The Convergence Newsletter
From Newsplex at the University of South Carolina
Vol. VI No. 1 (August 2008)
Commenting on Convergence
By Brad Petit, Editor
With the fall semester nearly upon us, this month’s issue of The Convergence Newsletter will serve as a timely springboard into the new academic year.
Featuring a special emphasis on education, we hope this issue will provide ideas, insights, and fodder for thought for educators who continue to investigate the how and why of bringing convergence into the classroom.
But before diving into that, Dr. Augie Grant opens this issue with a special announcement about the upcoming Convergence Conference, this October here at USC. Like the discipline itself, the conference continues to adapt and change with developments in technologies and tastes. Grant explains some new things designed to expand the conversation.
Drs. Maria Raicheva-Stover and Kathy Menzie of Washburn University tell us how their department has used a wiki to bring students and faculty to convergence, and how it has increased participation and interest on both sides of the teacher’s desk.
Next up, former USC professor Dr. Paul Lieber talks about some of his struggles, methods, and epiphanies in getting students to understand the boundary between technologies that can serve the student, and those that don’t.
Closing this issue, Victoria Geyer of Hofstra University warns about getting blinded by all the hype over new media. She provides a reality check, explaining that most people still get most of their news from radio, TV, or the newspaper. Geyer says not to foreclose new-media issues, but also reminds us not to forget the traditional media either when teaching.
In October, we will be offering the second of our biannual issues on international trends in convergence. As we did in April, we’ll take you around the globe (or for our international readers, to your own back yard, perhaps) for a look into where the similarities and differences lay in various global exercises in convergence.
Contact Brad Petit, editor of The Convergence Newsletter, at convedit@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
USC Convergence Conference Agenda Released
Making Your Wiki Sticky: Allowing Students and Faculty to Experience Convergence Together
Rescuing Our Classrooms and Students from their Technology
Pause, Watch, Listen, and Learn … Then Converge
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Conferences, Training and Calls for Papers
SPJ Convention & National Journalism Conference 2008
Sept. 4-7
Global Investigative Journalism Conference
Sept. 11-14
The Colorado Colloquium on Media Ethics & Economics: Competing Imperatives and Duties
Sept. 15-17
Investigative Reporting on Business and Finance Conference
Sept. 20-21
28th American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA) Annual Conference
Oct. 1-4
Convergence and Society: The Participatory Web
Oct. 9-11
Broadcast Education Association District II Conference
Oct. 11
Media in Transition 6
April 24-26
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---------------Feature Articles
USC Convergence Conference Agenda Released
By Dr. August E. Grant, University of South Carolina
October’s Convergence and Society conference will be the biggest in the seven years the University of South Carolina has hosted it. This year’s theme is The Participatory Web, and submissions have covered the full range of Web 2.0 technologies, from user-generated content and social networking to blogs and interactivity, plus a wide range of papers and presentations exploring practical and instructional issues related to convergent journalism.
The conference kicks off Wednesday evening, Oct. 8, with a panel on The Future of Journalism, co-sponsored by the National Press Club, the World Affairs Council, and USC. Thursday features a full day of paper presentations and demonstrations at Ifra Newsplex at USC, capped with a themed reception and poster session at the Clarion Townhouse Hotel. Sessions continue all day Friday at the Clarion, ending the day with a participatory plenary (roundtable) session and the keynote address from reporter-entrepreneur Daryn Kagan, who will discuss the new power paradigm in journalism, including new economic models, shifting power, and a changing role for reporters.
The conference will be followed on Saturday by the Broadcast Education Association District II conference, which will feature research in progress, faculty and student production competitions, vendor displays, and industry and academic panels.
We have also used feedback from those who attended last year to change the conference structure. Interactive media will allow those attending to engage in real-time interaction with presenters and other attendees, and the time for discussion and synthesis has been expanded. Another added feature is Friday evening’s participatory plenary session following all the paper presentations, where attendees will be able to engage in a roundtable discussion exploring the conference themes and drawing broad conclusions from the research presentations.
