A recent collaborative experiment to test the impact of information technology on journalism has raised some interesting outcomes, including the fact that the use of information technology in the community will be limited by the community, rather than the limitations of the technology itself.

Conducted between Central Queensland University and the University of Queensland journalism students, the project tested the ability of Information Technology (IT) to play a role in disseminating information across regional areas within the journalistic field.

Historically, manual means of communication such as faxes, telexes, and typewriters were physically orientated and restricting. The project used the Internet to create a database and distribution network of news stories between two distant locations. “The advantage of this method of transferring news stories across two or more locations was that the time and effort that a journalist needed to put into publishing the story in their own publication was often reduced,” CQU Professor of Journalism and Media Studies, Alan Knight said.

One of the outcomes was the apparent change in role of a journalist. No longer someone who conducted research and interviews, and then wrote a story that was sent to subeditors for proofing, the journalists role was altered to encompass duties traditionally conducted by other newsroom staff.

This raised the question of whether this was in fact an advantage - changing the structure of the workforce in the news industry.

Researchers concluded that this was a very worthwhile experiment, which could be implemented in other work environments. They were able to prove that IT could overcome the problem of distance, and that it could be used to promote community awareness, through instant transferral of information from one location to another.

Researchers also concluded that there were limits to the boundaries that could be achieved using Information Technology. However, Professor Knight said it was important to note the project's findings that these boundaries were set by community values, rather than limitations imposed by the technology itself.