Deutsche Welle, 12.04.23
DW AkademieWorkshop
Convergent Journalism
Comparing different media
Titelbild hier einsetzen
2 / 10 Print, Radio, TV, Online journalism
Questions journalists should think about:
The Audience
• What skills does the audience need to get information through this medium?
• How much money does the audience have to spend to use this medium?
• How often does the audience expect information updates in this medium?
• How can the audience give feedback to the journalists in this medium?
• How can the audience discuss the topic in this medium?
• How easy is it for the audience to get information from other media outlets publishing in this medium (i.e. from the competition)?
• Where is the audience geographically?
3 / 10 Print, Radio, TV, Online journalism
The Journalist
• What kind of information / stories are suitable, easy to
transport in this medium?
• What kind of information / stories are difficult to present in
this medium?
• What are the advantages of this medium for the journalist?
• What skills does the journalist need to work in this medium?
• What hardware does the journalist need to work in this
medium?
4 / 10 Print
Strengths Weaknesses
Explanation and analysis (background, cause,
impact, details, numbers)
static content, no updates; „yesterday‘s news“
Portable, light, cheap, „lean-back“ No immediate feed-back / audience
participation
Easy overview (length, relevance…) Limited space for the journalist
Audience and journalists need few skills except
literacy
Needs to be delivered / bought at store
Easy to navigate - audience determines what it
consumes, in what order, at what speed
Easy to mark, highlight, archive
Good for text-only information (meetings
behind closed doors etc), abstract thoughts,
philosophical pieces
5 / 10 Radio
Strengths Weaknesses
Fast, immediate No pictures, only words and sound (bad for visual
stories, statistics, numbers…)
Good for sound-rich stories (good nat-sound,
music, historical clips…)
Audience can‘t choose / skip / repeat, has to listen
to the program as it runs along
Authentic, credible, emotional No overview of what else there is / duration of
program elements
Radios are comparably cheap / integratet into cell
phones
Journalist determines speed
Audience needs very few skills – not even literacy Difficult to archive
Portable, „lean back“; secondary activity
6 / 10 Television
Strengths Weaknesses
Speed; can convey a lot of information in very limited
time
Facts and content are hard to remember (e.g. news)
Emotional power of visuals Overpowering pictures drown out the information
Good for stories with strong visuals / movement / action
(not „talking heads“)
Some things are not covered for shortage of video
material / covered only because of the good video (fires,
disasters, car crashes etc – „if it bleeds, it leads“)
-> distorts news agenda
Hardly possible to discuss theoretical or dense topics in
detail
Expensive and complicated to produce (equipment /
skills)
Subjective feeling of being well-informed by a credible
medium („seeing is believing“)
Journalists must be able to translate information into text
and (moving) pictures
Audience can lean back“, relax, doesn‘t need to think
much (entertainment value)
No immediate audience feed-back or interaction
TV-sets more expensive than newspapers or radio, not
really portable
7 / 10 Internet
Strengths Weaknesses
Speed / easy to update Costly hardware
No space / time limitation Depends on electricity / Wifi / internet connection…
Global medium Audience has to be literate and tech-savvy
interactivity Journalists must be tech-savvy, multi-talented and
keep up with technology
Audience determines what it consumes, in what
order, at what speed and to what depth (non-linear
storytelling)
Journalists need hardware to produce content
(computer / camera / video camera / internet
connection…)
Linking stories -> unexpected discoveries „lean forward“
Online „forever“ Links can turn into „dead links“
Multi-media platform
Easy to access information from different sources