A continuing feature from conferences past is a free, half-day Newsplex training session, this year from 1-5 p.m. Wednesday. The focus is on Convergence on a Budget. Registration is limited to the first 15 conference attendees requesting a reservation for the training.
The complete conference agenda and registration information is available here. For more information on any aspect of the conference, contact conference chair Augie Grant at 803-777-4464 or augie@sc.edu.
Dr. August E. Grant is an associate professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of South Carolina. Contact him at augie@sc.edu.
Links referenced in this article:
Conference Information: http://sc.edu/CMCIS/news/Fall08/PWeb/index.html
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Making Your Wiki Sticky: Allowing Students and Faculty to Experience Convergence Together
By Dr. Maria Raicheva-Stover and Dr. Kathy Menzie, Washburn University
As mass media educators, we’ve talked at Washburn for years about the best way to converge our curriculum. In fall 2006, we decided it was time to think beyond the obvious.
In one brainstorming session, the Mass Media Department faculty started looking for ways to truly bring mass media education in line with the realities of the new-media world. One way was to create an online portal where students and faculty could begin to experience and learn about convergence together. That is why we decided to develop a wiki called Media Online Resources for You, or MORForU. We chose to use a wiki because it was an easy, fast, and free way to create content and boost collaboration.
We thought a static, university-hosted Web site is no longer flexible enough to accommodate the evolving demands of students and instructors in the fast-paced world of mass communications. Static Web sites usually require technical knowledge and time to create and add content, which might preclude some faculty and students from fully participating in the online environment. Moreover, these Web sites tend to offer one-way, top-down communication.
A wiki, on the other hand, lets nontechnical users quickly create, edit, and share Web pages – anytime, anywhere. Most wikis have a visual text editor that easily allows insertion of links, media, and documents, and as new versions of pages are created, the old ones are saved so that there is a history of the edits.
We believe the MORForU wiki gives students and teachers the freedom to collaboratively create content and thus open two-way channels of communication. In addition, such a gateway serves as a valuable e-learning resource for faculty looking for ways to converge traditional media tracks, which in our department are electronic media, public relations, advertising, and media writing and publishing. The wiki helps integrate all four disciplines and provides the basis for converging the curriculum.
So far, we’ve included the following main components in the MORForU wiki: media headlines, a calendar, a student forum, video, and a photo gallery. We also provide resources and links on plagiarism and ethics, AP style, grammar and writing, filmmaking, Web and graphic design, research, leadership, local media, and media blogs, as well as the latest in career development, internships, scholarships, and jobs.
Here is a quick overview of how we set up the wiki:
After the initial setup, we allowed the wiki to take its own course. The usefulness of MORForU became apparent in fall 2007 when faculty members saw an increase in plagiarism cases. The response was to create a plagiarism page, which became an instructional tool for discussing the many forms of plagiarism in mass communication. Students from different classes could learn about the university’s policies on plagiarism and also download an anti-plagiarism pledge form.
More recently, faculty used MORForU to promote a class on international travel and tourism in Germany. Students used the wiki to access their reading assignments while abroad. In addition, students captured their experiences on video, which they later shared on the wiki. You can see the video here.
The wiki has proved to be an excellent resource for the entire department. It has enhanced communication between faculty and students. It has become the place to go to for the latest happenings (trips, annual banquet, advising), course offerings, scholarships, internships, and jobs. It has also become a venue for students to offer suggestions and post links, videos, and pictures. Students enjoy MORForU because it allows for seamless integration with social networking sites like Facebook. Finally, MORForU has increased collaboration in the department as faculty draw on each other’s resources to enrich their classes.
We believe the important nature of MORforU is that it continuously evolves to reflect the collective knowledge of all its members. It’s an approach to convergence that has worked for us.
Dr. Maria Raicheva-Stover and Dr. Kathy Menzie are assistant professors in the Mass Media Department at Washburn University. Contact Raicheva-Stover at maria.raicheva@washburn.edu. Contact Menzie at kathy.menzie@washburn.edu.
