Multimedia and Convergence

Patrick Hanlon, Catriona Rigney, Sinéad Smith

Readings

Primary Readings• Thurman, N. & Lupton, B. 2008, "Convergence Calls:

Multimedia Storytelling at British News Websites", Convergence, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 439-455.

• Friend and Singer, Ch. 8: (cross-platform journalism) Online Journalism Ethics

Secondary Readings• White, D. (2007) “Ofcom Report Suggests Digital

Revolution Could Spell the End of Advertising As We Know It” the Telegraph 24 August 2007 [Online]

• Kiss, J. and Brook, S. (2007) “Another Month, Another Painful Fall” the Guardian, 11 June 2007 [Online]

Q: What is multimedia?

Q: What is multimedia?A: Multimedia is the integration of multiple

forms of media, including texts, video, audio, images and graphics.

Q: What is multimedia?A:Multimedia is the integration of multiple

forms of media, including texts, video, audio, images and graphics.

Q: What is convergence?

Q: What is multimedia?A:Multimedia is the integration of multiple forms

of media, including texts, video, audio, images and graphics.

Q: What is convergence?A: Convergence is a coming together of two or

more distinct entities. Convergence is increasingly prevalent in the IT world; in this context the term refers to the combination of two or more different technologies in a single device.

History Lesson

• Multimedia on news websites is not a new phenomenon.

• BBC News website has hosted “News in Video” and “News in Audio” since its launch in 1997.

• The Guardian website has offered multiple media in clickable Flash movies and audio since at least 2000.

• Similar histories exist worldwide on sites like MSNBC.com and aftonbladet.se (Sweden)

Why is multimedia necessary?

• Newspaper circulation is declining

• Television audiences are also decreasing

• People are spending more and more time on the internet and expect continuous advances from the internet and websites

Newsroom changes:

• The Guardian invested £15 million in its websites in 2007

• The Telegraph Group moved to a multi-million pound building in 2006 to facilitate the integration of print and digital publishing

• In-house teams were created for the creation of online video content e.g. The Guardian has a three-person crew; a cameraperson, correspondent and producer. The Sun has a two-person crew.

Wider-reaching changes:

• The Press Complaints Commission in the UK has extended its remit to cover “editorial audio and video material on newspaper and magazine websites”

Pure-play influence:

• YouTube and Google Video have a 30.7% share of the online video market (UK)

• YouTube’s success was a major agent in changing online news. Showcased potential of self-produced video content and forced broadcast sites (BBC, Sky News) to re-think how they deliver news video online

• As a result, established broadcasters a trying to catch up but, it is difficult e.g. Sky accounted for only 4.3 per cent of all videos watched in April 2007 (UK)

• Print media have also been striving to compete, going above and beyond multimedia on their own news websites and utilising YouTube to further display and share their content

Print Online news Video/Audio External multimedia

Video: Embedded or Stand Alone?

• Evolved from stand-alone video player to embedding video at the page or story BBC 2007: Embedded Flash video at the top of the

story had a take-up rate of between 25% and 40%. A linked video in the stand-alone player had a take-up rate of 2%.

85% of users preferred Flash to Windows Media.

• Embedding forces journalists to consider how their words will integrate and relate to the video

Flash graphics

Pros

• Increase viewer understanding of how events i.e. Natural disasters, wars, terrorist attacks etc., take place

• Good investment as they can be used multiple times

• Richer form of storytelling

Cons• Flash graphics are costly• Flash is time consuming• Difficult to find people who

have the right combination of Flash and editorial skills

• Very dependent on search engine optimisation and browser compatibility

• Flash files are very large and can decrease page download speeds

Video: Advertising

• Ad placement is highly debated but there is no doubt of its revenue potential

• No place in online news video for standard 30-second advert

• No longer than 15 seconds• Mirror.co.uk tried mid-roll ads however, it was

suggested these were disruptive and reduced the quality of the video and people just left

• Pre-roll has had more success, especially if kept under 10 seconds

Audio: Podcasts• Only suitable for certain content types?

• Resources directed towards video more so than audio

• Different responses to podcasts and audio throughout various websites ;

The Telegraph: video will win over podcasts and audio The Times: 20,000/week download rate of The Game podcast(soccer

oriented). Baddiel and Skinner podcast had 950,000 during the World Cup and a further 350,000 since the end of the tournament.

Is there a future for this type of multimedia?

Ethical Issues

Convergence and the use of multimedia can lead to:• An increased workload• Increased responsibilities• Longer hours• Less time to double and triple-check• Less emphasis on the fundamentals of good journalism

Can journalists be expected to behave ethically with increased responsibilities and workload but no

increase to salary?

• Cross-platform journalism decreases the time available for good reporting – for investigating a story thoroughly, learning the background, or simply nosing around. Generating content for more than one medium simply takes time, which is always a limited resource.

• Some are concerned that entertainment values will become more dominant in a converged operation than they might be otherwise, leading to a trend toward “sensationalised” content for all the partnered outlets rather than factual reporting.

• Web journalists have concerns about print colleagues' way of doing news. They are impatient with how long it takes to produce a newspaper story. From their perspective, print journalists have no proper sense of urgency.

• On the flipside, many journalists believe that time spent equals a better story. The time can allow them to make the extra phone call, run check with one more source, and reflect on what the story is about.

Journalism education inept?

• At present, journalists are uneducated or not educated enough in multimedia and online journalism.

• Editors feel that journalism graduates are continuing to lack “the expertise required to produce multimedia” as teachers underrate it.

• However, it is clear that this will have to change as it appears that the future of journalism is on the web and graduates will need to as skilled in online journalism as they are in print, TV and radio.

Conclusions• People are not buying as many newspapers or watching as much TV, perhaps because

news is so readily available at their fingertips online. This makes multimedia a necessity as they come to expect more and more from the internet and want news available to them online in any format they wish.

• Changes are taking place within the industry, with some investing heavily in their online content and others converging and integrating their print and web journalists. However, these changes will have to keep happening in order to keep up with internet advances, people’s expectations and technological advances and to succeed online in the future.

• Podcasts will have to be overhauled in order to compete with video and become a viable form of multimedia.

• Journalism education is ill-equipped to deal with the growing prevalence of online journalism and this will have to be rectified if we, and future generations, are to succeed in an environment which has the potential to become more online journalism than print.