As the Great Recession accelerated the decline of traditional news
operations in the U.S. and some other countries, the number of nonprofit
news ventures has increased to fill the reporting void. In a new
article, two veterans of nonprofit startups explore the different set of
challenges nonprofits face. Read the article, then join the discussion below or at The Convergence Newsletter's Google+ or Facebook pages.
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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
Even as convergence reaches beyond the traditional newsroom and outside the traditional audience bound by geography, reporters must consider who is being missed in the process. Amanda Sturgill of Elon University explains an exercise she conducts with journalism students to highlight the need for a well-considered, multichannel approach to include overlooked and under-served populations in reporting the news. Join the conversation below or on Facebook or Google+.
Digital convergence has reached beyond news departments into the business office, suggests Augie Grant, The Convergence Newsletter's founding editor. As a result, journalists must learn the basics of business to thrive in the changing environment. Read his analysis in the May edition of the newsletter, then join the conversation below or on Facebook or Google+.
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Blogging is journalism, writes West Virginia University's Bob Britten in the April edition of The Convergence Newsletter. And students will benefit from learning how to use the tool in their reporting, explains Britten.
"I'm not interested in teaching a class about technology, but I am
interested in teaching a class about using social media's connective,
network-based nature to become effective mass communicators who can
interact with readers." Read the article, then join the conversation below.
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Cringing at online news copy?
"The editors who provided the anonymous last pair of eyes on hastily
written stories in years gone by aren't there at the levels they used to
be – if they are there at all," writes Fred Vultee of Wayne State University.
Vultee reports on an American Copy Editors Society-sponsored study
of how readers assessed edited and unedited news stories for
professionalism, organization, writing, and value in The Convergence Newsletter. The work is timely as
online news sites increasingly ask readers to pay for access. Read the article, then join the conversation below.
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One description of research is a conversation – with the participants in research, with other researchers, and with professionals who apply the research. In this issue, the featured researchers look in very different ways at the meaning and effect of words on others. Both have important implications for how journalists operate in a world where understanding the conversation is critical. Read the latest edition of The Convergence Newsletter, then join the conversation here or on the newsletter's Facebook or Google+ pages.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter.
Barbara Selvin of Stony Brook University sparked an extensive, sometimes heated, and occasionally international discussion of the use of video on news websites. The debate hits several important issues: experimentation versus productivity, timeliness versus production value, specialization versus cross-training. Read her article in the current edition of The Convergence Newsletter, then join the conversation on the newsletter's Facebook or Google+ pages.
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In online journalism, news is now more than the staff-written news story but a whole package with multiple elements. At the University of Alabama, doctoral student Yan Yan is investigating how, or if, user comments affect people's immediate perceptions of news. Looking beyond positive and negative comments, she included rational and emotional appeals for a four-by-four study design that yields interesting insights.
Read about her work in the February edition of The Convergence Newsletter, then join the conversation here or on the newsletter's Facebook or Google+ pages.
The December edition of The Convergence Newsletter offers a pair of articles worth reviewing before you surge ahead into the new year, a new project, a new semester, or all three. Read about two of the research projects that make up part of the fabric of the grand experiment of convergence. Then join the conversation with comments below or at our Facebook or Google+ pages.
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In the new edition of The Convergence Newsletter, Michael Scott Sheerin and Moses Shumow of Florida International University in Miami examine the assumption that age equals fluency with digital tools and social media – in other words, that digital natives coming into classrooms now are fluent in digital technology and social media. In their article, they also look at what factors might better indicate digital fluency.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
A decade ago, convergence often meant partnerships between television stations and newspapers. In the latest phase of their longitudinal study, Jake Batsell and Camille Kraeplin of Southern Methodist University look at the state of those partnerships and what has developed in their place. Read their report in the December edition of The Convergence Newsletter, then join the conversation at our Facebook or Google+ page.
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In a Skype video call to the 10th Annual Convergence and Society Conference, Rob Curley explained his strategy for doing hyperlocal and "Big J" journalism that wins readers and awards and generating the revenue to pay for it in the process. Read a recap of Curley's lively presentation at the conference in the latest edition of The Convergence Newsletter. Then join the conversation at Facebook.
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Having residents write about their own city seems a great way for a local newspaper to cover its community – especially when the writers work for free. Until the writers and the newspaper run into a controversial issue. Writing in the latest edition of The Convergence Newsletter, Robert "Ted" Gutsche Jr. uses a case study to explore the challenges and the pitfalls one Midwestern newspaper encountered. Then join the conversation at Facebook.
