Multimedia Journalism and Convergence in Sports Media

This story on Lakers superstar and legend Kobe Bryant becoming the fifth all time scorer in NBA history is a great example of multimedia journalism. This was a big story in the world of sports today. This story includes both print and video covering the same story. A person like Kobe Bryant always has reporters, photographers, and people covering his achievements and writing stories on him. This story in particular was covered across multiple different platforms, which included radio, television, newspaper, sports blogs, newspaper websites, facebook, twitter and other sports reporting sites like espn and fox sports.The coverage of this story also required many people to be at the game, to talk to Kobe when the game ended and get pictures of him hitting the record breaking basket. All of this information and pictures were later shared through convergence across multiple different platforms. All of the websites and radio shows allow for tons of user interactivity with the writers and broadcasters. People are able to call into radio shows to discuss the topic, and espn.com and foxsports.com allows users to interact with each other and the reporter's. Both these websites also allow users to see post game interviews with Kobe Bryant and his teammates, reacting to his accomplishments. You can also see this story covered on several different platforms of espn television. Finally, espn shares the information across all of their web, tv, social media, radio and magazine platforms. Fox Sports also does the same by sharing and presenting all of the information across the same number and style of platforms. The growth of technology has been the key to the growth of multimedia convergence in sports reporting. As our textbook states, this mass convergence and coverage across so many different platforms allows the media to accommodate to fragmented audiences who are looking for news on a new social and technological level.

http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/story/_/id/7547550/los-angeles-lakers-kobe-bryant-passes-shaquille-oneal-fifth-place-scoring-list

No. 24 Now No. 5

Player G PTS
1. K. Abdul-Jabbar 1,560 38,387
2. Karl Malone 1,476 36,928
3. Michael Jordan 1,072 32,292
4. Wilt Chamberlain 1,045 31,419
5. Kobe Bryant 1,128 28,601


Media Convergence

Espn and Fox Sports control and converge with local tv and radio affiliates to distribute their information across many different platforms. Espn employees will also sometimes appear on fox sports programming and fox sports employees will sometimes appear on espn programming. The most important thing for both of these companies is distributing their content to as many readers as possible, on as many different platforms as possible. Most of their money is made through subscribers and television contracts with various sports leagues. This allows for a much easier process providing content through convergence.


Joshua Saylor