The COMPACT project aims at enhancing awareness about the latest scientific discoveries – state of the art research on social media and convergence – among key stakeholders in the context of social media and convergence. For this purpose, we analysed over 1,200 mostly academic articles dealing with convergence and social media, published in more than 20 EU and non-EU countries.
Main research findings:
The most dominant issue seems to be conflict and integration/merger of legacy and new media functions. The second most frequently tackled relationship is between private and public roles and issues. This latter issue was reflected in studies on personal data, protection of minors, libel and hate-related issues. The Producer-consumer relationship is the third most often researched issue. Individuals and technology companies have become much more important curators of information and news than they were before. However, the legacy media – mostly audio-visual media and media websites – have a significant role to play. In fact, the news that is most read, shared, and discussed on social media is produced by professional news organisations. In particular, the profession of journalist is very much needed for society. Especially in North-Central Europe (Germany, Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland), the shift to convergence culture was impeded by a long and strong tradition of print journalism. Spanish and Portuguese news managers demonstrate more diverse strategic approaches to adapting to the possibilities of new media environments. They implemented new editorial routines with more effort and made use of new formats and trans-media storytelling. Convergence, implemented primarily as a cost-effective strategy, does not promote better journalism. Facebook, in particular, seems to push news media organisations to replace their ‘editorial logic’ with an ‘algorithmic logic’ for the presentation of news. On the one hand, the immediacy of Twitter enhances journalists´ awareness and anticipation capabilities, as well as enables them to convert on-site capital into a discursive authority in the public sphere. On the other hand, the paralysis, which seizes the press in times when important decisions are impending, gets intensified through Twitter and can lead to inconsistencies and misperceptions in media reporting.
THE FULL REPORT IS AVAILABLE HERE.
