Deutsche Welle, 04/12/23

DW AkademieWorkshop

Convergent Journalism

Introduction to media convergence

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2 / 10 Introduction to media convergence

Rich Gordon (professor & director of digital innovation, Northwestern University, Illinois, USA) (2003)

Characteristics of convergent Journalism and new communications devices

• deliver content in multiple media formats: text, photographs, graphics, audio, video and animation.

• the potential of unlimited space and time. Journalists are no longer constrained by column inches or pages or minutes on the air.

• allow immediate publishing as news breaks, independent of press deadlines or programming schedules.

• facilitate communication with and among readers and viewers, giving the audience members the ability to react to or shape the content, or even to supply content themselves.

• the user has great control over the content: deciding what to view, in what order and when to move on to something else

3 / 10 Introduction to media convergence

Rich Gordon (professor & director of digital innovation, Northwestern University, Illinois, USA) (2003)

Effects for the journalists

• journalists need to develop a basic understanding of the unique capabilities of the different communications media. Increasingly, their employers are going to deliver content to multiple platforms or collaborate with other companies to do so.

• No longer can journalists assume that just because they work in one medium (say, a print newspaper), they don't need to worry about how their story should be presented in another (on television or the Web).

• We are not necessarily moving into an era when a single journalist needs to do it all -- report, write, take pictures, shoot and edit video, and present their stories on the Web. There will always be a need for specialists who do one thing particularly well.

• But in the converged media organizations of the future, the journalists who best understand the unique capabilities of multiple media will be the ones who are most successful, drive the greatest innovations

4 / 10 Introduction to media convergence

Henry Jenkins (Director Comparative Media Studies Program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA) (2006)

• By convergence, I mean the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they want.

• …convergence represents a cultural shift as consumers are encouraged to seek out new information and make connections among dispersed media content. [It] is about the work—and play—spectators perform in the new media system.

• Convergence doesn’t just involve commercially produced materials and services traveling along well-regulated and predictable circuits. It also occurs when people take media in their own hands.

• Welcome to convergence culture, where old and new media collide, where grassroots and corporate media intersect, where the power of the media producer and the power of the media consumer interact in unpredictable ways. Convergence culture is the future, but it is taking shape now.

5 / 10 Introduction to media convergence

Arthur O. Sulzberger jr. (chairman New York Times Company)

• Says convergence is „the future“ for the media.

• NYT Company bought other media outlets like the ‚Discovery Channel‘ to allow Times journalists to tell stories in print, online and on television.

• „Broadband is bringing us all together. We have to do it in papers, digitally and on TV. You can combine all three elements. News is a 24-7 operation, and if you don‘t have the journalistic muscles in all three <platforms>, you can‘t succeed in broadband.“

6 / 10 Introduction to media convergence

Antonio Giner (founder of the Innovation International media

consulting group)

• 7 out of 10 newspaper executives say their reporters have

formal duties in at least one other medium apart from the

newspaper.

• Newspapers are becoming „24 hour information engines“,

just as broadcast organisations like CNN have become 24-

hour news providers.

• „Media diversification is the past. Digital convergence is the

present. Multi-media integration is the future“

7 / 10 Introduction to media convergence

Paul Horrocks (editor-in-chief of the Manchester Evening

News)

• newspapers have to reinvent themselves to be more

competitive and to satisfy comsumers eager to receive

information by different channels.

• „Journalists, by their nature, don‘t like change. We have to

convince them that we have to serve the customer to retain

our jobs“

• „It is <about> delivering a product that we know the

customers will want.“

8 / 10 Introduction to media convergence

Convergence

1. Ownership convergence (content sharing and cross-promotion in one big media corporation)

2. Tactical convergence, „co-opetition“ (partnership and cross-promotion between different media, e.g. a newspaper and a television station)

3. Structural convergence (reorganising a media company to make multi-media possible, e.g. hiring multi-media editors to repackage existing print material for TV)

4. Information-gathering convergence (reporters have to be multi-skilled and do all forms of journalism)

9 / 10 Introduction to media convergence

• The story will dictate the coverage, influence the size of the

team involved and the deapth and breadth of the reporting

• e.g. the mayor‘s weekly press converence: one reporter

• a major fire in the city: a team of photographers, video-

journalists, online, print and radio reporters

• Editorial managers need to know enough about the

strengths of each medium to decide potential multi-media

facets of the stories