Media Convergence vs. Multimedia: Nicolis Freeman

Media Convergence:

Media convergence is the growing trend of producing and reporting news across two or more media simultaneously.  Disney which owns both ABC networks and ESPN networks demonstrates the ownership convergence aspect of overall media convergence.  According to our text ownership convergence when one larger company uses different forms of media to disseminate news whether it be print, online, and television.  An example of this type of convergence would be Disney owning both ABC and ESPN networks where they use cross promotion techniques to share information.  ABC News and ESPN networks and magazine are both separate media outlets where ABC News primarily disseminates news over television broadcasts whereas ESPN gathers a broader audience by using several different mediums to reach out to mass audiences.  In some instances Disney XD (Disney owned channel) will air an ESPN segment and ABC will host a sports report live from ESPN Zone in downtown Disney. (http://abc.go.com/) (http://espn.go.com/)

Multimedia Journalism:

Multimedia journalism can be described as the practice of gathering news and reporting it across multiple media platforms, such as radio, TV, online writing, magazine articles, and through the various social media platforms.  A prime example of how journalism has shifted to more multimedia is the worldwide leader in sports, ESPN.  ESPN broadcasts sports talk, highlights, in-depth features, and sporting events through the Internet, print (ESPN Magazine), TV with three different channels, and even distributes news through Twitter with their sports reporters.  On their ESPN LA website you check from the main page what their reporters are saying on Twitter and the other way around where a reporter tweets the link back to the ESPN article.  They also display polls to keep the audience on their webpage and make them feel appreciated.  Along with the audience participation, they cross-platform their medias by streaming their radio station, 710 ESPN Radio, live on the website. (http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/)