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How can you train students to handle social media adeptly? Storify it, says Kelly Fincham of Hofstra. "Social media plays a huge role in journalism today, so much so that entry-level journalists are expected to work with new sources of content in ways that were unimaginable when I went into journalism in the early 1980s," she writes in the latest edition of The Convergence Newsletter. Read her account from the 10th Annual Convergence and Society Conference of how she has transformed her teaching and is helping students "make sense of it all." Then join the conversation at Facebook.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter.
For the astute professional, the stream of new media creates unprecedented access to audiences. That requires an awareness of new media and a willingness to adopt different practices. Read how two professions are changing in the new edition of The Convergence Newsletter, http://sc.edu/cmcis/news/convergence/v8no7.html. Then join the conversation on Facebook.
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Doug Fisher explores how public relations practitioners in government and education are adopting a publishing mindset. Instead of reacting to news stories, they are learning to set the agenda by pre-empting bad news or sending messages directly through their own channels. Read the article in the new edition of The Convergence Newsletter, and join the conversation on Facebook.
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Kimberley Mangun and Daren Brabham collaborated at Utah to team teach a course in beat reporting and multimedia with a focus on diversity reporting. Explore their results in the new edition of The Convergence Newsletter in their article, Converging Beat Reporting, Diversity and Multimedia: An Experiment in Team Teaching.
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At Texas Christian University, Assistant Professor Aaron Chimbel helps students navigate the demands of combining four news operations -- newspaper, television, webcasts and magazine -- into one news website. How do you coordinate coverage? Who has the final say? And can you hold a meeting for 50 reporters and editors? In an update to his 2010 article, Chimbel reports on TCU's progress in Starting a Converged Campus News Website in the new edition of The Convergence Newsletter.
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To learn news convergence, students eventually must take the lead and experience the challenges of working in a converged newsroom. In the process, they figure out how to overcome technical obstacles, negotiate through staff conflicts, and provide readers rich, multimedia content on deadline.
This month, Aaron Chimbel explains how his students at Texas Christian University's Schieffer School of Journalism have managed the practical aspects of merging newspaper, magazine and broadcast operations into a single news site, TCU360.com, and he reports on the early results.
Kimberley Mangun and Daren Brabham analyze the lessons they and their students at the University of Utah learned from a collaborative project with reporting and Web design classes.
Read the full September issue.
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It falls to us as educators to help students discover the best ways to tell a story, but what happens when we are not sure of the best way to do that? What if the curriculum is entrenched in the status quo?
The theme of this month's newsletter is convergence in the classroom. Sometimes, rigid credit-hour guidelines limit what we can do to integrate convergence on both the program and classroom level. Even as the 10th Convergence and Society conference approaches (agenda now available), we still are looking for new ideas to prepare the journalists of tomorrow.
In this issue, Annemarie Franczyk looks at things from a program perspective while Jennifer Cox offers some insight at the classroom level. Also in this issue, Convergence and Society conference chair Augie Grant briefs us on the upcoming conference.
To read the August issue, click here.
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There isn't much about media that isn't digital now, but that continues to raise questions about whether education systems internationally are equipped to meet the needs of the digital creative industries. EU nations and the U.S. have been on different paths in approaching the issue: The U.S., as might be expected, more laissez faire, while Britain, for instance, has been more inclined to treat it as a matter of national policy.
But convergence is rapidly breaking down barriers and bridging oceans, making such questions cross-national concerns. The result is an EU-U.S. funded study designed to bring industry and education together to find answers and make recommendations to policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic. The work goes beyond journalism and media to encompass a wide range of related digital creative industries - but that's part of the challenge, determining what should be included.
In this issue, Executive Editor Doug Fisher, a member of the study group, provides a more detailed explanation and asks, on behalf of the researchers, for your ideas and, especially, for nominations to industry panels that will be established as part of the work.
You can read the article here.
With convergence comes great responsibility and opportunity - opportunity that the University of South Florida's Anne Anderson says many newspapers still seem to be missing. In her discussion of media platform convergence, Anderson highlights the industry's neglect of younger audiences even as studies show the reading habit begins early. Part of the news industry's responsibility is to adapt content to its audience, and Anderson suggests the industry expand the concept of younger readers and community content in order to capture this ignored audience.
