Multiplatform journalism and (de) convergence in Portugal

Abstract

This article analyzes interactional dynamics between journalists of the Portuguese centenary newspaper Jornal de Notícias during the multiplatform coverage of the Pedrógão Grande tragedy. The forest fires in the summer of 2017 in central Portugal gained international media attention for the deaths caused and the extent of devastated areas. The perspective of media convergence is adopted, crossed by movements of divergence, deconvergence and coexistence, to understand how Jornal de Notícias adapts itself and manages to be competitive in the contemporary media ecosystem. The case study reveals the adoption of a complex model of convergence, which articulates new and old professional practices and processes that go beyond the simplistic and dominant discourse of journalistic convergence.

Keywords
Convergence; Deconvergence; Multiplatform journalism; Interactions; Portugal

Resumo

Este artigo analisa dinâmicas interacionais entre jornalistas do centenário diário português Jornal de Notícias durante a cobertura multiplataforma da tragédia de Pedrógão Grande. Os incêndios florestais ocorridos no verão europeu de 2017, na região central de Portugal, ganharam atenção midiática internacional pelas mortes provocadas e extensão de áreas devastadas. Adota-se a perspectiva da convergência midiática, atravessada por movimentos de divergência, desconvergência e coexistência, para compreender como o Jornal de Notícias se adapta e consegue ser competitivo no ecossistema midiático contemporâneo. O estudo de caso revela a adoção de um complexo modelo de convergência, que coloca em articulação novos e velhos processos e práticas profissionais que vão além do discurso simplista e dominante da convergência jornalística.

Palavras-chave
Convergência; Desconvergência; Jornalismo multiplataforma; Interações; Portugal

Resumen

Este artículo analiza dinámicas interactivas entre periodistas del centenario diario portugués Jornal de Noticias durante la cobertura multiplataforma de la tragedia de Pedrógão Grande. Los incendios forestales ocurridos en el verano europeo de 2017, en la región central de Portugal, ganaron atención mediática internacional por las muertes provocadas y extensión de áreas devastadas. Se adopta la perspectiva de la convergencia mediática, atravesada por movimientos de divergência, desconvergencia y coexistencia, para comprender cómo el Jornal de Noticias se adapta y consigue ser competitivo en el ecosistema mediático contemporáneo. El estudio de caso revela la adopción de un complejo modelo de convergencia, que pone en articulación nuevos y viejos procesos y prácticas profesionales que van más allá del discurso simplista y dominante de la convergencia periodística.

Palabras clave
Convergencia; Desconvergencia; Periodismo multiplataforma; Interactividad; Portugal

Introduction

Digitization and convergence have led to profound changes in the production and distribution of news in traditional journalistic organizations. This work examines journalistic convergence, especially experiences of divergence, deconvergence as a movement of reversal of convergent processes and coexistence between print and digital cultures within practices and professional routines in the newsroom of the centennial Portuguese newspaper Jornal de Notícias (JN), in the city of Porto, in northern Portugal.

An initial reflection that arises is how a newspaper, published uninterruptedly since 1888, manages to remain relevant in the contemporary media ecosystem characterized by the crisis in business models (PICARD, 2011), polychronic digital publishing cycles¹ (SALAVERRÍA, 2017), and fragmented audiences (MADIANOU, 2009). In the socioeconomic context of Portuguese journalism, which does not differ from other countries, a total of 183 newspapers ended their activities between 1995 and 2015².

The editorial strategies of Jornal de Notícias (JN), particularly processes and interactional dynamics (BLUMER, 1969; MEAD, 1934) between new professionals and veterans that make journalistic production possible, are the focus of this case study. The planning of the empirical stage of the investigation considered the leadership position that the newspaper has been assuming in the netScope ranking of multiplatform traffic audited by the company Marktest in partnership with the international operator Gemius³.

In 2016, JN reached second place in total multiplatform visits (PC, mobile and tablet), with 225.8 million unique accesses, behind only Correio da Manhã⁴, with which it also contests market in the category of general daily information in the country’s⁵ national printed circulation. The monthly multiplatform traffic ranking for January 2017⁶ shows that the domain “jn.pt” reached the top among the general information newspapers in the country for the first time, with 23.366 million unique visits, 72.2% originating from devices and 22.2% from personal computers.

