ABSTRACT
“Convergent journalism” is by now a fairly old term. Because what it describes is so commonplace now, its definition may not make sense to younger people who cannot easily recall a time when newspapers were exclusively printed on newsprint, radio stations were exclusively on the AM or FM band, and television stations were either part of one of the major broadcast networks (ABC, NBC or CBS) or on the UHF dial. Even seasoned journalists are quite familiar with converged media because most people now live in a converged world. We don’t get our news and information from just one medium. During the course of a typical day, we move seamlessly from one medium to another. We increasingly use our smartphones and other mobile devices to interact with the world and learn what’s going on around us. Most of the time we don’t even think about the way news and information reach us. We are nimble consumers with multiple devices and options for communication.