To read the entire article click, here.
Another responsibility is to try new things, as Chris Vadnais, superintendent of AFN-Incirlik, the Defense Department's radio and television station at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey, has done as a converged journalist. He details his experience and says managers are vital to the convergence process and must lead by taking some of the fear out of failure.
To read the entire article, click here.
To read the entire April/May issue click here.
While it's no secret converging newsrooms face many challenges, such as staff restructuring, the convergence of two newspapers written in different languages for diverse target audiences creates its own set of issues.
John Turner recently worked for two Cambodian newspapers, The Phnom Penh Post and The Cambodia Daily. In this issue, Turner reflects on positive and negative aspects of multilingual and multicultural convergence.
To read Turner's entire article, click here.
To read the March issue of the Convergence Newsletter, click here.
The Internet's role in convergence is irrefutable as the centralized location of easily accessible information. This continues to send shockwaves throughout the newspaper industry, and while some applaud new journalism for breathing a new life into newspapers, others are quick to write the industry's obituary.
But the University of Alabama's Kristen Heflin cautions not to jump to conclusions. Her research of the newspaper industry's past shows the industry's ability to adapt to change and survive, rather than meet an untimely death at the hands of another news platform.
In this issue, Heflin explores the parallels between the emergence of television news and its effect on the newspaper industry and the relationship between newspapers and the Internet.
To read the entire article, click here.
To read the entire issue, click here.
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Discussion concerning convergent media tends to focus on the benefits of convergence, often overlooking "de-convergence." In the latest issue of The Convergence Newsletter, Marc Edge of Sam Houston State University explains Canada has seen a reversal of some early convergence efforts, as well as new combinations.
Augie Grant of the University of South Carolina, meanwhile, looks at the unmistakable presence of convergence in media and education as one theme of the 10th annual Convergence and Society Conference.
To read the entire issue, click here.
Happy Holidays from The Convergence Newsletter!
Discussion concerning convergent media tends to focus on the benefits of convergence, often overlooking "de-convergence." But Canada has not only seen a reversal of some early convergence efforts, it has seen some new combinations "re-convergence" as Marc Edge of Sam Houston State University explains in continuing to look at the successes and failures of convergence in Canada.
To read the entire article, click here.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
Augie Grant of the University of South Carolina looks at the unmistakable presence of convergence in media and education as one theme of the 10th annual Convergence and Society Conference.
To read the entire article, click here.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
Web content such as video and audio used to supplement printed content or substitute for it in newspapers and magazines is a sign of convergence. As a part of Missouri Western University's Global Journalism Research course taught by Dr. Robert Bergland, undergraduates Austin Jacobs, Emily Gummelt and Todd Fuller researched convergence here and in other countries. They presented their findings at the 10th annual Convergence and Society Conference at the University of South Carolina and recap those findings here.
Jacobs analyzed the multimedia features of Mexican newspaper websites, while Gummelt studied web content of the top U.S. magazines. Fuller analyzed findings about the interactivity and functionality of newspaper websites.
Also in this issue is the latest Research for the Newsroom from Clyde Bentley, associate professor at the University of Missouri.
To read the entire issue, click here.
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Clyde Bentley continues his Research for the Newsroom excerpts this month with a look at the Internet's impact on everything from the perception of newspapers to the tendency for women to consult the web before making decisions.
To read the entire article, click here.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
Todd Fuller, an undergraduate student at Missouri Western State University, analyzed findings about the interactivity and functionality of newspaper websites and presents his findings in this month's issue.
To read the entire article, click here.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
Emily Gummelt presents her findings concerning web content of the top U.S. magazines in relation to convergence. Gummelt completed the research prior to graduating from Missouri Western State University.
To read the entire article, click here.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
Austin Jacobs, an undergraduate student at Missouri Western State University, analyzes the multimedia features of Mexican newspaper websites. Jacobs presented his work at the 10th annual Convergence and Society Conference at the University of South Carolina.
To read the entire article, click here.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
As social media continues to infiltrate newsrooms, classrooms and businesses, questions of its use and effectiveness widen.
In this issue, Dr. Glen Nowak, who is in charge of news and electronic media relations for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, discusses the integration of social media into the agency's communication efforts.