The research data collection stage occurred in two successive moments. Initially, between June 4 and June 18, 2017, techniques of observation, monitoring and construction of a database with the storage of JN digital products were used, such as editions of the printed newspaper in PDF format, screen shots of its website and mobile Web homepages (“jn.pt” domain and JN application for Android operating system), newsletters and breaking news alerts.

Based on the preliminary data, a model of technical visits to the JN for the second stage of data collection was designed. The model articulated procedures of direct observation and semi-structured interviews, in the effort to apprehend how the newsroom is organized in its daily and interactional activities (PRUS, 1996) – and how professionals perceive themselves in the journalistic making of multiplatform products⁷. The technical visits, previously scheduled, were held from June 19 to June 22, 2017.

The field work coincided with the wave of fires in the village of Pedrógão Grande, in the district of Leiria, central region of Portugal. Fires occur every year during the European summer, and have long not been considered as “events”, in the sense of unexpected events that disturb the social order and the horizon of expectations (QUÉRÉ, 1997). In 2017, however, the fires took on a tragic dimension, opening a public debate on causes and responsibilities for the deaths of 64 people and the devastation of a total area of 52.992 hectares.

Thus, this article examines journalistic work in the JN newsroom, its points of avoidance and intersection with past practices, at a time strongly influenced by the events of Pedrógão Grande, which is within JN’s geographic proximity area.

What convergence are we talking about?

The concept of convergence, a feminine noun derived from Latin convergentia (union), has become as polysemic as it is evasive in the field of Communication studies. Under the range of convergence so many phenomena have been harbored that the relation between scientific objects and their conceptual representative alliance (FERRARA, 2010) may be put under suspicion.

The problem lies, in general terms, in the abstraction of the term as an analytical tool capable of explaining distinctive elements of the complex process of transformation in the communicational scenario, in contemporary societies, of other phenomena that are happening as a reaction, and in parallel, to convergence media.

In a study of the cultural history of the term media convergence in scientific literature, Balbi (2017) identified four interrelated narratives with different meanings that overlapped in recent decades, provoking the concept’s confusion.

Technological convergence was the first to appear and dominated general discourse at least from the 1980s. Economic/market convergence became relevant due to integrations among different media industries and reached its peak during the 1990s. Consequently, politicians started to think about new ways to regulate convergent environments during the second half of the 1990s both in the U.S. and in Europe. Finally, starting from the 2000s, the phenomenon of cultural convergence seemed to be one of the most relevant trends in contemporary media.

(BALBI, 2017, p.46)

In an attempt to reduce ambiguities, researchers have suggested dissociating the abstract concept from the operational definition of convergence, considering specific geoeconomic and cultural contexts. Arango-Forero, Roncallo-Dow and Uribe-Jongbloed (2016) propose, for example, the combined adoption of Benjamin’s technical reproducibility perspective with the Mcluhanian sensory perspective to conceive convergence⁸ as a tangible communicative process to be studied.

In the view of Arango-Ferrero et al (2016, p.24), “Convergence is not a process that can be only shown only through the use of technological applications, but that it takes place, rather, in the minds of those consumers as individuals [...] and through their social interactions”. Along the same lines, Lugmayr and Dal Zotto (2016) defend convergence as a continuous process⁹, but they argue that the industrial media context requires a broader discussion about the evolution of the media and its principles.

Lugmayr and Dal Zotto (2016) believe that a good starting point for understanding developments in the media industry is to associate the idea of biological evolution¹⁰ with the world of media, particularly the phenomena of convergence, divergence and coexistence. Based on a quanti-qualitative mapping of publications from the year 2015 in the field of media convergence research, they found a predominance of unilateral convergence approaches, with few contributions to their interactions with the divergence and coexistence processes.

In view of these findings, Lugmayr and Dal Zotto (2016, p.431) claim that “adaptation, specialization, co-evolution and extinction of media are phenomena resulting not only from media convergence but also from divergence and coexistence processes”. The authors cite, for example, that the notion of adaptation can be compared to the technological developments that traditional newspapers have faced in the transition from printed versions to online publications, including models of paywalls and micro-payments.

