Media Convergence

Media convergence refers to the use of different delivery methods by the same information provider, to package and deliver news. It means delivering news in different ways, to different platforms. It's multimedia.

Convergence involves writing and audio and video elements. Sometimes these technologies and products result in new business models. All or any one of these are sometimes called "disruptive."

It means that USA Today, for instance, can deliver a story about Superbowl LI, by writing about it in its print edition, having an updated and updating story on its web site with live chat and live video, and having links to plays so that we can watch highlights.

What convergence means in practice, is that traditional news suppliers compile information, and then package it for us to read, see, and hear, in hardcopy and on different devices.

This is a departure for many news organizations, which for several decades focused on mostly one medium like print or radio.

For newspapers, it means using audio and video, and using the Web.

For radio and television, it means focusing more on the written components, and using the Web to visualize some of their broadcasts.

For the reader, it means more ways than ever to get information from these places.

At its best it means an interactive information experience that leaves us feeling and thinking we learned something in an easy way that is simple to discuss and share. (And sharing itself is an entire field.)

For the news organizations, it means acquiring new technologies and skills, and having them work together to package the information. The information may not all be packaged together or all at once, but think of the news item or story as a package-- a discrete bundle of information that we can use in different ways and at different times.