The CDC in Atlanta is one of the largest components of the U.S. government's health initiatives. It may be most widely known as the agency in the news when there is a disease outbreak, such as the recent H1N1 flu strain. But its mission is wider, to provide people and communities with all necessary expertise, information and tools to protect their health, according to the agency's website.
Nowak sat down with The Convergence Newsletter to further discuss social media. To read his comments, click here.
To read the entire issue, click here.
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As newsrooms incorporate convergent technologies with traditional newsgathering to find the best model for delivering information, individual journalists are embracing convergent techniques as complementary elements to their articles.
To read the entire issue, click here.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
Dr. Chris Roberts of the University of Alabama highlights the findings of his and fellow researcher Dr. John Besley's interviews with journalists for whom a large part of the job is covering government and other civic meetings, noting three ways journalists find convergent techniques especially useful.
Click here to read the entire article.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
The introduction of convergence into the setting of a classroom has always been an issue that is fraught with great highs and many pitfalls. Although the world of professional journalism is still grappling with the meaning and usefulness of convergence, the process has yet to achieve familiar parameters of implementation within the classroom.
To read the entire issue, click here.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
Clyde Bently continues his Research for the Newsroom excerpts this month, with an interesting look at a theory that posits that mass media as we know it is simply an anomaly and is anything but perpetual.
Click here to read the entire article.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
Texas Christian University’s Aaron Chimbel gives an inside look at the school’s introduction of a renovated journalism school that places a direct emphasis on convergence and its application within the classroom.
To read the entire article, click here.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
Convergence and social media have given society powerful tools once reserved for the traditional media. Access to technology and creativity allow for anyone to disseminate a message and build a following.
To read the entire issue, click here.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
Clyde Bentley presents “Research for the Newsroom,” in which the University of Missouri professor provides a look at current research with pertinent information for media professionals.
Click here to read the entire article.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
Blake Arambula, a founder of the band Death of Paris, discusses his guerrilla social media campaign to promote and create an online community for the band that included letting fans see its first studio sessions in almost real time.
To read the entire article, click here.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
From backpack journalist, to video blogs, convergence has pushed not only the media to its limits, but also the audience and its means of interacting with journalists and the stories and information they produce.
Click here to read the entire issue.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
Joe Marren of Buffalo State College looks at how social media require media workers to rethink their traditional gatekeeper roles, not just in the newsroom but in the advertising office as well.
To read the entire article, click here.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
Wartburg College's Cliff Brockman analyzes one newsroom's attempt to embrace convergence by moving from the idea of selling one product to a world of "multiple products."
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
In looking at convergence and the myriad ways it affect us, it is easy to forget the rest of the world is not far behind - or in some cases ahead - of North American media. From the economics of convergence as well as initial application of the idea, the international community is moving forward in exploring convergence as a function of news.
To read the entire article, click here.Augie Grant and Alexander Gorelik provide an in-depth review of a program designed to train early and midcareer journalists in Ukraine in of convergence. By engineering a study that analyzes the business plans of these journalist, new models of news have been recognized.
Click here to read the entire article.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
Mark Edge looks at the possible causes of Canada's of unstable state of television. As stated by Edge, "with some television stations closing and others selling for a token few dollars, and with the country's largest news media company in bankruptcy, Canada's media system is broken, according to the country's converged media players."
To read the entire article, click here.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
Guillermo Coll describes how one can view the product of how convergence has been implemented by Spain's media. By looking at the situation of the media in the country, Coll provides a contemporary picture Spain's journalistic industries.
Click here to read the entire article.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
To look at how convergence has affected journalism and the news business, a couple of key elements come into play. One main factor is the quality of journalism and how to compare it with traditional journalism values. Another is the interaction with the journalism process that convergence allows s to have.
Click here to read the entire newsletter.
Serena Carpenter of Arizona State University explores the new perceptions of journalist, journalism and quality in the digital age. The question of quality is addressed in an in-depth manner in this article.
To read the entire article, click here.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
Val Pipps of the University of Akron analyzes the interaction between community and news source. By looking at the activity of users of a Web 2.0 site, Pipps finds the some of the reasons and rational behind users' comments.
Click here to read the entire article.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
In looking at the newsrooms of 10 or 20 years ago and those of today, the comparisons are staggering. The process of making, gathering, buying and selling the news has changed dramatically, with everything from massive layoffs to totally integrated newsrooms.
