The Convergence Newsletter
From Newsplex at the University of South Carolina
Vol. V No. 9 (April 2008)
Commenting on Convergence
By Brad Petit, Editor of The Convergence Newsletter
In March, we introduced our new theme-oriented approach with a special issue on broadcasting. This month, we direct our focus to convergence internationally, with the first of what we hope will be a semiannual look at convergence developments around the globe.
While The Convergence Newsletter is U.S.-based, we hasten to acknowledge that Americans do not hold a monopoly on the practice, observation, or teaching of convergence. Evidence can be found in our increasingly global readership. We believe it is important to recognize and cast light on the ways convergence is taking shape beyond our borders, and in doing so, better serve our worldwide audience.
In this issue, Dr. Stephen Quinn of Deakin University tells us how Australia’s biggest media group is carving out its place in the digital landscape and empowering its reporters to do the same.
Next, Lorena Tarcia of Brazil’s University Center of Belo Horizonte adapts her presentation from last October’s Convergence Conference at USC, in which she discussed an ambitious convergence teaching project based on the Newsplex model.
Fellow conference presenter Ivar Erdal of Norway concludes this international edition of TCN with a call to devote more research into the ways physical layouts can, and do, affect personnel interaction in a converged newsroom.
We will revisit international convergence this fall. This summer, we want to devote an issue to exploring convergence impacts on physical and social communities. But we need your articles to do that. Please e-mail us as soon as you can with ideas and proposals on this or other convergence-related topics
This issue closes with a message from Dr. Augie Grant, former TCN executive editor, announcing publication of Principles of Convergent Journalism, the new text by Grant, fellow USC faculty member and current TCN Executive Editor Doug Fisher, and veteran TCN contributor Dr. Jeff Wilkinson of China’s United International College.
Contact Brad Petit, editor of The Convergence Newsletter, at convergence-editor@mailbox.sc.edu.
View past newsletters at http://www.jour.sc.edu/news/convergence/.
Visit The Convergence Newsletter blog at http://convergencenl.blogspot.com.
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Feature Articles
Australia’s Fairfax Embraces the Multimedia Future
Media Convergence and Journalism Teaching in Brazil: A Project Using Newsplex as a Reference
Are We Paying Enough Attention to Space in Newsroom Studies?
Book Announcement: Principles of Convergent Journalism
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Conferences, Training and Calls for Papers
BEA 2008
April 16-19
61st World Newspaper Congress and 15th World Editors Forum
June 1-4
Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference
July 18-20
AEJMC Convention 2008
Aug. 6-9
SPJ Convention and National Journalism Conference 2008
Sept. 4-7
The Colorado Colloquium on Media Ethics & Economics: Competing Imperatives and Duties
Sept. 15-17
28th American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA) Annual Conference
Oct. 1-4
Convergence and Society: The Participatory Web
Oct. 9-11
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---------------Feature Articles
Australia’s Fairfax Embraces the Multimedia Future
By Dr. Stephen Quinn, Deakin University, Australia
Late last year, journalists at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian Financial Review moved into a new building dubbed the “newsroom of the future” on Sydney’s inner harbor. The papers are the flagships of Fairfax Media, Australia’s biggest and most integrated media group. Phil McLean, Fairfax Media’s group executive editor and the man in charge of the move, said three-quarters of the process involved getting people to “think differently” – that is, to alter their mindset so they were willing to work with multimedia. Fairfax Media had moved from being a newspaper company to an integrated media company, McLean said.
Weekly training courses were introduced as part of the move. I facilitated two-day multimedia courses from last July to December. Each course involved introducing journalists to a portable digital assistant (PDA) called a JasJam, made by iMate. The rival Murdoch-owned The Australian had reported on Aug. 23 that all Fairfax journalists would be equipped with JasJams, which cost about $1,100 (U.S.), and wondered about the cost.
Fairfax employs about 800 journalists on its Sydney daily newspapers, but in actuality, only reporters and photographers involved with breaking news used the device, McLean said. “That’s somewhere between a dozen and 20 reporters at The Sydney Morning Herald and 15 to 20 at The Age" in Melbourne, the other major city. A pool of 70 to 80 JasJams would be made available for specific assignments.
