Online news (still) in transition? Content analysis of the use of hypertext, multimedia and interactivity in Flemish online news

A decade ago, research showed that news organizations rarely incorporated external links, audiovisual content and interactive features in their online news coverage. This can be regarded as a missed opportunity to democratize the news and to offer consumers more context and involvement with the news. This study provides a necessary update of this topic by exploring, by means of a quantitative and qualitative content analysis (N = 469), to what extent Flemish newspapers De Standaard and Het Laatste Nieuws in 2016 integrate hyperlinks, multimedia content and interactive services in their news websites. The results show that only 7% of the used links are external. More than 77% of the articles fail to combine text with multimedia aspects. The interactive elements available, offer users little say in the production process. Consequently, it can be concluded that news organizations still do not take advantage of the opportunities hypertextuality, multimediality and interactivity have to offer.