Convergent journalism
Understandably, a range of varying factors have encouraged the move towards media convergence. When we talk about convergent journalism, we can look at the changing content, newsroom, role of journalists and newsgathering techniques.
This change to typical forms of news is a result of the growing popularity and development of the web. As broadband gets quicker and is present in more homes the Internet becomes more and more customary. People go to the web to pay their bills, do their shopping, talk to their friends and now read their news.
Firstly, in an era where time is money, with a heavy reliance on convenience, news corporations have come to realise that people need a convenient avenue of news viewing 24 hours a day seven days a week. Particularly on weekdays, it’s more likely that people want to access their news online than to sit down and read the paper. Consumers are now accustomed to receiving free and convenient news with a few clicks of the mouse.
The graph below shows the growing popularity of online news in the UK.
This is also an easy way of reaching younger audiences. However, long articles full of detail and background are generally pointless, as the majority of online newsreaders want to read quick and punchy news.
A study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism also found that the differences in print, online and broadcast media are decreasing, and as a result, print news sources are losing its hard news edge and have a tendency to report on entertainment and celebrity gossip. This emphasises the issue that as media is converging, news quality could be depleting.
In recent times, journalists are also expected to do the writing, reporting, interviewing, recording, editing and broadcasting the story. This emphasises the issue that journalists could become a jack of all trades but a master of none, another aspect which highlights the decreasing quality of journalism.
To tell a story, news websites can use a wide range of medium, including articles, images, video, audio, graphs, timelines, links, and much more. It is the journalist’s role to choose which medium would best communicate the story at hand.
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