Media Convergence and Multimedia: Betty Villalobos

Media convergence is the practice of producing and reporting news across two or media simultaneously according to Grant and Fisher. It is a fairly new concept but is rapidly growing and making media conglomerates bigger and bigger as they practice “ownership convergence” where arrangements within one large media company encourages cross-promotion and content sharing among print, online and television platforms owned by the same company, according to authors Stephen Quinn and Vincent Filak. The best example is the Tribune Company who actually started out as a print media corporation, and as time progressed, it quickly moved into broadcast and radio. Today, the Tribune company expanded and has a lot of control over today’s media distribution as the owner of 23 television channels, WGN radio, and many online websites. In 2008, The Tribune company also managed to purchase the Los Angeles Times. By acquiring such conglomerate statues, the Tribune Company has a lot of viewer and audience access through various mediums, making information distribution easier by having all around access to print, online, radio and broadcast for cross promotion.

http://www.tribune.com/

Multimedia journalism is practice of gathering news and reporting it across multiple platforms.  The best example for this type of journalism is in the sports spectrum. NBC sports offers viewers all access content for the kick start of Sunday Night Football.  On the homepage of the NBC sports online page, viewers have the opportunity to watch pre season mashups live, live blog updates, video streaming, stats, and even be part of the conversation by allowing reader commentary. This is a great example of multimedia journalism because a viewer has hands on experience on all aspects of the football season. Instead of simply sitting at home and watching a game, NBC goes further and continues the discussion online and the replays/live streaming of whatever games on TV. In addition, this multimedia journalism allows viewers who did not get a chance to watch on TV to still be in the loop and know all aspects of games and players beyond the television set.

http://snfallaccess.nbcsports.com/