ONLINE INFORMATION USE IN NEWSROOMS:

This study examined adoption of online information resources in newsrooms at U.S. daily newspapers from 1994 to 1999. Since the general public and news media began to embrace the Internet and World Wide Web in 1994, a process of adoption of this new interactive innovation by newspapers has occurred. The longitudinal survey data reveal that use of interactive information-gathering technologies in newsrooms has reached a critical mass for (a) general computer use, (b) online research in newsrooms, (c) non-specialist content searching, and (d) daily frequency of online use. Technologies such as online news research have achieved greater utility as more users have adopted them. Use levels will become increasingly sophisticated as additional users — journalists themselves and their sources — adopt the innovation.-Page 3