Media convergence
When speaking of media convergence, Quinn and Filak state that the definition of media convergence is hard to pin down. They say that "convergence tends to have as many definitions as the number of people who practice or study it." This is because convergence describes many types of media expansion: one parent company cross promoting products among its smaller companies, two companies teaming up to generate content and promoting it together, or even a journalist being savvy in several forms of media such as audio, visual, and print. The purpose of most media convergence is revenue generation, cost reduction, and audience expansion. An example of tactical convergence is CNN's collaboration with both Money Magazine and Fortune Magazine to form CNNMoney (money.cnn.com), a site that offers economic news and personal finance advice from Money and Fortune. The magazines use the site as another platform to gain an audience, and CNN uses the magazines for content.
Multimedia Journalism
Multimedia journalism is simply reporting news across different platforms. Journalists will need to be adept at working in different platforms and multimedia journalism affords the opportunity to learn different mediums. For instance, I intern at Marketplace, a national radio program where the reporters not only gather news and report for radio broadcast, but also must turn those stories into print for the site marketplace.org. In addition, the reporter must be able to use a digital camera as their are photos posted for some of the stories. Senior Producer Paddy Hirsch of Marketplace Personal Finance also hosts a video explainer called the Marketplace Whiteboard (http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/whiteboard. Marketplace also provides a podcast for those who were unable to listen live.
CNN Money is a really good example of convergence serving a niche audience. And your experience at Marketplace illustrates that "radio" journalists now need a lot more than simply a good recorder! I would love to see a specific story that was told through various platforms.
ReplyDeleteThe following story aired on 09/06/12 on Marketplace via radio. You would have to listen to the podcast, but the link provided will take you to both the print story and the online video.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/whiteboard/video-ecbs-bond-buying-program-explained-bonbons