When an emergency happens, journalists are likely to find the community
already has started a digital conversation. As Carrie Brown-Smith of the
University of Memphis found, non-journalists quickly create
Twitter hashtags to report, share, and discuss emergency information.
Her findings provide useful insights into how news media can embrace
participatory journalism and respond to the community's concerns. Read her report in the latest edition of The Convergence Newsletter.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
June 2012: A case study of emergency news and participatory journalism
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
June 2009 Issue Now Available
Cyber social networking is helping to fuel the current Iranian protest against recent election results. But with Iran’s government trying to stem the opposition’s mobilization by actively removing opposition Web sites and attempting to slow down social networking portals such as Facebook and Twitter, the world is being deprived of information concerning this major political movement. Iranian censorship of the Internet is not unique. The Chinese government tried to shut down dissidents’ online use at the time of Tiananmen. Other nations face such roadblocks to cyber information. This issue of The Convergence Newsletter offers two articles examining problems of Internet access in Ethiopia. We also present a study focusing on India’s use of media, examining how and where convergence in that country takes place.
June 2009: Commentary from the Wrong Side of the Digital Divide
Fulbright Scholar Alice Klement provides a view from what she calls the “wrong side of the digital divide.” Her article offers insight into Ethiopia’s technology shortfalls, which she says interfere in the advancement of media convergence and are compounded by governmental censorship of Web sites.
June 2009: Meeting Media Needs: What You Learn When You Ask Your Students Questions
Dr. John Cokley of the University of Queensland presents quantitative findings from a 2008 convergence journalism workshop in Delhi, India. Participating journalists from across India provide insight into media consumer needs and just how those needs are being met.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
May-June 2009 Issue Now Available
This May-June issue of The Convergence Newsletter looks at how convergence is serving some local communities.
Leading off is an interview with Mike Orren, founder and president of Pegasus News, a Dallas-Fort Worth online publication founded in 2005. Pegasus offers people the opportunity to localize their news, and, if they desire, to be unfettered citizen journalists, reporting the news as they see it. Orren tells The Convergence Newsletter that to be a successful online news source you need to offer your reader more than just news.
Doug Fisher of the University of South Carolina, and executive editor of TCN, says you can save the money you'd spend on some of those "secrets of social media" training sessions. He explains some simple truths he has learned from creating Hartsville Today, a three-year-old experiment in online community news and social networking.
Finally we bring you Douglas Starr, a former Associated Press journalist and now a media professor at Texas A&M, who stresses the importance a free press plays in today’s society. Starr encourages readers to seek out all forms of media and apply it daily in making informed social decisions. He says a free press serves communities and aids all in becoming better citizens.
Monday, June 15, 2009
May-June 2009: Community Companions: Pegasus News and Dallas-Fort Worth
Mike Orren is the founder and president of Pegasus News, a Dallas-Fort Worth online news site. The Convergence Newsletter interviewed Orren and discussed with him how Pegasus News is incorporating citizen journalism in the coverage of both local and regional news.
Click here to read the full article.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter