George Yazbeck Do you think convergence journalism is here to stay? Why or why not? Share a news related website link that is an example of convergence journalism. Describe how this news source provides information to people through convergence. Is it effective?
In my opinion, convergence journalism will always have importance and will never become obsolete. The reason for why I think so is because convergence journalism (at its core) is an amalgamation of various forms of media of which the sum of its components illustrate information from many angles as presented by a journalist.
To elaborate further, in having a written piece include visual aids such as photos and videos and first-hand accounts of interaction to support certain stances (i.e. interviews, whether in person or online via social media or both), a journalist incorporating such these elements allows for a reader to process their information in a number of ways.
Perhaps some readers prefer to look at photos and watch videos as they demonstrate evidence more directly. Or perhaps some readers like to put two and two together and prefer to be provided with the written accounts (by a journalist and from eye-witnesses) alongside visual aids. Certainly, whether readers belong in either group or not, today’s widespread resources of video-sharing sites such as YouTube, Hulu, and Vimeo, and social networking sites including Facebook and Twitter prove that convergence journalism has been on a rise and is very much relevant and commonplace.
How commonplace is convergent journalism one may ask? Browsing through The Washington Post, Time, and Yahoo News, just to name a few examples, almost every news article contains photos, videos, quotes from interviews, and comment boards that enhance the viewing angle of each and every article. For example, this is an article from Time that was just posted today covering the new “Apple Watch:”
http://time.com/3311630/apple-watch/
The article introduces a video before even getting into the journalistic details written about the launch (which is a smart thing as most readers will be enticed to stay on the page and eventually read what has been written), provides images of the watch which are not seen in the video (to further excite readers and support the credibility of what was written) and includes the journalist’s own account of the device from his Twitter posts (which can contribute to readers visiting Twitter and posting any thoughts in response to the news while possibly looking for more info from other users including journalists). In this latter case, convergence journalism has the potential to spread the word and mood of a certain topic to other forms of media due to incorporating more than just plain text in an article.
The overall effectiveness of convergent journalism is profound and this article proves this because of its tendency to put readers / news-seekers on the edge and still give them what they want to hear, watch and read about (creating “hype”).
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