All 7 reporters at the Brisbane Times, the online-only daily launched in March 2007 in Australia’s third-largest city, were equipped with JasJams from the start. The issue was not the technology, McLean emphasized, but preparing journalists for new ways of providing information to audiences. “It’s the JasJam today, but it could well be a different piece of equipment tomorrow,” said Mike Van Niekerk, editor-in-chief of Fairfax Digital, the company’s online arm. McLean said the JasJam was likely be “superseded within the next 12 months” by other technologies.
Australia’s next biggest media company, Murdoch’s News Ltd., has also embraced the multimedia future, though at the time of writing the embrace had been less well developed. The Australian is the company’s Sydney flagship. In an Oct. 19, 2007, speech, News Ltd. CEO and Chairman John Hartigan said it had never been a better time to be a journalist. “If you really care about journalism, you have to be passionate about reinventing it in the digital age,” he said. “As journalists, we’ve never had more inducements to open our minds, stretch our imaginations, or reach more people. We can write, blog, broadcast audio and video, all from the one workstation.”
Hartigan said that for much of his 43-year career most journalists were generalists, “sweeping over any subject with a light dusting of curiosity and a nice turn of phrase.” But he warned that those days were numbered. Journalism needed more specialists, he argued – “more people who can provide compelling insights to what’s going on” because quality was “taking on greater meaning, not less.”
Competition for talent also was intensifying, Hartingan said. As a result, he said, “We will need to pay more and offer better opportunities to attract – and retain – the best people.” In other words, quality content was the key. In a world of information overload, audiences return to brands they can trust that synthesize information and make it easy to absorb. That deep skill requires highly skilled and educated journalists. The obvious place to find specialists is at universities and think tanks.
For the journalism curriculum in Australia, Fairfax Media's move means educators must become more relevant. The industrial-age curricula devised in the 1970s are no longer useful. The key is preparing students for a multimedia future, which means a teaching mindset that helps students embrace change. Van Niekerk, Fairfax Digital's editor-in-chief, said newsroom integration depended on changing a newsroom’s culture and mindsets. McLean agreed: Much of Fairfax’s training, instead of teaching journalists specific tricks, aims “to recalibrate the way people think about journalism,” he said. Training all journalists in multimedia did not mean an end to specialization. “We don’t expect everybody to practice it (multimedia), but everybody must think” in those terms, McLean said.
The new newsroom symbolized the culmination of a series of major changes at Fairfax. In August 2006, the traditional newspaper company, John Fairfax Ltd., changed its name to Fairfax Media to reflect its multiplatform future. In March 2007, Fairfax launched Australia’s first online-only daily publication in Queensland, the Brisbane Times. In May 2007, Fairfax completed its merger with Rural Press to become the biggest media company in Australasia, with annual revenues of about $2.5 billion (Australian) and market capitalization of about $7 billion (Australian). Two months later, Fairfax got even bigger when it acquired at least one radio station in all of Australia's capital cities and several television studios when it bought Southern Cross Television. Later this year, Fairfax is expected to bid for one of the two digital-television licenses made available by the changes to media ownership laws promulgated last year.
The aim in moving Fairfax from a print to a multiplatform company was to reach as large an audience as possible. “We have a total readership in print of over 4 million per day and online of over 5 million per month,” CEO David Kirk said at the time of the Rural Press merger. “Our brand of quality, independent, balanced journalism will serve and support more communities than ever.” Chairman Ron Walker wrote in the 2006 annual report that Fairfax was “evolving into a truly digital media company.” Within five years, Fairfax would be a significantly bigger Internet company that distributed its content “over more media,” Kirk wrote.
Kirk developed a three-pronged strategy: First, to “defend and grow our newspaper publishing businesses” – that is, to consolidate and develop the existing newspapers, whose circulations were holding steady during the week and improving at weekends. Second was to “accelerate the revenue and earnings of our digital business,” and third was “to build a digital media company for the 21st century.”
Fairfax Media’s embrace of multimedia and its use of the JasJam marks the start of major changes to how journalists work in Australia. The process reflects major changes in newsroom practices around the world. In November 2006, Ifra, the international media research company, asked newspaper executives worldwide about their priorities for 2007 and 2008. The survey attracted 240 responses from 43 countries, and results appeared in January 2007. Integration, editorial convergence and cross-media strategies attracted the most attention. Four in five executives rated these a top priority, and half made them their main priority in terms of allocating “significant” funds.
It seems a likely future for journalism is evolving in Australia. The newsroom of the future has been renamed the “newsroom for now.”
