Convergence

Convergence has changed the view of ‘traditional’ journalism completely. Most of our news is now readily available online instead of in print; in a society where online is the preferred method of accessing news stories, convergence has had a massive impact on the method that these news stories are presented, and on the journalists who write them.

With the changing setting of news publications, traditional journalists have discovered they need to be more versatile in what they can do in regards to their reporting, in order to keep themselves afloat in the journalism world. The convergence of once segregated news categories (broadcasts, print news, etc) has forced journalists to not only be writers, but also to film, photograph, edit and produce their own news stories.

The demand for up-to-date news stories has shifted in recent years from print newspapers to online sources. Journalists wishing to stay involved (and, in some cases, employed) with news production need to adapt and publish to where their largest readership base is.

Teamed with the increasing dependence on technology in the 21^st century, journalists have to be influenced by the demand from the readers for converged news stories in order to stay relevant and current in a constantly updating world.

Multimedia Journalism & The Media

In a digital era, multimedia journalism has fast become the prevalent method of how news stories reach the public. The need for instant gratification and to be constantly up-to-date with fresh information on the latest news stories has led to the slow decline of print newspapers in favour of online news outlets.

News outlets such as The Age and the Herald Sun have swung their focus onto their online websites opposed to their print media as it is easier to keep updated, and they do not want to fall behind in a constantly changing news environment.

Multimedia news stories allow the reader to engage more with the story content; shorter paragraphs separated by visual and/or audio aides encourages the reader to absorb the information presented in the article, instead of skimming over big chunks of text in a typical print article.

Multimedia journalism can be told linearly at the discretion of the journalist/editor, yet most stories that include multiple multimedia elements are told in a non-linear fashion. Multimedia elements can provide context and depth to an article where a standard, linear layout may not be able to.