Convergent Journalism

Chinese Approaches

Woody Bing Liu

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000392821
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Journalism
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Convergent Journalism is an online news system that uses a range of media and methods to collect and present information. With the advent and growth of the Internet, this form of news has been flourishing globally and has become the mainstream in China. In 2014, the Chinese Government established media convergence as a national strategy.

This book offers a panoramic view of the theories and practice of Convergent Journalism in a Chinese media landscape. Drawing on a plethora of cases, the author introduces concepts, subjects, and processes, and elaborates on media components including text, visuals, audio, and video. In addition, he discusses the application of search engine optimization, hyperlinks in reporting, user interaction, and user creation of content. Aside from providing an in-depth theoretical analysis, the book provides much guidance for practitioners.

Students, scholars, and professionals of communication studies, journalism, and media studies will benefit from this book.

1 Studies on convergence

There are both connections and differences between media convergence and Convergent Journalism. Media convergence is a broad concept, while Convergent Journalism is a smaller one; the former includes the latter. Media convergence concerns the media system, ownership, operations and management, organization, and news operations, among other things. It touches upon the convergence and reform of all aspects of the media industry. Convergent Journalism is a study of media convergence from the perspective of applied journalism, which mainly involves the convergence of news collection and narrative presentation. Convergent Journalism is an organic component of media convergence. It is the concrete implementation of media convergence at the level of news communication.

1 Introduction

1.1 Exploration of media convergence originated in the United States

The landscape of information communication has witnessed enormous changes, from the birth of the Internet to the practice of media convergence. The Internet originated from the experimental network ARPANET built by the US Department of Defense in 1969. ARPANET developed into the National Science Fund Network (NSFNET) in 1986, which later evolved into the Internet. The Internet spread rapidly around the world in the mid- and late 1990s. China was fully connected to the Internet on April 20, 1994, and traditional media has since been gradually digitalized. The development of digital technology and network technology makes media convergence possible, and the pursuit of economic interests has become its main driving force.

The United States has been one of the leading countries in the practice and exploration of media convergence. Media General Inc. built the Tampa News Center in Tampa in 2000. The Tampa Tribune, WFLA-TV, and Tampa Bay Online (TBO.com) were integrated, and the cooperative model of news production was very successful in that year.

Press outlets have launched a number of convergent news works in the practice of media convergence. For example, StarTribune.com launched 13 Seconds in August – the 35W Bridge Collapse in August 2007, tampabay.com launched A Girl in the Window on August 1, 2008, The New York Times website launched Avalanche on December 20, 2012, and The Guardian website launched “NSA Files: Decoded” on November 1, 2013. These works are all valuable reference sources for the study of Convergent Journalism.

1.2 The turning point of newspaper industry and the development of China’s network

China’s newspaper industry encountered a turning point in 2005, and the advertising performance of some major newspapers dropped severely. Beijing Media, the “first overseas stock of Chinese media”, announced on August 26, 2005, that its net profit in the first half of the year was 170,000 RMB yuan, which was a 99.7% decrease from 66.309 million RMB yuan in the same period of the last year. Wu Haimin, President of The Beijing Times, wrote that the winter of the newspaper industry had come ahead of time and the traditional Chinese newspaper industry had encountered a historic turning point.¹

The year 2005 was crucial in the history of China’s Internet development. Chinese people took control of the Chinese Internet after 2005. Since China’s Internet bubble broke in 2002, “Chinese companies embarked on a completely different road” from their counterparts in the United States. Three years later, around the year 2005, their efforts paid off in the local market, “Chinese companies beat all their American competitors in almost all the areas, such as C2C (Customer to Consumer) and B2C (Business to Customer), online bookstores, search, emails, games, news portals, etc”.²

The year 2005 is, thus, also crucial in the study of media convergence. The concept of media convergence was also introduced in China in 2005. Cai Wen, a professor of journalism at the Renmin University of China, joined the Fulbright Program and went to the United States to carry out research from 2004 to 2005. Professor Cai published the article “Cultivating Journalists with Media Convergence Skills – A Dialogue with Professors of the Missouri School of Journalism” in The Press in September 2005. It introduced the concept of media convergence to China, which led to the later upsurge of media convergence and Convergent Journalism research in China.