Links referenced in this article:
MORForU wiki: http://morforu.wikidot.com/start
Wiki Options: http://snipurl.com/3aopu
Germany video: http://morforu.wikidot.com/international-opportunities
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Rescuing Our Classrooms and Students from their Technology
By Paul S. Lieber, Ph.D.
As most professors will attest, conferences are akin to academic therapy.
For a few days or a week, they step outside their departments, catch up with research buddies from years past, and swap tales of comings and goings within their disciplines.
Arguably most important, however, is the empathy these conferences engender. I have yet to talk with a colleague anywhere without us lamenting the difficulties of attracting and then sustaining attention from both our undergraduate and graduate students. “I can’t be that boring,” I declare from the hotel bar.
The brashness of current students exacerbates these difficulties. Perhaps it is grade inflation patterns or the general student culture, but these folks are bold. Comments and actions that would doom students in the past are now commonplace. No fear of peer isolation, grade recourse, or lost mentorship opportunities is, amazingly, anywhere to be found.
Having repeated these observations countless times, I began to give this topic more objective thought. As much as I enjoy empathic sorrow, empathic solutions make for better conversation and sleep.
At first glance, there appear to be two distinct faculty camps: Roll with the punches and embrace student individualism or draw daily lines in the sand. Neither extreme, as we know, produces satisfactory results.
Allow text messaging during a classroom, and the value of instructional communication lessens. Boundaries and learning outcomes will only continue to erode. On the flip side, dictatorial classrooms produce both poor participation and evaluations. There’s a fine line between respect through fear and flat-out hate.
Similarly, passive aggressiveness – 15-page syllabi addressing inappropriate behavior, e-mail blasts threatening recourse, classroom conduct lectures – does little to help and only reinforces the unwanted perception of professors as parents.
Several years back, I warned a large lecture class that the students’ poor progress left me wondering whether most would pass the coming midterm. I subsequently received several e-mails requesting clarification of course concepts and more active in-class participation. The week’s final, in-class question: “Do you now think we’re ready to take the exam?” I was horrified to discover that what I perceived as academic intervention was received as a threat of parental grounding. My methods had to change.
I began requesting unofficial, in-class feedback on course methodology a minimum of three times a semester. What I sought to discover wasn’t what to teach, but rather how to teach it. While course syllabi and grading criteria remained steady, methods changed dramatically. Certain classes preferred online forums. Others liked anonymous e-mail contributions of current events tying into daily readings. One smaller section enjoyed establishing pseudo-leadership roles on particular subject areas. Evaluations improved accordingly.
Perhaps the quandary lies not in attention grabbing, but rather information processing.
Upon inflection – and no doubt a product of my dot-com background – I realized what a difference five years makes in the broadband age. Today’s students were introduced to high-speed information access in their mid- to late teens, arguably the earliest foundation period of critical thought development.
As they progressed through high school and then college, the Internet and e-commerce boomed, mobile communications roared, blogs and social networking emerged, digital content spawned, and video gaming became infused with mainstream popular culture. Content accessibility grew in mountain-size proportions. Wikipedia, Blogger, Google, iTunes, MySpace, YouTube, Facebook. Information overload, indeed.
Educators would have been foolhardy not to capitalize on this unparalleled information access. We quickly infused it into our teaching tools, encouraging students to become better world citizens via the abundance of information. As a professor of journalism and mass communications, the ability to point students to thousands of online international media outlets was truly a gift from the digital gods. No wonder our students embrace technology like no other age group in recent history.
But don’t teach a 16-year-old how to drive using a Ferrari.
It’s nearly impossible to simultaneously learn information access and quality distinctions, especially when expanding one’s critical thought capabilities. Our students communicate because they can – and often for no other reason. The premium is on communication quantity, not quality. Nothing truly important requires that many text messages or cell phone calls a day.
If it appears current high schoolers are more adept than college students at making sense of Internet fact from fiction, that perception is likely to be well-founded. These individuals, in contrast to our students, reaped the benefits of a multiyear information-familiarity period. Today’s 11th graders are not in awe of Wikipedia’s abundance of contributions; rather, they laugh at the ridiculous edits that occasionally sneak through.