To read the entire newsletter, click here.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
Jack Lail, the Knoxville News Sentinel's news innovation director, gives a firsthand account of his newsroom's evolution and the mental and emotional strains that came with it. Lail also analyzes how the Sentinel's staff has measured the effectiveness of its efforts.
Click here to read the entire article.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
As newsrooms converge, one of the questions to be examined is whether the community involvement that researchers have found correlates with newspaper reading also carries over to online. Jennifer Cox of the University of Florida finds a relationship, but with a simpler metric than time spent on site.
To read the entire article, click here.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
It’s a familiar refrain, the constant need for traditional news organizations need to retool to a form that embraces convergence. But some Virginia Commonwealth University students learned that this idea still has little traction on the front lines of news organizations.
Given the speed with which digital media have become part of our lives and the accompanying publicity, it's easy to understand how we might forget that such convergence is not necessarily widespread throughout all social strata. A Knight Foundation-funded program headquartered at Newsplex, BGTIME, looks to bridge some of that divide when it comes to senior citizens. R.J. Kraft explains how BGTIME is using students to help older members of the community with technology -- the ultimate result being a richer civic dialogue for all. Augie Grant also has a recap of the Convergence and Society Conference co-sponsored by the University of South Carolina and hosted by the University Nevada, Reno the first week of November. After two days of presentations, he concludes that social media are affecting journalism as much as the current economy is, only in a good way.
R.J. Kraft, a University of South Carolina graduate student, has been integral in the creation of an original content website for a very particular demographic: senior citizens. The website, BGTIME.org, gives seniors an outlet to a new technology, as well as serving as a platform for original content written and edited by the seniors.
University of South Carolina Professor Augie Grant gives a first-hand look at the highlights and emerging challenges in the field of convergence represented at the eight annual Convergence and Society conference.
Paul Bowers, a journalism student at USC and winner of winner of a two-week trip to Africa with New York Times writer and Pulitzer Prize winner Nicholas Kristof, discusses the challenges facing world-wide convergence.
Not only does Bowers examine the obvious problems of lack of widespread broadband Internet access, but also the more telling problem of basic communication on the continent. While convergence may seem to be rapid publication and new digital mediums to Westerners, simple communication via telephone is as far as many Africans get.
To read the entire article, click here.
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SUNY Fredonia Professor Elmer Ploetz takes a look at the changes that have been made throughout journalism to accommodate more of a focus on convergence.
Ploetz speaks from first-hand experience as State University of New York, Fredonia has started from scratch with their convergence program and has made adaptability the cornerstone of their curriculum. Undeterred, he illuminates that problems that many other universities are having in emphasising convergence within the traditional journalism school dichotomy.
Click here to read the entire article.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
Doug is at the "Convergence and Society" conference in Reno this week. He is doing some live blogging on it at his blog, Common Sense Jounalism. Here is a list of his posts that is being updated.
With each innovation, fewer technical obstacles prevent us from reaching the apex of media intertwinement.
This month's issue will address the areas of HD video streaming and the upcoming University of South Carolina "Convergence and Society" conference at the University of Nevada, Reno. These two insightful pieces by Edgar Huang of the University of India - University of Purdue, Indianapolis and USC's own Augie will surely make for good reads.
Please feel free to contact us at convedit@mailbox.sc.edu with your thoughts and article proposals.
Click here to read the entire newsletter.
Professor Edgar Huang of the University of Indiana - Purdue University, Indianapolis takes a look at the recent advances in HD streaming video technology and how it is affecting other aspects of internet progress.
In this piece, Huang articulates that HD streaming video is the backbone of convergence that, while still in the development stages, will become more important as other areas of communication advance.
To read the entire article, click here.
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University of South Carolina Professor Augie Grant gives a preview of the 2009 "Convergence and Society" conference, which will be heading to the University of Nevada, Reno.
The theme this year is “The Changing Media Landscape.” Almost four dozen submissions have been juried and whittled down to a two-day conference that explores the rapidly evolving state of journalism and mass media in general. The conference includes theme sessions on the nature and impact of the multitude of changes including consolidation, economic challenges, globalization, and regulatory change.
Click here to read the entire article.
It’s September, you say, so why does my Convergence Newsletter say August?
No, we haven’t put time on hold, though we wish we could. It’s simply been a time of more changes here at TCN. Combined with some technical glitches and then the inevitable rush at the start of classes, and we found ourselves staring at a calendar that had moved on.
