This week in our journalism lecture, we looked at media convergence. For those of us studying multimedia journalism, it relates to our core purpose, it's what we're here to learn.
In the book Convergent Journalism - An Introduction (Quinn and Filak: 2005) the authors say that modern journalists need to "think multiple media" and be comfortable working across several media platforms. Widespread adoption of high-speed broadband, coupled with fragmenting media audiences - asset rich, time poor users that want news when they're ready for it regardless of TV schedules or newspaper printing times - have created the need for multi-platform storytellers.
Prof Rich Gordon, from Northwestern University in Illinois, identified five convergent media forms: ownership, tactical, structural, information gathering and storytelling or information convergence. The last two seem the most relevant to multimedia students. They relate to how news companies need journalists that can produce content across all media: newspaper, radio, television and the internet - the so called "backpacker" journalist or the "Inspector Gadget" reporter, as well as reporters that can explore, adapt and use new forms for storytelling.
The book's authors examine the different forms of media and relate how they interact with each other. Print news is portable and permanent but is limited in it's relevance by it's last print run and requires effort on the user's part to read and absorb the content. Television and radio is emotional and immediate but can disappear into the ether once broadcast. Web content however has the ability to combine the immediacy of broadcast news with the detail of the printed form. The added bonus of the Web however is the ability to use the power of interactivity.
If a newspaper covers an event, it reports on the specifics - he said this, she said that, though it can also use diagrams, maps and photos to further explore a story. A radio report provides general coverage of an event along with interviews, opinions and sound bites. Television does a similar thing with video footage but can also add maps and artist's impressions to it's coverage. On the web however, user interactivity can add a totally new dimension to reporting. Now not confined to just written and video content, providers can offer users links to background articles and biographies, present photographic slide shows or 360 degree interactive views, allow downloads of PDF files of reports and court findings, provide animations to explain complicated subjects, offer interactive maps and diagrams, conduct opinion polls and allow users to comment on stories.
Providing this much content is considered to be outside the scope of the single "backpacker" journalist armed with a notebook and a smartphone. There's just too much to do, it needs a team approach to provide this much content. Breaking news is where "Inspector Gadget" reporters can be used most effectively. Consider the recent siege in Brisbane's Queen Street Mall. On-the-spot journalists were Tweeting about the incident as it happened, sending live reports to radio and TV stations and recording and transmitting photos and video from the scene to studios and the Web.
As future multimedia journalists we should be starting to consider the strengths and weaknesses of each medium and thinking about how we can best use them to improve and expand our storytelling. As a case in point, I recently came across a story that I'm working on covering in another blog post. At the time I took some photos and asked some questions, and came away thinking that I had enough material to produce a story. Only now, after researching and writing this post, have I realised that I left with only a fraction of the material available; my camera records video and I had an iPhone in my pocket, I could have easily recorded video footage. I could have recorded sound effects to add to a slide show of my photos. I could have recorded interviews.
And adding insult to injury, I could have spent a few minutes on Google, figuring out some better questions to ask!
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