What is needed is to bridge the gap in the classroom. Educate students not on information access but quality control. Teach them not just to research, but also where to research – and why. Grammar problems, citation ignorance, and poor attention to detail don’t point exclusively to lazy students. Equal attention is deserved to their perceptions of information value.
A quick fix is to incorporate information interventions until access and quality knowledge merge. Require assignments using technology as information filters. Educate on e-mail and in-class etiquette from the context of its place in larger communication exchanges. With enough such interventions, students should see the wisdom of removing spring break photos from Facebook when actively searching for internships. I hope.
In the classic 1980s film “The Breakfast Club,” the beaten-down high school administrator questions whether the veteran janitor fears for the future of our country in the hands of today’s kids. The janitor returns a sly and comfortable grin. I vote for being the janitor.
Paul S. Lieber, Ph.D., wrote this as an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of South Carolina. He has since returned to private industry.
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Pause, Watch, Listen, and Learn … Then Converge
By Victoria Geyer, Hofstra University
Lately, it seems news stories on the media industry are overwhelmingly concerned with convergence trends, Web 2.0 applications, or now even Web 3.0, raising the question: Are journalists, communication practitioners, and educators too consumed by and enthralled with the hype? Are we putting aside the basic roots of journalism, storytelling, and critical thinking to make room for these convergence trends?
Recent studies suggest a disconnect between what the media industry touts as the way we communicate and the reality of how a typical American consumes media. To begin with, only 8 percent of U.S. adults are heavily involved with the kind of activities, such as blogging and maintaining a personal Web site, associated with Web 2.0 (2007, Lombardi). According to a new World Newspaper Congress study, young people still return to television as their preferred medium. The majority of American audiences are tuning in to local television newscasts to learn about the economy, politics, the environment, and local issues. And yet corporations continue to invest in multimedia campaigns, online viral marketing schemes, and social-networking trends.
The media industry is in a state of escalated excitement, as we are in the midst of the most accelerated information revolution in 40 years. Thus, the industry is focused on and eager to participate and engage in the Internet revolution, with convergence at the forefront. Nevertheless, we should step back and take the time to learn, understand, and critically think about the ways in which we can successfully target mass audiences using principles of converged new-media technologies.
Last August, ABC News introduced the newsmagazine program i-CAUGHT, a collection of audience-captured and submitted material. It served as a typical example of how the media industry flirts with convergence trends, but often fails to capitalize on what convergence can offer mass-media audiences – in this case, those still tuned in to their TV sets.
I sat down to i-CAUGHT to learn about global issues and the Internet revolution that anchor Bill Weir promised would bring amazing stories to my television. I was thoroughly disappointed. I saw videos of Filipino inmates dancing to Michael Jackson’s Thriller and a behind-the-scenes look into how engaged couples are taking private dancing lessons to look professional on their wedding day. Where was a compelling story of melting glaciers affecting international transport and commerce and its global economic and environmental impact, for instance? The lack of depth and context to the i-CAUGHT stories is typical of what is missing from journalism in this converged environment.
This lack of depth in attempting to harness new media affects marketing as well. Procter & Gamble did not want to miss the burgeoning YouTube scene, so it produced a marketing video for Unilever Sunsilk shampoo. In it, a bride dramatically cuts off her hair before her wedding because she is so upset with her hairstyle, while her bridesmaids look on in horror and scream in disbelief. With over 12 million views, it was deemed a “YouTube success.” Yet Unilever had to dump the campaign, essentially due to ineffective branding and messaging. Viewers did not see any messages related to Sunsilk hair products (2007, Neff). They saw this viral video clip as nothing more than entertainment – there was no context.
How can educators help overcome the disconnect between industry hype and the reality of media consumption? Educators must teach students to become “people watchers” – observers of human behavior – and emphasize critical thinking skills. They must teach students how to use new media as storytelling tools and to be media consumers themselves. While today's students are far more familiar with new media than older generations, they nevertheless use these new media primarily for entertainment and still need to learn how to use them for journalism and profit. In academia, convergence needs to be taught as a tool to be added to an existing media toolbox that already contains mainstream media such as broadcast, cable, newspapers, and print.
