Page 20 - Convergent Journalism an Introduction Writing and Producing Across Media

WHAT IS CONVERGENCE AND HOW WILL IT AFFECT MY LIFE?

with high-speed Internet service jumped somewhere between 4.3 and
8.3 million, to total 23.1 to 28.2 million households, depending on
source data. Forrester Research provided the more conservative figure,
while the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reported the
higher figure. Jupiter Research predicts the number of home broad-
band users will jump to 108 million people by 2009, almost double
the 55 million the company counted in 2004 (Kerner, 2004).
In February 2004 the chairman of the New York Times Company
and publisher of The New York Times, Arthur O. Sulzberger, Jr., told
a conference at Northwestern University that convergence was “the
future” for the media. He said his company had acquired companies
such as the Discovery Channel to allow Times journalists to tell sto-
ries in print, online, and on television. “Broadband is bringing us all
together,” Sulzberger said. “We have to do it in papers, digitally and
on TV. You can combine all three elements. News is a 24/7 operation,
and if you don’t have the journalistic muscles in all three [platforms],
you can’t succeed in broadband.” Sulzberger described the process as
“a hell of a challenge” (quoted in Damewood, 2004).
10

Social and Legal Structural Factors Affecting
Convergence

Technological change tends to gallop ahead of legal changes because
regulations take time to be implemented, while technology always
appears to be moving forward. Regulation is a key factor in the emer-
gence of convergence, in the sense of providing a framework for its
evolution. Singapore provides an example of the influence of legal fac-
tors on the development of convergence. Until 2000, the country’s two
media giants operated a comfortable duopoly: Singapore Press Hold-
ings (SPH) ran all print media and the Media Corporation of Singapore
(MCS) ran all broadcasting. SPH published eight dailies: three English,
three Chinese, one Malay, and one Tamil. MCS operated five television
and 10 radio channels—the bulk of Singapore’s broadcasting. Laws that
allowed one company to own print and broadcast media were enacted
in 2000. MCS launched Today, a tabloid daily. SPH announced plans to
launch two television channels: an English-language channel called TV
Works, and Channel U, its Chinese-language equivalent. SPH hired
consultants from Reuters and the BBC to prepare its print journal-
ists to supply content for the two channels’ news and current affairs