While Singapore’s The Strait Times online operation is comparable to any of Australia’s newspapers web presence, Stomp is less concerned with serious news coverage and more focused on capturing the youth demographic. It is not a traditional news service; much of its ‘citizen journalism’ content in the Singapore Seen section is reminiscent of the sort of stories you might see on A Current Affair or Today Tonight in Australia.
Stomp is moving towards social networking and Club Stomp, its social networking site, is one of the most popular sections of the website. While being sensationalist in tone and content, it is arguable that Stomp is contributing to creating community in Singapore, with its commitment to publishing user-generated content, plus Club Stomp and the popular talkback forums.
Australian newspapers have also developed new sites in an attempt to engage young audiences. One of the regularly cited contributing factors to the demise of the newspaper in modern society is that young people just don’t read them – something of which I was sceptical until I heard a young Triple J talkback caller recently tell Youth Minister Kate Ellis that if the government want to communicate with kids these days it has to be online. Forget newspapers! It struck me perhaps because throughout my youth the Saturday paper has been something of a ritual.
The absence of a young audience spurred Fairfax to develop The Vine. While its focus is on entertainment – music, fashion, films etc. – it does have a News section and invites readers to send in newsworthy content. The Vine’s Community section publishes user-generated content – blogs, photos, video etc. – and seeks to give regular contributors exposure for their work through pages such as Featured Citizen (today it’s The JamTeam but their profile looks a bit thin) and Top Contributors. There is also Vine TV and Vine Radio.
It is a comprehensive site, but I suspect it hasn’t secured as much youth traffic as it would have liked. That could be partly due to a lack of publicity.