Dr. Stephen Quinn is an associate professor of journalism at Deakin University, Australia. He can be reached at stephenq@deakin.edu.au.
Links referenced in this article:
Brisbane Times: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au
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Media Convergence and Journalism Teaching in Brazil: A Project Using Newsplex as a Reference
By Lorena Tarcia, University Center of Belo Horizonte, Brazil
In 2006, we started the Media Convergence Project at the School of Journalism at University Center of Belo Horizonte, where I teach. The university has 39 undergraduate and 12 postgraduate courses of study. The journalism degree is a four-year major that now has 800 students, with 200 graduations per year. It is offered by morning or evening sessions to suit a student's occupation.
In Brazil, media convergence is happening in the larger media companies. In the state of Minas Gerais, our biggest media conglomerate (TV station, radio, newspaper, Internet access provider) is introducing the idea of the convergent reporter. Teaching, however, remains fragmented.
In 2001, our university added two classes to cover digital media: Multimedia Fundamentals in the second semester and Online Journalism in the seventh semester, two years later. Otherwise, the students work predominantly with nondigital technology.
We do not have what Don Tapscott calls a “Net Generation” – it’s more what I call a “Screen Generation.” In Brazil, students’ main digital experience is through the mobile phone. Computers are for entertainment, e-mail, and basic school research and work. Considering this reality and the data collected before the action research component of the Media Convergence Project began, we decided to try to turn the students into “agents of convergence,” using Newsplex as model. Although we didn’t have enough resources for building a convergent newsroom, we thought if students were aware of the convergence process and the changes in journalism, they could help to change the ways things were happening at school.
The action research took place over six months, but the project is continuing. We work with second-semester students, and two other professors are involved: one teaching Portuguese and the other anthropology.
The project has three parts. The first is based on a “multimedia blogosphere” concept, using Multiply as the platform. Students work in pairs and the goals are:
At the project's main page, I use resources like hypertext, audio, video, and photos to talk and interact with students about convergence and journalism. We also form a community that links morning-session students to those attending the evening sessions to promote discussion and dialogue on the project.
We use a meta-linguistic process to study each medium. To learn about print-media evolution, we use text and hypertext. Students carry out research and interview teachers and journalists then write a story about the issue of technological evolution in print media. It is published on the blog, using the EyeTrack research as reference for the format.
To study the changes in photography, we make a timeline, using Photoshop for editing the slides. Students visit newspapers and talk to photographers about the changes in photojournalism.
To talk about the technological evolution in radio, we make podcasts. The students visit local radio stations and use Audacity for editing. Here is an example of a podcast (though it is in Portuguese). Following the same logic, we make videocasts to talk about the technological evolution in the television world. We use Audacity to record audio and Windows Movie Maker for video.
The project's second part involves applying the tools the students learned to tell a story using multimedia. Again, we use the Multiply platform. The story is related to the research they do for anthropology, specifically about urban tribes. Students are grouped in fives and their goals are:
They use text and hypertext to publish weekly updates about the experience and the project's research and findings. They also publish a collection of links about the subjects and choose which tools to use to better express parts of the story – music, recorded interviews, podcasts, etc.
During this process, students also use videocasts, video interviews, slide shows, and photos in different ways to tell stories about the research and the urban groups they are studying.
The third part of the project is about cross-media storytelling. After all the preparations, the students are shown how Newsplex works.
The students are divided into groups of eight. Each semester we change the subject. Topics so far have included the Olympic games, media and life, the city of Belo Horizonte, and so on. The objectives are to be able to adapt the story for each medium, following the Newsplex model.
I made a Portuguese translation of the Newsplex video “Tomorrow’s News” and present it to the students. They find it very interesting as it gives them a full and clear vision of the possibilities of the convergence process.
The students are then asked to make up a virtual representation of the control panel used by Newsplex, according to the subject they are going to cover. It’s interesting to note that the representations of the panels weren’t made on computers. The students draw parts by hand or cut the figures from magazines and paste the various components onto a sheet using glue. A kind of analog “cut and paste.”
After that, having basically covered the theory, they do the research and write their stories for each medium. Based on that research we print a four-page newspaper.
They then record a 30-minute radio show using a professional radio studio, and they make a TV program about the subject, but we do not allow them to use recorded interviews. Using their own words, they themselves have to tell the story in front of the cameras. This is where the Portuguese professor becomes involved, helping them adapt their text to the media.
