CORRECTION

In an article about Internet users in Sunday's Q section, the word "percent" was omitted from a sentence about readership of the print N&O. The sentence should have said: "In the Triangle, the number of adults who read the print N&O at least once a week grew by 6.4 percent in the last year."

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As the world's information migrates online, Internet users are developing new expectations about information they get and what institutions such as newspapers and libraries should provide.

Internet users can now access media of all kinds 24 hours a day, leaving many to tune out some of the old-media mainstays -- such as major newspapers and network television -- altogether, said Markus Prior, an assistant professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University.

While most newspapers are losing print circulation, many have seen robust growth online.

In the Triangle, the number of adults who read the print N&O at least once a week grew by 6.4 in the last year. Readership of newobserver.com or triangle.com grew by 12.5 percent.

The old notion that readers look for credibility when choosing an information source is crumbling, said John Newhagen, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Maryland in College Park. In the days when television and newspapers were the primary media, he said, "reaching deeply into primary sources was done for you by people called journalists, and the way to judge the information was something called credibility."

Online media, however, are an interactive experience in which scanning a Web page leads to clicking links and following them to other sites, Newhagen said. Accordingly, "interactivity" -- the ease with which a Web site allows one to gather the information that meets one's own needs -- "may be taking the place of credibility" as Internet users' top criterion for judging media, he said.

"There are so many dimensions of news that can be measured besides credibility," said Erik Bucy, an associate professor of telecommunications at Indiana University. For instance, he asks, "How participatory is the medium? I think that's going to be as important going forward. How engaged am I?"

Having a Web site -- or a paper publication -- organized to provide clear, easy access to desired content is another important new standard, something that newspapers have not traditionally been good at in their paper editions, Bucy said. "Does [the Web page] allow a quick scan of the news" and provide a clear path for readers to get more of whatever news they care about?

Accepting information as authoritative based on an institutional brand name simply doesn't fly today, said Doug Fisher, a former Associated Press news editor who teaches journalism at the University of South Carolina. "Some of your readers may be blogging and know more than you do," he said, even "if you're The New York Times or The Washington Post."

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