When the campus is already littered with countless copies of journals and newspapers capturing the pulse of student political thought, humour and artwork, it might seemsurprising that many students still feel the need to blog or post articles online. However, the Internet allows Dartmouth's student publications to reach a wider readership and update more quickly, and is often much more cost-effective than printing.
The Dartmouth Independent, a commentary publication that claims to be without political bias, publishes only four print issues a year but, since Fall term 2004, updates its website approximately once every two weeks with new issues.
"Online publications are able to link articles to other sites, podcasts and video, integrating new technology and other sources within the publications itself," Dartmouth Independent Editor-in-Chief Michael Murov '07, said. "It also allows me and the executive editors to do the laying out of the website on our own and it's very easy in terms of management, increasing our fluidity and flexibility."
"We have been able to scoop stories a lot better and place them online for the whole campus, which increases discourse, and more writers can participate and write more often," Murov said.
The bulk of the funding the Independent receives from the Council of Student Organizations (COSO) is used to cover their printing costs. The publication's online page is connected to the Dartmouth College website, so it's free.
Dartmouth's humor magazine, the Jack-O-Lantern, also updates its website content frequently. The website is updated seven times a term with new articles while three or four print issues are produced each year.
"The thing about print issues is that they are very big projects and it's difficult because preparing these issues takes a ton of time," Jack-O-Lantern Editor-in-Chief Fred Meyer '08 said. "They aren't done on a steady or smooth rhythm."
"The online issue is steady, anyone can be involved in it and it gets writers into a steady movement," he said.
The Jack-O-Lantern finds the lack of cost when using online publications as an incentive to continue doing so. Meyers also said that the website gives writers the opportunity to continuously share creative ideas and stories online.
One such idea, a video prank called "Drinkin' Time," circulated the Internet via YouTube, where it gained over 88,000 views.
"We assume [the website] increases our presence," Meyer said. "We have a history of being a paper that publishes once a term so that doesn't place us in people's consciousness. The paper wouldn't reach out to the critical mass and people would forget it, but being online gives us a tangible presence."
The Dartmouth Review also maintains a group blog at www.dartblog.net, although the site crashed about two weeks ago.
"The blog has gone numb, though when the technical problems disappear will get some regular content on there," Review editor-in-chief Nick Desai '08 said in an e-mail. "Blogs and bloggers are profoundly lame in general, but ours is useful when we can't wait to print a fact."
Liz Ellison contributed to this story.