Also, in the sphere of journalism, Lugmayr and Dal Zotto (2016) note that specialization is at the heart of the history of the development of mass media with the fragmentation of audience niches. Cooperation is identified by merger and acquisition of activities between companies competing in a changing media environment or seeking to gain knowledge and success in the digital domain. Extinction, from this perspective, has as examples numerous companies that closed due to their inability to adapt to the new digital environment.

In the scope of our subject of investigation, the relations among convergence, divergence and coexistence are relevant because they allow us to understand connections, intersections, inclusions and exclusions that take place in the dynamics of production and distribution of the Jornal de Notícias multiplatform products.

In the data that emerged in the first phase of the data collection, we noted a triple editorial movement of divergence of genres, languages and formats, from convergent contents that did not follow the linear production logic of the printed product. Nonetheless, the JN printed (also in PDF format) and digital versions coexisted in the organizational structure of the company.

On the other hand, simultaneously, technological convergence is evident in the journalistic multimedia content (texts, videos, audios, infographics) made available by the newspaper, in some cases in real time, to its digital platforms. One product, in particular, deserves to be mentioned. It is the TV web widget “JN Direto”, which appears on the interfaces for fixed and mobile devices as a virtual button. JN Direto provides a summary of the main news of the day in 60 seconds and is updated, on average, 20 times a day. If we consider that JN Direto is an additional audiovisual unit embedded in the digital channels of the JN, then we have, again, a process of diversification and, therefore, divergence.

The boundaries between processes of media convergence, divergence, and coexistence are fluid. Hence, it is necessary to take a step further to understand the functioning and logic of the objects of the empirical world. More than a decade ago, Fagerjord and Storsul (2007) already questioned the dominant discourse of the direct relationship between digitalization and convergence, calling attention to the use of metaphor convergence as “simplifying the complexity” (p.28) of media and technological change.

One aspect of this simplification is how convergence has been used to describe changes in social practices. In the journalistic industry, Fagerjord and Storsul (2007) noted that the introduction of digital technologies was used to join parts of organizations and systems that had separate functions. “Typically, digital production techniques have made media institutions reorganize and unite journalists within the same journalistic area (news, entertainment, sports) regardless of whether they produce for TV, radio or the web” (p.29).

In view of the complexity of technological changes and their social overlap, we agree with Peil and Sparviero (2017) that recent developments need to be studied as interactions of media convergence and deconvergence processes. The term “deconvergence” is used by Jin (2011) to describe the downward trend of convergence and the emergence of deconvergence in global communication industries. The reversal of alliances and mergers in the 1990s is identified as the new business model of the 21st century. In this sense, deconvergence is an unfolding of convergence, whose main cause is businesses that came together and did not work.

In the perspective of Peil and Sparviero (2017), we adopt in this work a broader notion of deconvergence to explore the existence or not of processes and/or movements of reversion that accompany media convergence, from the point of view of social organization of journalistic activities, in the multiplatform newsroom of the Jornal de Notícias, which brings, in its long history, the print culture. As Peil and Sparviero (2017) note,

Deconvergence also stands for the refusal to recognize the ongoing changes as linear, connected processes leading to predictable solutions. The perspective on deconvergence […] help shed light on the ambivalent nature of media convergence and the simultaneity of competing forces such as coalescence and drifting apart, or linearity and discontinuity.

(p.7)

The planning of the second stage of data collection of this research made the concept of convergence in journalistic newsgroups more flexible, considering issues related to the divergences and conflicts reported in the field literature (ERDAL 2007; AVILÉS et al, 2009; GORDON, 2003; MITCHELSTEIN; BOCZKOWSKI, 2009; QUANDT; SINGER, 2009; SPYRIDOU; VEGLIS, 2016), to shelter the deconvergence in journalism as a theoretical-methodological possibility.

Here, journalistic deconvergence is taken as a sensitizing concept (BLUMER, 1954), in an attempt to shift the look of preconceived models, with their attributes and references, to unveil other empirical instances not covered by the concept. Due to the scarcity of scientific production on convergence in traditional Portuguese newsrooms dealing specifically with editorial practices and routines, we take as reference recent quantitative studies that compare stages of journalistic convergence in European newsrooms (MENKE et al, 2016)¹¹.

