed so much in the last 10 years that gamers earn a living from being a professional at the subject by winning tournaments and prizes as well as signing sponsor deals. Because there is a large support for certain online games, a new community has been born for people modding games, where users edit games to add a whole new element to it. This is how games such as Counter-Strike were born from the Half-Life Gaming Engine. Cyberslacking has become a serious drain on corporate resources; the average UK employee spends 57 minutes a day surfing, according to a study by Peninsula Business Services[http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=914&id=1001802003].

A complex system

Many computer scientists see the Internet as a "prime example of a large-scale, highly engineered, yet highly complex system" (Willinger, et al). The Internet is extremely heterogeneous. (For instance, data transfer rates and physical characteristics of connections vary widely.) The Internet exhibits "emergent phenomena" that depend on its large-scale organization. For example, data transfer rates exhibit temporal self-similarity.

Marketing

The Internet has also become a big market, and the biggest companies today have grown by taking advantage of the efficient low-cost advertising and commerce through the Internet. It is the fastest way to spread information to a vast community of people all at once. The Internet has revolutionized shopping –– a person can order a CD online and receive it in the mail within a couple of days, or download it directly in some cases.

Criticism

Many hyperlinks are outdated as time takes its toll on the existence of URL weblinks. These weblinks are often times defunct and are retained as hyperlinks for extended timeframes as a result of laziness or being busy enough to be sidetracked away from updating webpages. This is a common hoax for people who are fans in the field of what those links provide them with/to.

See also


- List of Internet topics
- An internet of things
- Art on the Internet
- Bogon filtering
- Catenet
- Central ad server
- Cybersex
- Cyberzine
- Dark internet
- Democracy on the Internet
- Dynamics of the Internet
- Extranet
- File Sharing
- Flaming
- Friendship on the Internet
- Hacktivism or Hacker culture
- History of the Internet
- International Freedom of Expression eXchange - monitors Internet censorship around the world
- Humor on the Internet
- ICANN
- Internet 2
- Internet Archive
- Intranet
- Internet forum
- Internets (colloquialism)
- Internet traffic engineering
- NANOG
- Netiquette
- Network Mapping
- Online banking
- Open Directory Project
- Security breaches
- Slang on the Internet
- Trolls and trolling
- Videotex - an early communications technology
- Web browser
- Web hosting
- WebQuest

External links

General


- [http://www.channel101.com/ Internet TV Stations]
- [http://www.isoc.org/ The Internet Society (ISOC)]
- [http://www.techterms.org/internet.php Internet Dictionary] - Definitions of Internet-related terms
- [http://www.experienced-people.co.uk/1099-webmaster-glossary/ The Alternate Internet Glossary] (Humor)
- A [http://www.illusivecreations.com Calgary Web Design] company that has put together over 300 articles about the internet and web development. You can view them by going [http://www.illusivecreations.com/articles/ here].
- [http://www.clickz.com/stats/sectors/geographics/article.php/5911_151151 Internet access stats]
- [http://www.sharpened.net/glossary/ Glossary of Computer and Internet Terms]
- [http://scoreboard.ke