Finally, they make a Web site that includes all the other media together with interactive elements. The Web site also shows details of how the project is made, again using different media to tell this “behind the scenes” story.
So far, we can say we were quite successful in creating proactive students. Indeed, students have started to use multimedia in the other subjects and semesters. This project has been one of the most exciting they have undertaken in their major.
However, in order to establish a culture of multimedia convergence in the major, the project by itself is not enough. We need to involve the whole school in a program like this, including the other teachers and disciplines. The next step, therefore, involves a more extensive program, working on a more flexible curriculum and integrating the entire School of Journalism.
Lorena Tarcia teaches in the School of Journalism at University Center of Belo Horizonte, Brazil. This article is based on a presentation at the annual Convergence Conference at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, October 2007. Tarcia can be reached at lorenatarcia2@gmail.com.
Links referenced in this article:
Don Tapscott: http://snipurl.com/239qp
Multiply: http://multiply.com
Project main page: http://fundamentos07.multiply.com
Project blog: http://vanila32.multiply.com/journal/item/3
Eyetrack: http://snipurl.com/239qo
Timeline: http://vaarruda.multiply.com/photos/album/2
Podcast example: http://snipurl.com/23apt
Videocasts 1: http://snipurl.com/23apv
Multimedia story: http://aiafundamentos.multiply.com
Weekly updates: http://mercadocentral.multiply.com/journal
Links collection: http://mercadocentral.multiply.com/links
Videocasts 2: http://mercadocentral.multiply.com/video/item/5
Slide shows: http://mercadocentral.multiply.com/photos
Olympic games semester: http://br.geocities.com/muraldeberlim/
Media and life semester: http://www.convergencia.jor.br/midiasgerais/home.htm
“Tomorrow’s News” translation: http://fundamentos07.multiply.com/video/item/3
Newsletter: http://www.convergencia.jor.br/midiasgerais/press.htm
Radio show: http://www.convergencia.jor.br/midiasgerais/radio.htm
TV program: http://www.convergencia.jor.br/midiasgerais/tv.htm
Final Web site: http://www.convergencia.jor.br/midiasgerais/home.htm
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Are We Paying Enough Attention to Space in Newsroom Studies?
By Ivar John Erdal, University of Oslo, Norway
Research on journalism has long paid close attention to time as a structural factor in the newsroom: Schlesinger (1978) talks about a “stopwatch culture” at the BBC. Time pressure is also an important factor in discussions of whether multiplying deadlines and heavier workloads endanger the quality of journalism (Ursell, 2001; Pavlik, 2004; Huang et al., 2004; Huang et al., 2006). Klinenberg (2005) described this phenomenon as a “news cyclone” where there is always breaking news to produce.
I will argue that space should also get its fair share of attention as a structural constraint, especially in converged newsrooms. Space and newsroom architecture are highly relevant to the relationship and cooperation between different media platforms. Boczkowski (2004) did argue that “materiality matters in online newsrooms,” but refers more to technical considerations than spatial organization.
Existing research into (media) organizations has traditionally taken two different perspectives on the physical surroundings: the symbolic and the behavioral (Hatch, 1997). While the behavioral perspective deals with the relationship between physical surroundings and the activities that take place in the organization, the symbolic perspective looks at how physical structure is tied to symbolic meanings.
Studying news journalism at SABC News in Johannesburg, South Africa, Orgeret (2006) found that the physical structure of the SABC institution communicated hierarchical patterns through spatial distances and physical objects. Sizes of staff members’ offices, as well as placement on higher or lower floors, reflected levels of status and power within the organization. More important in this context, the divided physical structure of the newsroom influenced the news production process. Journalists delivering raw news material lost control over how journalists on the other side of the newsroom edited and packaged it for broadcast.
Hemmingway (2004) examined the spatial organization of the newsroom in relation to professional relationships between reporters, with a focus on the physical workspace and how journalists “seek to territorialize that space.” Her case study was the BBC regional newsroom in Nottingham, England, which, similar to SABC News, is divided into separate zones of “newsgathering” and “output.” While the two zones “constantly struggle for control over logistics, staff members and resources,” they also share knowledge of what the news should look like.
This article is based on a small part of my Ph.D. project, which is a case study of cross-media news production at the Norwegian public-service broadcaster NRK. In other words, how radio, television, and Web cooperate in the news production process. My study includes two newsrooms: the largest, main newsroom and a smaller regional office.
