In a digital era, multimedia journalism has fast become the prevalent method of how news stories reach the public. The need for instant gratification and to be constantly up-to-date with fresh information on the latest news stories has led to the slow decline of print newspapers in favour of online news outlets.

News outlets such as The Age and the Herald Sun have swung their focus onto their online websites opposed to their print media as it is easier to keep updated, and they do not want to fall behind in a constantly changing news environment.

Multimedia news stories allow the reader to engage more with the story content; shorter paragraphs separated by visual and/or audio aides encourages the reader to absorb the information presented in the article, instead of skimming over big chunks of text in a typical print article.

Multimedia journalism can be told linearly at the discretion of the journalist/editor, yet most stories that include multiple multimedia elements are told in a non-linear fashion. Multimedia elements can provide context and depth to an article where a standard, linear layout may not be able to.