When I asked a few friends today if they ever visit the KUJH-TV web site, their response was, "They have a web site?" Based on my limited survey, I think the first problem in creating an audience for the KUJH-TV web site is letting people know about it.
Because both KUJH and its site are student-run and on campus, the target audience for the site should be primarily the student population. I think the most effective way to let students know about a new way to get their news is to go through an established medium such as the Kansan. Ads in the paper and maybe even on Kansan.com would let students know KUJH is out there with a web site. Airing an ad on KJHK, posting flyers and telling students about the site are other ways to get the word out.
Once people know the site exists, the challenge will be to give students the content they're looking for, and to make sure it's not a mere duplication of something they're already getting from the Kansan or the TV broadcast. Unlimited space, lack of time constraints and the opportunity for participation are features unique to the web that the site needs to capitalize on.
You can't update sports scores by the minute on a newspaper or TV broadcast. You can't have in-depth interviews where you can see and hear the key person in a story explain it in their own words. Newspapers and TV broadcasts have very little audience feedback. They can't provide immediate resources to a reader wanting more information through a hyperlink. All these can be used on the KUJH-TV site to give readers more than they can find in the newspaper or on TV.
A weekly calendar for entertainment would go over well if it were available online. Most students also are interested in sports at KU, and I think expanding KUJH sports coverage and using it for the web site would draw a lot of people, particularly for things such as athlete interviews or continuing stories about less mainstream sports. Regarding participation, adding a comment option to stories would be a basic way of incorporating that into the site. If this is a success, it might be possible to let readers pose a question to the site's audience and let other readers respond, posting both questions and answers on something like a high-tech opinion page.
All these ideas would probably get students to look at the site, but they aren't possible without adjusting the amount of work and the number of students available to accomplish it. The web site will need to have two classes of 694 students maintaining it to really excel, and additional reporters would also help if sports reporting becomes a priority.
If readers know about the site and we continue to improve it, stories like the fried squirrel will help us show readers the value of the web as a medium and the -€˜extras' it provides. Only on the web could you provide layers of information to ethically show a picture of a mutilated squirrel.
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