Today’s journalists must serve divergent audiences – those using mainstream media and those participating in new media. Educators must teach students the myriad ways to tell a story through mainstream media and new media (which may include podcasting, social networking, and using feed aggregators). Professors should focus on storytelling and context within new media while not inundating students with the latest software and technology trends. The key is to teach students how to tell stories rich in context for both mainstream media and new media.
The basic journalism elements of research, newsgathering, sense-making, and generating insight and context for audiences apply to new media, just as they do mainstream media. However, it is in sense-making and generating insight where the industry falls short, and educators can step in to overcome the disconnect. They can teach young journalists and communications practitioners a return to the basics of storytelling 101, including the need for historical and narrative contexts to tell a story. Journalism curricula can teach students the critical-thinking skills necessary to explain a story to their audience. Professors can demonstrate that convergence technology allows a journalist or public relations practitioner additional ways to get a story across to the masses. Students do not necessarily need to write a blog, but can read blogs to educate themselves on industrial and societal issues and trends. Public relations students should have to follow various blogs for clients for media monitoring, in order to learn about what is being said about clients and to develop relationships with influential bloggers in hopes of future successful pitches.
The media industry must get out the facts quicker than ever and many times misses the full context. By assigning projects that force students to uncover more than the facts, through examining historical and sociological implications of the larger issue or community, a professor will give students the tools for building more context into their stories.
According to Winfield and Hume (2007), journalism has historically given “meaning to the nation’s identity. (Journalism) served as a metaphor, answering America’s social needs for identification, healing, reunification, and community building” (156). In our current time of war, a troubled economy, and impending political changes, American audiences are still tuning in to the media, looking for identification, healing, reunification, and community building. Today’s convergence technologies can make it much easier to achieve these things than was possible in years past. Still, educators must continue to emphasize to burgeoning journalists and communications practitioners the multitude of media available to tell their stories to divergent audiences that are mostly still using mainstream media.
New media are here to stay, but their use has not yet peaked; mainstream media are still the most-consumed media. When bringing convergence technology into the classroom, educators might want to remind themselves that, as L. Gordon Crovitz, former publisher of The Wall Street Journal, said, “History suggests that the present culture usually overestimates technology in the short-term … but underestimates technology in the long term.” Let us apply that thought to our journalism curricula.
References:
Lombardi, C. (2007, May 8). Wired but not Web 2.0? That’s Normal, Study Says. CNetnews.com. Retrieved from: http://www.news.com/2102-1041_3-6181884.html
Neff, J. (2007, February 1). P&G Battle Hits You Tube; Sunsilk Viral Brings Buzz, but Huge Display-ad Buy Satisfies Herbal Essences. Advertising Age, 4.
Winfield, B., & and Hume, J.. (2007) The Continuous Past: Historical Referents in Nineteenth Century American Journalism. Journalism Communication Monographs, 9(3), 120-174.
Victoria Geyer is an assistant professor in the Department of Journalism, Media Studies and Public Relations at Hofstra University. Contact Geyer at Victoria.Geyer@hofstra.edu.
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---------------Conferences, Training and Calls for Papers
SPJ Convention and National Journalism Conference 2008
Atlanta
Sept. 4-7
http://www.spj.org/convention.asp
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Global Investigative Journalism Conference
Lillehammer, Norway
Sept. 11-14
http://www.gijc2008.no
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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
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Investigative Reporting on Business and Finance Conference
New York
Sept. 20-21
http://www.ire.org/training/cij/
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28th American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA) Annual Conference
Seattle
Oct. 1-4
http://ajhaonline.org/convention.html
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Convergence and Society: The Participatory Web
University of South Carolina
Columbia, S.C.
Oct. 9-11
http://sc.edu/CMCIS/news/Fall08/PWeb/index.html
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Broadcast Education Association District II Conference
Columbia, S.C.
Oct. 11
For information, contact Dr. August E. Grant at augie@sc.edu.
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Media in Transition 6
Massachussetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Mass.
April 24-26
http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum/mit6/
Call for Papers deadline: Jan. 9
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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
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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.