Yantai Daily Media Group set up the All Media News Center in March 2008, which marked the actual operation of media convergence in China. People’s Daily, Xinhua News Agency, Southern Metropolis Daily, Ningbo Daily, and other media outlets actively explored omnimedia operation strategies. Tencent, Netease, Sina, and other network companies have also accumulated rich experience in the convergence of news topics.

With the rapid development of Internet applications (apps) since 2010, the Internet has entered the era of Web 3.0,³ Weibo (Micro-blog), WeChat, and other apps, have become the most frequently used. Importantly, Tencent launched WeChat in January 2011, and its registered users exceeded 600 million by November 2013 – which has had a profound impact on the social life of Chinese people. The Internet has long been deeply embedded in people’s daily life, and people rely on it for shopping, social networking, games, and news. Social development has also entered the era of the mobile Internet, and the mobile phone has become almost a part of the human body. The Internet is no longer restricted to fixed locations, and people’s work and life are becoming tied more and more closely to the Internet. The rapid development of the Internet has also had a profound impact on people’s news consumption habits. News media must face this reality, explore the development of convergence, provide convergent news services, optimize user experience, and meet users’ needs.

Organizations or individuals can hardly fight against the general trend of social development. Even some news media with no intention of transforming have to comply with the general trend of online development and begin to consider media convergence under the pressure of the frustration of traditional advertising management.

1.3 Media convergence as China’s national strategy

The Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee places great importance on media convergence, which is of far-reaching significance to the development of media convergence and Convergent Journalism in China. On August 18, 2014, General Secretary Xi Jinping presided over the Fourth Meeting of the CPC Central Committee Leading Group for Deepening Reform. The Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Integration and Development of Traditional Media and Emerging Media were approved. These showed that media convergence in China was no longer confined to the research of academics and the practice of media and it started to receive direct intervention from the state administration. The national top-level design plays a very strong role in promoting the research and practice of media convergence which have grown enormously since then.

Xi Jinping visited the newspaper office of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in December 2015. He presided over the CPC Symposium on News and Public Opinions in February 2016. On both occasions, he put forward a clear request to promote the development of media convergence. He also pointed out the approach to media convergence: From “adding” to “converging”.

Xi Jinping went to People’s Daily to carry out research and heard the report on the “central kitchen” construction on February 19, 2016. Xi Jinping affirmed that the construction of the central kitchen platform was the right way to promote convergence and development. Liu Qibao – member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Secretary of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, and head of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee – delivered a speech at the Forum on Promoting the Deep Media Convergence on January 5, 2017. He pointed out that we should focus on achieving a breakthrough at the key intersection of procurement, editing, and distribution. He suggested innovating the internal organizational structure of media and establishing a new type of media procurement, editing, and distribution network via the construction of a “central kitchen”, that is, the convergent media centre.⁴

Xi Jinping delivered a report at the Nineteenth National Congress of the CPC on October 18, 2017. He proposed to “strengthen the Internet content construction, establish a comprehensive network governance system, and create a clear network space”.

The National Propaganda and Ideological Work Conference was held in Beijing from August 21 to 22, 2018. General Secretary Xi Jinping attended the conference and delivered an important speech. He pointed out that “we must do a solid job in the construction of the financial media center at the county level in order to guide the people and serve the people better”.⁵ The Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee put forward a plan on September 20 of that year to achieve full coverage of county-level convergent media centres by the end of 2020. General Secretary Xi Jinping presided over the Fifth Meeting of the CPC Central Committee for Deepening Reform and delivered an important speech on November 14. The meeting deliberated and adopted the Opinions on Strengthening the Construction of the Convergent Media Center at the County Level. It noted that Chinese media convergence had entered a second stage, that is, the era of Chinese media convergence version 2.0. During the first stage of media convergence, marked by the adoption of “August 18 Guiding Opinions” in 2014, the “central kitchen” mode of large-scale news media such as People’s Daily was explored. In the second stage of media convergence, marked by the National Propaganda and Ideological Work Conference in August 2018, the focus shifted to the construction of county-level convergent media centres.

The Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held the Twelfth Collective Study Meeting on the omnimedia era and media convergence and development in the office of People’s Daily on January 25, 2019....

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Preface
• 1 Studies on convergence
• 2 Understanding Convergent Journalism
• 3 News value and the principles of convergent reporting
• 4 Text, pictures, audio, and video
• 5 SEO and hyperlinks
• 6 Interaction, sharing, and social media
• 7 Convergent news presentation
• 8 Convergent Journalism education
• References
• Index