We will be following this in a week or two with the actual September issue, led by Edgar Huang’s article detailing his important work researching effective video streaming technology. But to keep things in synch, we decided to put out the “August” issue instead of a more confusing “August-September” issue.
One change you will notice is a new editor for the newsletter. Matt McColl joins us both as a graduate student and as the new day-to-day whip-cracker, bottle-washer and keeper of the passwords. Please feel free to contact him at convedit@mailbox.sc.edu with your thoughts and article proposals. And, of course, you can always contact me.
This is our back-to-the-classroom issue, and we have three insightful pieces I think you’ll enjoy.
South Carolina graduate Holly Fisher tells the tale from the frontlines of an ever-evolving journalism world and what she would and would not do differently.
Fisher provides a template for other journalism students and how to react and adapt to that new journalism world.
Click here to read the article.
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David Weintraub a writer, editor, photographer, and educator based in Aiken, S.C., outlines an experimental course he is teaching that is designed to give communications students a firm grounding in business basics and entrepreneurship.
To read the entire article, click here.
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Nicole White provides insight into the ever changing social media world and how journalism should adapt responsibly.
First it was blogs. Then came the rise of social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and mySpace. Now, “lifestreaming” is taking hold with sites like Tumblr and Posterous that allow easy posting of an almost stream of consciousness mélange of facts, observations, pictures, videos, etc.
With this seemingly exponential rise in news sources, it becomes increasingly difficult to determine which stories have responsible journalistic coverage and which were fabricated or embellished to provide more excitement. While newspapers and news anchors have been delivering sensational headlines for years, with the advent of Internet news it becomes ever more difficult to figure out where the news coverage takes liberties.
Click here to read the entire article.
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.
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.
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.
Read the conference and training schedule of the June 2009 issue here.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
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.
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.
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A lot has been learned from Hartsville Today, created by the University of South Carolina journalism school more than three years ago in partnership with a twice-weekly newspaper and with a New Voices grant from J-Lab. The site now has about 1,600 registered members in a market area of about 20,000, and far more people in the area visit the site regularly, based on our IP address logs. University of South Carolina Professor Doug Fisher discusses ways in which newspapers can utilize digital media to interact and reach out to readers.
Click here to read the full article.
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The United States is in jeopardy. Many newspapers have gone out of business and the rest are in deplorable condition. If the news media shut down, the United States will no longer boast government of the people, by the people, for the people. The government will be in charge because there will be no free criticism of the government, no uncensored report on what the government is doing. Douglas Perret Starr argues there are three things that must be done to save newspapers.
Click here to read the full article.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
Read the conference and training schedule of the May-June issue here.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
Wendy Parker joined 15,000 others among the ranks of former newspaper workers last year, but rather than lament her situation, Parker has embraced the change. Optimistic and encouraging, her story can serve as a model for those looking for life after newspapers.
Sharing some research initially presented at last fall's Convergence Conference at USC, Bartosz Wodynski and Jessica Smith of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill discuss research that helps us understand and anticipate who are the most likely groups to create and share content online.
Times are certainly tough for newspapers, but that doesn't mean editors and publishers can't adapt to the changing landscape and meet today's challenges head on. That's the message offered by Tom Griscom, editor of the Chattanooga Times Free Press in Tennessee.
Bringing together theoretical and research perspectives from a wide range of convergence researchers and commentators, Understanding Media Convergence: The State of the Field, edited by August E. Grant and Jeffrey S. Wilkinson, is now available from Oxford University Press.
The University of South Carolina’s annual Convergence and Society conference is moving west for the second time in eight years. This year’s conference will be hosted and co-sponsored by the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, Nov. 5-6.
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Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
Read the conference and training schedule of the April issue here.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
After a too-long hiatus (TCN executive editor Doug Fisher explains), The Convergence Newsletter returns for 2009 with more material culled from October's Convergence Conference at USC.
In the early days of convergence, the newsroom of the future was envisioned: all manner of media platforms – newspaper and television, mostly – sharing information, staff, and resources all under the same roof.
What has been the political impact of the Internet in the United States? On the heels of a history-making presidential campaign, this is not just a fascinating but an important question.
Over the years, much of the academic study in the area of journalism has consisted of investigations of and about journalists and journalism – yet, as Dr. John Cokley of Australia's University of Queensland points out, there has been precious little happening in studies for journalists and journalism.
Read the conference and training schedule from February's issue here.
Recent and archived issues of The Convergence Newsletter