My findings indicate that space is not perceived so much as a place of struggle, but as a structural constraint limiting the ease of cooperation. The spatial structure definitely has an impact on how journalists carry out their work. This is not the least evident when it comes to the relationship and ease of cooperation between different media platforms.
Some background information for those not familiar with the NRK, or Norwegian media in general, might be useful. Public service broadcasting as an institution has a strong position in all the Nordic countries, both regarding market share and audience reach. They are situated in what Hallin and Mancini (2004) called the North European Democratic Corporatist Model. The developments at the NRK in the wake of digitization are similar to those found at, for instance, the BBC. The news output of the NRK increased significantly from 1995 to 2007, gaining momentum over the past few years. In 1995, the NRK produced and broadcast news for three radio channels, one television channel, and teletext. News for television, radio, and teletext was produced in separate departments. As of 2008, the NRK produces and broadcasts news for four radio channels (one of which is 24-hour news radio), three television channels (one of which is semi-24-hour news television), teletext, Web, and mobile media. The production of news for different media is integrated in one department.
If we look at the spatial layout of the largest newsroom, the television desks are divided from the radio and Web desks by a row of offices. “Going around the wall” has become an expression, as a radio bulletin reporter puts it: “On larger stories we sometimes even cooperate with Dagsrevyen. We go around the wall. It was easier before, when we were sitting closer to them.” Web reporters agree, saying they miss having eye contact with television reporters and being able to read the reporters’ body language “to know when something big happened.” The Web desk is close to the radio bulletin desk, and the Web reporters claim to often get knowledge of important breaking news by listening to what the radio staff talks about. This closeness between the Web and radio bulletin desks results in frequent informal cooperation during the normal working day.
The regional office is of course smaller, but also significantly different in architecture. Here, the radio and television desk editors and the radio bulletin reporter share a common desk. This shared space makes informal contact easy, and the radio and television desk editors have more or less continuous contact during the day. The radio desk editor sits in the middle of the action, close to the television desk editor, the radio bulletin reporter, and the Web reporter, and functions as an informal information center in the newsroom. The Web reporter on duty sits nearby, with her or his back to the radio desk editor. This allows him or her to overhear or take part in the informal discussions between the desk editors, and between the editors and reporters coming by to talk about their stories.
The two spaces are thus fundamentally different from a cross-media perspective. At the regional office, the newsroom architecture facilitates cooperation. The desk editors of the different platforms are close to each other, making informal communication easy. At the central newsroom, architecture has to be overcome in order to cooperate. This newsroom is much bigger and contains a lot more people. The desk editors of the different platforms thus sit apart, making informal communication more cumbersome. More of the communication happens within the shared production system (ENPS) and less face to face. Where the architecture allows it, face-to-face communication is preferred.
This may seem banal and self-evident, but is nevertheless an important factor to consider in studies of production processes in converged newsrooms. This topic is treated in more detail in a forthcoming Ph.D. thesis, “Journalism in the age of digital reproduction: organizational, editorial and textual strategies and practices in cross-media news production” (Erdal, 2008).
References:
Ivar John Erdal is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Oslo, Norway. This article is based on a presentation at the annual Convergence Conference at the University of South Carolina in Columbia, October 2007. Erdal can be reached at i.j.erdal@media.uio.no.
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Book Announcement: Principles of Convergent Journalism
By Dr. Augie Grant, University of South Carolina
When this newsletter was founded, one of the most frequent requests I received as executive editor was for information on convergent journalism textbooks. The editors and I kept watching for books on the subject, asking authors to send us articles on new ones as they were published.
These books were great, providing a broad range of perspectives on convergence and giving faculty some interesting choices for adoption. As time passed, however, I realized two important needs had not been met. As a field, we needed a theoretical book that addressed convergence from different perspectives, combining theory and research to provide a “state of the field.” We also needed a practical textbook that takes an almost cookbook-like approach to convergence.
Jeff Wilkinson and I decided to do both. I’m proud to announce publication of the first of the two books, Principles of Convergent Journalism, by Oxford University Press at the beginning of this month. Along the way, Doug Fisher, current executive editor of The Convergence Newsletter, joined the team, adding a special set of strengths to all areas of the book, especially the print journalism chapters. The theoretical book, Understanding Media Convergence: The State of the Field, is in production and will be released in about five months.
