AustLit

'This essay considers how feature writing, with its attractive layout and graphics, and its attention to the stylistic and narrative pleasures of the text, has made the transition from print magazines to online magazine websites, thriving in both written and multimedia forms. Adopting Steensen’s definition of features as a ‘a family of genres that address a similar exigence but differ in rhetorical form’ (2010: 133), I consider the transformations and resilience of features online, together with the different sites that

have developed for their publication, including print news and magazine websites, specific online magazines exclusively commissioning features, feature aggregator sites,

and the more recently produced feature disaggregator sites. Looking at some examples of features online, the essay considers whether the accessibility and adaptability of the form may enhance its status as both journalism and writing. The article ends by asking if the integration of the core, factual narrative text, with documentary audio, video,

slide shows and linking material, might constitute a kind of ‘aesthetic journalism’ (Cramerotti 2009). ' (Publication abstract)