The findings of Menke and his colleagues (2016) show that convergence processes are occurring faster in Mediterranean countries such as Spain and Portugal than in central/northern European countries. The reasons, according to the authors, are related to the greater or lesser printed and audiovisual journalistic tradition. In the study, Portugal emerges in the first position as the country most adaptable to the culture of journalistic convergence.

Making sense of JN in the 21st century

Fieldwork in the Jornal de Notícias newsroom was carried out from June 19 to June 22, 2017, with the adoption of simultaneous data collection techniques that are treated at this stage as distinct analytical units to facilitate the understanding of the experience and of this lived witness in the process of professional convergence of the newspaper.

The first theoretical-methodological operation used a direct observation model focused on the spatial and temporal organization of the environment, to understand how the journalistic work is carried out and how the physical characteristics facilitate or restrict social interactions in the newsroom. In the second operation, a model of semi-structured individual interviews recorded with journalists responsible for the newspaper’s multiplatform and printed content was used, as well as conversations with reporters about professional routines.

The initial design of both data collection constructs during the empirical development phase was adapted to the context of unforeseen events that took place on the eve of technical visits to the headquarters of the JN - the succession of forest fires started in the village of Pedrógão Grande, which later spread to other neighboring municipalities in central Portugal. The fires are common in the country, due to the Mediterranean climate that allows the growth of vegetation both in winter and summer, but gained status tragedy status with the death of 64 people, 250 injured and a devastated area of 52.992 hectares.

The fires at Pedrógão Grande began on the afternoon of Saturday, June 17, but only at the end of the night was the scale of events known. Only two Portuguese newspapers published the news as a headline on their covers the next day - Correio da Manhã, belonging to Grupo Cofina, and Jornal de Notícias, of the Global Media Group. Correio and JN compete in printed and multiplatform circulation nationwide.

During Sunday, June 18, JN updated its readers about the uncontrolled flames, balances of the number of victims and survivors, fire brigade mobilizations and rescue teams, witness reports and official reactions. Updates came in as breaking news notifications, direct flashes from reporters on the field, and continuous updating of the homepages of the website and mobile Web as well as the JN application. The digital platforms kept a deep red background as a warning sign under the “Fires” label.

Figure 1
Screenshots of the JN Mobile Web of June 18, 2017

On the first day of the visit to JN on Monday, June 19, the newspaper’s printed edition hit the stands with its traditional 56-page tabloid format, stamping the title “How was it possible?” followed by captions like “Hell”, “Deep Coverage”, “Causes”, “Means”, and “Forest”, with small call units that referred to the extension of journalistic coverage of the tragedy in the internal pages.

The front page was covered by a photo of Km 7 of the national highway (EN) 236, epicenter of events in Pedrógão Grande, where 47 people died, 30 burned in cars and 17 others trying to escape vehicles. The edition dedicated 26 of its 49 pages of informative content (seven pages were of advertisements), or 53%, to the coverage that displaced professionals from almost every desk of the paper during the day on Sunday.

Figure 2
JN printed edition of June 19, 2017

The critical tone and angulation of coverage in the printed and digital versions of the newspaper were demonstrated in the editorial titled “The Way of Hell”:

The origin of the ignition is identified and extreme natural phenomena created conditions for the fire to spread with a rare violence that nobody could sustain. But many factors contributed to the evolution of the fire. Be it the combat strategies or the vegetation conditions. Natural conditions do not explain everything. And anyone who knows the state of what has already been proudly ranked as Europe’s largest continuous pinewood spot cannot pretend that it does not see the risk

(JORNAL DE NOTÍCIAS. 2017, p.2).

In the same editorial, the JN questions causes, responsibilities and indecisions on the defense of the forest and of the populations that inhabit them:

The dispersion of property, the continuous productivity of the forest, the total lack of investment, all contributes to a dangerous abandonment. And, there is once again our imbalance, a broad strip of the depopulated country that cuts roots with rurality. The forest is becoming less profitable. Being less and less profitable, less and less it is taken care of. The vicious cycle is in place

(JORNAL DE NOTÍCIAS. 2017, p.2).

