We’ll start by addressing a claim some people
make about media convergence, which is:
Well-written journalism is well-written journalism
wherever it appears.
Tim Holmes, who wrote this chapter of our
textbook, concedes that is technically true.
Copying and pasting the text from the print
newspaper onto the Web does technically work.
But sometimes it doesn’t, as we’ll see
from this example.
This is a PDF of a front page of a student
newspaper called The Street.
Since I’ll be shaming them in a second,
I’ll leave off their school.
Now here is a screen shot of their website.
It’s a little more complex than this, but
not much.
Without a content management system to manage
the website, it’s just a list of links to
PDFs of their newspaper archives – and some
of them are missing at that.
The printed product – albeit a digital version
of it – is far superior to its home online.
If someone wanted to search for that Skills
USA article, for example, you would need to
search Skills USA plus the name of the school
plus the name of the newspaper to find it
in a Google search.
Our textbook offers a fairly confusing definition
of media convergence, so we’ll turn to Professor
Jill Gibson at Amarillo College in Amarillo,
Texas for a better definition.
According to Gibson, “Media convergence
is the merging of mass communications outlets
- print, television, radio, and the Internet
- along with portable and interactive technologies
through various digital presentation platforms.
Now that makes a bit more sense.
More specifically, Jill Gibson writes that
Media convergence allows mass media professionals
to tell stories and present information and
entertainment using a variety of media, and
that
Converged communication provides multiple
tools for storytelling, allowing consumers
to select their level of interactivity while
self-directing content delivery.
Finally, we will take a look at what media
convergence can mean for a media outlet.
My full-time job is as the Associate Director
of Student Media at NC State, where I advise
the student radio station.
The language here is taken from our social
media strategy, linked at the end of this
presentation.
The strategy outlines why we have specific
social media accounts and what we hope to
achieve with them – we want to engage with
our audience even when they aren’t actively
listening.
To do so, WKNC has embraced a converged identity
as not just a radio station.
We offer certain programs as podcasts for
on-demand listening, a video series of band
performances for YouTube, an Instagram feed
filled with “behind the scenes” photos,
and a blog with concert and music reviews.
We even have a printed zine that we distribute
annually and have produced a printed magazine
to help market our annual benefit concert.
Shameless plug, check us out because my students
are awesome.
And yes, you can get the signal in Durham.
