Convergence Culture in European Newsrooms: Comparing editorial strategies for cross-media news production in six countries

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

  • Menke, Manuel
  • Susanne Kinnebrock
  • Sonja Kretzschmar
  • Ingrid Aichberger
  • Marcel Broersma
  • Roman Hummel
  • Susanne Kirchhoff
  • Dimitri Prandner
  • Nelson Ribeiro
  • Ramón Salaverria
For two decades, convergence culture has been an important motivator for change in journalism worldwide. Journalism research has followed these developments, investigating the dimensions of change that define convergence as a cultural shift in the newsroom. Research in the European context has mostly been comprised of national case studies of flagship media outlets whereas comparative, let alone quantitative, studies are scarce. In response to these shortcomings, we present a comparative survey among newspaper journalists in managerial positions on convergence strategies in newsrooms from Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Spain, and Portugal. Results show that there is still a dominant print culture present in newsrooms across Europe; however, a shift toward convergence journalism is evident in the strategic implementation of editorial routines and practices as well as in the encouragement of journalists to join convergence developments. Furthermore, newsrooms in Mediterranean countries are more advanced than those in North/Central Europe when it comes to embracing convergence culture because of a stronger audio-visual than print news tradition and a higher motivation among journalists. Our study reveals that after two decades of European convergence journalism, cultural change moves slowly but steadily toward a news production that makes use of the possibilities emerging from convergence.
Original languageEnglish
JournalJournalism Studies
Volume19
Issue number6
Pages (from-to)881-904
Number of pages24
ISSN1461-670X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2018

    Research areas

  • Faculty of Humanities - comparative quantitative survey, convergence culture, cross-media, editorial routines, European journalism, newsroom strategies, transmedia

ID: 249309971