Not only does web journalism allow professional and citizen journalists to become mass communicators it also corporations to reach the masses.
Google, as you would expect, is particularly adapt at using new media to tell stories online. While this blurres the line between PR and journalism Google’s use of new media demonstrates just how an average story can be told in a different way.
This is perhaps a perfect example of new media journalism by Google – In an update to the company’s own website Google has used Google Maps to detail the number of requests it has received from governments for the removal of information from data stored on its servers.
In a posting accompanying the website Google says “Like other technology and communications companies, we regularly receive requests from government agencies around the world to remove content from our services, or provide information about users of our services and products.”
Of the 10 requests made by the Irish government Google says it complied with about 50% of them although the website does not provide more information about what information the government asked be removed.
Ireland is one of 44 countries, including China, Russia, Turkey, listed on the Google site who requested the removal of data.
The Brazilian government who made the most number of requests at 291 of which 82.5% were fully of partially complied with.
Germany made the highest number of removal requests of any European state at 188. The company complied with 94.1% of the German requests of which the majority the majority, 109, were court mandated.
The United States government made 123 removal requests of which 80.5% were successful.
While this might be a good example of new media telling a fairly standard story in an interesting way it also illustrates the difficulties fuzzy line between PR and journalism.
