Newspapers

In the newspaper model, advertising underwrites editorial copy. The cost of collecting, organizing, and disseminating the information is passed on to the advertisers in return for giving them space to reach the people who want that editorial material. Newspapers receive some 80 per cent of their income from advertisers; subscriptions and newsstand sales make up the rest.

On the Internet, advertising can underwrite the provision of valuable information in a similar way, making it possible for Internetters to see articles or use resources that otherwise might be out of their price range — or might not be offered on the Internet at all because of the information-owner’s fear of wholesale copying.

For information providers, the newspaper model means that costs are covered up front. For advertisers, it means that people who might not otherwise find out about products and services have been drawn in by the lure of valuable information free or at a low cost. Internetters trade the opportunity to get access to information resources at little or no cost in return for accepting the advertising that supports it.

And often the advertising itself is a lure, as it is with Academe This Week, the Internet glimpse at the information in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

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     Internet Gopher Client 

           1.  NEW in "Academe This Week".
      -->  2.  A GUIDE to The Chronicle of Higher Education, September 21, 1994/
           3.  EVENTS in Academe: September 20 to October 3/
           4.  BEST-SELLING BOOKS on campuses.
           5.  FACTS AND FIGURES on U.S. higher education.
           6.  JOB OPENINGS in and out of Academe from the September 21 Chronicle/
           7.  ABOUT The Chronicle of Higher Education.
           8.  ABOUT "Academe This Week": search tips and more/
           9.  Information supplied to "Academe This Week" by other sources/
          10.    --  The Annenberg/CPB Projects/
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     Internet Gopher Client

         JOB OPENINGS in and out of Academe from the September 21 Chronicle

         ->1. SEARCH using The Chronicle's list of job titles/
           2. SEARCH using any word or words of your choosing/

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     [Academe This Week, from The Chronicle of Higher
     Education.  On Gopher point to chronicle.merit.edu, port 70; or 
     look under All the Gopher Servers in the World. On World-Wide Web 
     the address is http://chronicle.merit.edu/]

The Chronicle of Higher Education’s service, Academe This Week, has been available on the Internet since April, 1993, and has posted between 600 and 1,400 job ads each week — without a single complaint from Internet users. (When there is a comment, it is most typically appreciation.)

In addition to the job listings, The Chronicle offers a guide to each week’s newspaper, a list of best-selling books on campuses, facts and figures about U.S. higher education, and listings of meetings, grants deadlines, and hearings in Congress. The service also offers information from other sources, and will soon add other kinds of advertising. The Chronicle is currently exploring a subscription service, supported in part by advertising, that will offer the full text of the newspaper plus other information valuable to the men and women of academe.

Back to “Electronic Billboards on the Digital Superhighway”