Spatial and temporal organization of the work environment

Two representative artifacts of organizational culture draw attention in the hall leading to the newsroom of the JN. Hanging on a wall from top to bottom, there is a giant reproduction of the cover of the first printed edition of the newspaper, dated June 2, 1888 (Figure 3), which includes among the highlights under the title “Commitment of Trust” the editorial principles of the vehicle. On the other side of the hall, there is a linotype machine (Figure 3) exposed and used in the mechanical composition processes at the end of the 19th century.

Figure 3
Artifacts of the organizational memory of Jornal de Notícias

In the newsroom, the physical layout has a long rectangular shape that resembles characteristics of a traditional journalistic newsroom, although there are no dividing bins between workstations or between editorial sections. There are, however, elements in the structural configuration that are arranged in such a way that are perceived, at once, as contrasting with the rest of the spatial organization.

At the heart of the newsroom there is a large open workstation, consisting of adjacent tables that form a circular core, equipped with computers and screens of various sizes. On the ceiling, like a kind of umbrella over the station, there are 12 television monitors connected to news channels. This is the journal’s digital cell (Illustration 1), where the associate executive editor works with multiplatform journalism professionals, including the social media editor. The layout of this workspace represents areas where time is a key factor and sets the pace in news production and distribution.

In the rectangular environment of the digital cell, with television monitors on all sides, are distributed workstations and editorials of National, Local (Porto), Justice, Etc. (Arts and Entertainment), Sports, World and Layout/Arts. In all, there are 55 journalists in the headquarters and 23 other professionals who work in the area of support. The newspaper also maintains 50 permanent employees around the country, including 18 correspondents in the capital Lisbon.

Illustration 1 - Simplified spatial and temporal organization of JN newsroom (*)

Illustration 1
Simplified spatial and temporal organization of JN newsroom (*)

Another element out of tune in the physical organization of work, based on a comparison of the layout of traditional printed newsrooms, is the large space adjacent to the newsroom where the newspaper’s TV studio is located. The studio is used for the production and broadcast of informative and entertainment audiovisuals, often in real time, such as the presentation of musical bands and flashes of reporters to JN digital platforms, including their pages on social networks. It is in this studio that the daily editions of the TV widget JN Direto are produced, as mentioned above.

A third innovative element is the operation of a large control panel of the North American tool Chartbeat Publishing, which can be viewed and consulted from any angle of the newsroom. The software displays up-to-the-minute metrics and visualizations on the behavior of visitors using JN digital products, with data segmented by types of devices accessed (PC, mobile and tablet), traffic source (JN homepages, links, social media, or search tools) and engagement activities with content (time users spend reading, watching videos or commenting).

Chartbeat is constantly used mainly by the “digital core” which, as Figure 1 demonstrates, is responsible for absorbing, filtering, coordinating and managing the entire daily workflow in the JN newsroom. The digital cell is the unit where all journalistic production converges. It acts as permanent mediator in the relations between the professionals of different editorial sections¹² and bridges with producers, correspondents and reporters in the field. It is also this core that defines breaking news, which is a priority for digital versions and what may be differential for the print version the next day.

We noted that Chartbeat monitoring guides quick editorial decisions throughout the day based on the Top Pages feature, which shows the most read news on JN websites, comparing with the activities of the total number of users at a given time. This monitoring helps in making decisions about which subjects deserve more or less investment of the team. For example, if it is worthwhile to include photographs to increase the number of page views. The tool works in conjunction with JN’s in-house content management system, Millenium.

Editorial decisions also consider forms of access by device type and browsers according to the times of day. A reading of Chartbeat numbers at 5h08 pm on June 19, for example, showed that 7.996 users were on JN digital platforms (84% on sites and 16% on Facebook), with 50% via desktop, 46% via smartphones and 4% via tablets. On the 20th, at 4h19 pm, there were 6.500 users, 57% on desktops, 39% on smartphones and 4% on tablets. The high mobile access, at all times of the day, is used as a strategy by JN for the publication of digital videos, always with text captions, allowing users to dispense with the use of audio in their migratory movements at home, on the street, in school or at work.

Challenges and advances of professional convergence in JN

The records and observations of the work environment suggest evident traces of convergence in journalistic production processes in the JN editorial team. It is noticeable, from the newsroom design and workflows, that the digital core is responsible not only for the planning and pace of multiplatform production and distribution, but also exerts a direct influence on the printed product.

