Pulso

San Luis Potosi, México. It is Monday morning and Mr. Torres is going late for work. He slept over because Carlitos, his younger son had fiber all night, so he had to stay up most of the time. Once in the office the day goes slow. Mr. Torres boss is asking him for an urgent report, also one of his colleagues is stuck with some work due to the afternoon, so Mr. Torres offers some help; in top of that he forgot to pick up the dry-cleaning. All that Mr. Torres wants is to get out and check for Carlitos health. By the end of the day he managed to finish all of his duty in the office. As soon as his turn ends, he goes back to his house and fortunately Carlitos is much better and he’s playing with his older sister. With a day like this, Mr. Torres forgot to but his favorite newspaper, El Pulso, but this is not a bad thing, because all he has to do in order to have access to the information in the pages of this newspaper is go to his laptop, open a browser and go to http://www.pulsoslp.com.mx which the official website of this newspaper.

This story if fictional (any resemblance to reality is a mere coincidence), but what it is real is the Pulso website, which is the digital media I’ll be analyzing.

This digital media artifact was created to allow Pulso to enter digital media era. With the digitalization of journalism almost every newspaper had to go digital to keep alive in the race for information, because the competition in journalism is now about who has the information faster and was closer to the event that generated the news. Even though the next phrase was written almost 50 years ago, it is completely valid for the digital media, because now more than ever information is being disputed in real time. “…Total war has become information war. It is being fought by subtle electric informational media –under cold conditions and constantly.” (McLuhan & Fiore, 1967) In this war between different platforms offerings information in real time, Pulso had to go to battle.

Pulso.com.mx is a simple website, in which hyperlinks are visible to get you to the article you want to go, they have images for every article and it includes the columns that are printed in the principal newspaper across the nation. They also have hyperlinks to other news websites, some of which are of national circulation, it is worth to mention that Pulso newspaper is only for a state and it doesn’t have impact outside the region in which is printed. This website has other digital features, the one I find most impressive is the option in which you can check the printed version as if you were reading it, simulating changing pages and going trough different section, the problem is this feature not always works properly, but the next phrase says much about this application of the digital version of the printed one. “There is, after all, something simply irreplaceable about reading a piece of writing at length on paper, in a chair or on a couch or in bed.” (Sullivan 2008) And this completely true, it is a matter of time to see if newspaper will be replaced by news websites and applications similar to this one.

The website for the newspaper was created by Juan Antonio de Santiago (Domain Tools 2012), who is a member of an editorial group called MIVAL (Pulso 1998), specialized in digital media. They took care of all the legal implications that digital media brings along, such as validity if the information shown and the archive of older editions.

pulso.slp.mx was created is to offer people who may not have access to the printed version, as Mr. Torres in the story; but also might be said it came due to need of going digital, especially in the journalism industry which is highly affected with the information that is traveling for free in the internet. Twitter and Facebook accounts were created to match up with the website, in order to share the information faster and to more people through these social networks. It is worth mentioning again that Pulso is a local newspaper that only circulates in the state of San Luis Potosí and this newspaper has a really good reputation in matters of reliability. This media is design for people who won’t have access to a printed copy, for whatever the reason may be. The intended audience is the same that for any newspaper, adults who are interested in keeping up with the information offered in this newspaper. By being a digital media it may also be intended to younger people who have access to Internet. I came to this site a couple of years ago when I was looking for news in my hometown while I was away from home for college. At first I just began to follow the twitter account, so I could be able to follow news in real time, but as I started to get more interested in journalism I began to follow closely this website, and now in September 2012, I try to check this site every day.

The pressure of going digital comes because the race of websites, which is more competitive each day; the following phrase can explain a bit more.  “The World Wide Web is more consistently a text than a market and the continual, continuous present tense of web publication in this respect must be described with care.” (Gitelman 2006) With this I’m trying to say that World Wide Web is constantly changing, so you have to carefully with what you’re publishing and when, to look for proper sources, so you can have good reputation in the competitive environment.

The only problem with the website is that it has a few errors and it is not always working properly, but understanding the concept of error using a Gitelman approach to an error in a website “ (An error) Implies a dizzying potential for mistakes – more than for hundred different kind – but stops short of laying any blame” (Gitelman 2006) Identifying the error that is causing the problem might be problematic. But in my opinion, pulso.com.mx fulfills its purpose of giving a digital version of the news printed in the everyday edition. One thing I don’t like about the website is that it tries to imitate the printed version, and this may not be as useful. I highly think the website should adopt a proper identity and not try to emulate the printed version. Applying the concept of simulation, this citation fits perfect in the way I see the website  “Representation tries to absorb simulation by interpreting as false representation, simulation envelops the whole edifice of representation as itself a simulacrum.” (Baudrillard, 2008) According to this, pulso.com.mx should stop being a digital representation and become a simulation of the newspaper, trying to produce the same effect of reading the notes in printed as in digital media.

Digital media is the present for many branches of communication; it allows the user to share information in real time and is making the world smaller by communicating people even though they are in different continents. Journalism is going digital and pulso.com.mx is the proof, Journalism going digital may be good because it avoids wasting tons of paper and ink per year, however people who are in the media are struggling to keep up with the economical demands that the world require; a financial model that works for digital journalism is needed and once it is found digital journalism and websites like the one just analyzed will be the only ways to get access to information, and newspaper will be a topic in history class.

Works Cited

Baudrillard, Jean. "Simulacra And Simulations." The European Graduate School. 2008. http://www.egs.edu/faculty/jean-baudrillard/articles/simulacra-and-simulations/ (accessed September 14, 2012).

Domain Tools . PulsosLp.com.mx Whois Record. 2012. http://whois.domaintools.com/pulsoslp.com.mx (accessed September 24, 2012).

Gitelman, Lisa. "New Media </ Body>." In Always already new: Media, History and the data of culture, 123-150. Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology , 2006.

McLuhan, Marshall, and Quentin Fiore. The medium is the MASSAGE an inventory of effects . Corte Madera: Gingko Press, 1967.

Pulso . Aviso Legal . December 17, 1998. http://pulsoslp.com.mx/aviso-legal/ (accessed September 25, 2012).

Sullivan, Andrew. "Why I Blog." The Atlantic . November 2008. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2008/11/why-i-blog/307060/ (accessed September 05, 2012).

Bibliography

Baudrillard, Jean. "Simulacra And Simulations." The European Graduate School. 2008. http://www.egs.edu/faculty/jean-baudrillard/articles/simulacra-and-simulations/ (accessed September 14, 2012).

Domain Tools . PulsosLp.com.mx Whois Record. 2012. http://whois.domaintools.com/pulsoslp.com.mx (accessed September 24, 2012).

Gitelman, Lisa. "New Media </ Body>." In Always already new: Media, History and the data of culture, 123-150. Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology , 2006.

McLuhan, Marshall, and Quentin Fiore. The medium is the MASSAGE an inventory of effects . Corte Madera: Gingko Press, 1967.

Pulso . Aviso Legal . December 17, 1998. http://pulsoslp.com.mx/aviso-legal/ (accessed September 25, 2012).

Sullivan, Andrew. "Why I Blog." The Atlantic . November 2008. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2008/11/why-i-blog/307060/ (accessed September 05, 2012).