THE IMPACT OF DIGITALIZATION ON LONGREADS AND NONFICTION PUBLISHING

This article discusses how digital media has revolutionized the news industry, making it more accessible, interactive, and immediate. With the rise of smartphones, tablets, and computers, news is now available around the clock and enriched with multimedia elements such as text, images, videos, and interactive features. This transformation has led to the emergence of digital-only news outlets, known as "pure players," which compete with traditional media through innovative content and subscription models. A key development in this landscape is the rise of longreads —long-form journalism that integrates detailed reporting with immersive narrative techniques and multimedia elements. Longreads, typically exceeding 1,500 words, offer an engaging and comprehensive storytelling experience enhanced by features like "parallax scroll," looping videos, and interactive graphics. The interactive documentary, a recent innovation in digital journalism, demonstrates this shift by combining original research with multimedia and immersive elements to create interactive, engaging narratives. This article examines the evolution of storytelling in the digital age, focusing on how longreads and interactive documentaries represent new, dynamic formats in journalistic storytelling.