Principles of Convergent Journalism was explicitly designed to combine conceptual information on writing and reporting with practical, step-by-step procedures to report across media. Following chapters that introduce convergent journalism and basic skills of journalists, the book has a set of chapters on how newspapers are converging with Internet distribution, with one chapter devoted to repurposing content from the newspaper to the Internet and a second looking at new types of content that newspapers can distribute on the Internet. Two chapters then address the repurposing of and creating new content online for broadcast journalists.
Other chapters introduce the basics of broadcast journalism for print journalists and the basics of print journalism for broadcast journalists, news on the Internet, multimedia reporting, converging with other (new) media, and getting a job as a converged journalist. An extensive glossary will help journalists in whatever medium understand the language of others.
Along the way, we’ve included a broad range of illustrations and exercises to help students acquire the skills explored. The result is a book that we believe takes a more practical approach to convergence than others.
If you are teaching convergent journalism, you have many choices not available a few years ago. On behalf of my co-authors, I invite you to visit the Oxford University Press Web site where you can get a closer look at the book or request an exam copy. We’re also eager for feedback and for ideas regarding materials you would like to see on the Web page for the book.
Dr. Augie Grant is an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of South Carolina. He can be reached at augie@sc.edu.
Links referenced in this article:
Oxford University Press: http://snipurl.com/239mr
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---------------Conferences, Training and Calls for Papers
BEA 2008: The New Communications Frontiers
Las Vegas
April 16–19
http://www.beaweb.org/bea2008/index.html
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61st World Newspaper Congress and 15th World Editors Forum
Goteborg, Sweden
June 1–4
Congress: http://www.wan-press.org
Forum: http://www.worldeditorsforum.org
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Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference
Grapevine, Texas
July 18-20
http://themayborn.unt.edu
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AEJMC Convention
Chicago
Aug. 6–9
http://aejmc.org/_events/convention/08convention/index.php
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SPJ Convention and National Journalism Conference 2008
Atlanta
Sept. 4-7
http://www.spj.org/convention.asp
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The Colorado Colloquium on Media Ethics & Economics: Competing Imperatives and Duties
Estes Park, Colo.
Sept. 15–17
http://jcomm.uoregon.edu/~tbivins/aejmc_ethics/news-events.html
Call for Papers deadline: April 15, 2008
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28th American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA) Annual Conference
Seattle
Oct. 1–4
http://ajhaonline.org/convention.html
Call for Papers deadline: May 15
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Convergence and Society: The Participatory Web
University of South Carolina
Columbia, S.C.
Oct. 9–11
http://newsplex.sc.edu/newsplex08/cfpapers.html
Call for Papers deadline: June 15
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---------------Publisher and Editorial Staff
The Convergence Newsletter is free and published by The College of Mass Communications and Information Studies at the University of South Carolina.
Executive Editor
Doug Fisher
dfisher@sc.edu
Editor
Brad Petit
convedit@mailbox.sc.edu
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---------------Online
Visit The Convergence Newsletter blog at http://convergencenl.blogspot.com, where you can comment on recent articles and keep up with the latest in convergence news. There is also an RSS feed option for those who want alternative access.
View past and current issues of The Convergence Newsletter at http://www.jour.sc.edu/news/convergence/. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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---------------Submission Guidelines/Deadline Schedule
The Convergence Newsletter provides an editorially neutral forum for discussion of the theoretical and professional meaning of media convergence. We welcome articles of all sorts addressing the subject of convergence in journalism and media. We also accept news briefs, book reviews, calls for papers and conference announcements. Our audience is both academics and professionals; the publication style is AP for copy and APA for citations. Feature articles should be 750 to 1,200 words. Other articles should be 250 to 750 words; announcements and conference submissions should be 200 words. Please send all articles to The Convergence Newsletter editor at convedit@mailbox.sc.edu along with your name, affiliation, and contact information.
If you would like to post a position announcement, include a brief description of the position and a link to the complete information. All announcements should be submitted to The Convergence Newsletter editor at convedit@mailbox.sc.edu.
The Convergence Newsletter is published the first or second week of each month except January and July. Articles should be submitted by the 15th of the month to be considered for the next month’s issue. Any questions should be sent to convedit@mailbox.sc.edu.
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---------------Subscribe/Information
To subscribe or edit your information, please send a message to convedit@mailbox.sc.edu. You may write to The Convergence Newsletter c/o School of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208.