The complexity of the question of how to make a centenary newspaper relevant in the second decade of the twenty-first century is addressed now with excerpts from interviews recorded on ranges, limits, challenges and possibilities of convergence. One of the issues discussed with journalist Manuel Molinos, adjunct executive editor of JN and coordinator of the digital core, was how the newspaper deals with the challenge of differentiating its digital and paper products.

Molinos was one of the first journalists to have an academic degree in Social Communication in Portugal in 1989, and since 1999 has worked in the digital area of JN. He admits that editorial decisions between what is a priority in digital and what is a priority on paper are one of the main controversies in the day to day activities of the newsroom.

It is one of the most complex and, let’s say, the most controversial tasks. Certainly we make mistakes, sometimes we do it right, but we do this management - to continue to decide at what point in time and at what moment we have a subject that is exclusively ours and we will try to make it more of an added value in the printed edition. In others, we think that this story can be worked in a digital way and in another way in print and we advance this way. Therefore, it is a discussion that is held daily and at all times.

(Interview with Manuel Molinos).

The journalist explains that although the newsroom is integrated in spatial terms and content flows that migrate to digital and vice versa, there is a separation, in practice, in the social organization of activities. There are clearly the print journalists and the journalists who guarantee the breaking news, the Last Hour, the specific compartments of the site – multimedia content made in HTML5, video, infographics and those that need programming¹³. This happens, according to Molinos, due to the specific nature of digital journalism. As he states:

A journalist in digital has to be very focused on the digital, has to be very fast, has to be very accurate. In digital journalism, the journalist’s profile is not the same for everyone - in the sense of news, of arriving first and arriving in the best way possible - which is very complicated to arrive first and arrive well. This search for information is systematic, this attention in validating the information, all very quickly and, therefore, our reflection period is very small.

(Interview with Manuel Molinos).

The newspaper’s convergence strategy is to make an integration transition on the same medium according to time and as new professionals reach the market to avoid dramatic changes. In the current scenario of Portuguese journalism, Molinos considers that “the total integration of newsrooms is more of an academic theory” than a practice.

We are in the phase of convergence, of integration, but as I have been here for many years I have a different and broader opinion on the subject [...]. It is very difficult to bring a journalist who is in their printed support quickly into such an environment. And then, also, because we have here the question of specialization. Although in digital there is specialization in language, in narrative, in the form of hyperlinks, in visual form - which is very specific, on the other hand it is specialized almost on no subject. That is, a journalist in the digital area has to respond quickly to the subject one wants, be it sport, world, international politics, general politics, accident, fire, attack, therefore [laughs] “zillions” of specializations.

(Interview with Manuel Molinos).

This gap between generations of professional journalists, each with its limits and possibilities, is one of the main challenges in the experience of convergence in the newsroom of the JN. An example is the case of the newspaper’s social network editor, who graduated from a Portuguese university with a PhD from a university in Texas, who does not do digital marketing, but would do it because he needs to be aware of other elements that are not properly journalistic, such as speaking with users, responding to messages, looking at Chartbeat statistics, evaluating what the newspaper is doing well, doing badly, ultimately keeping communities active.

In this process, the paper needs to consider that the company’s largest business is still advertising and selling the print version. In 2016, JN’s revenue was 8 million euros, but only 14% were businesses resulting from digital operations.

Concluding remarks

One of the main conclusions we reach in this investigation is that the Portuguese centenary newspaper Jornal de Notícias manages to remain competitive in the contemporary media ecosystem by adopting a complex convergence model that puts new and old professional processes and practices into articulation which do not fit the simplistic and dominant discourse of media convergence.

In the organization of daily activities in the newsroom, there are distinctions of convergence of journalistic contents that migrate between digital and printed products, gaining specific languages, formats and temporalities that are, at the same time, divergent and coexistent. On the other hand - due to the journal’s own strategy of reconciling print culture with digital culture, tensions, dilemmas and conflicting forces emerge in social interactions between new and veteran journalists, as well as editorial decision-making processes.

These experiences are perceived as daily and continuous alerts triggered by the complex relationships between journalism and technology that can be better understood from the perspective of deconvergence.

Although new and veteran journalists share the same physical space and are all directly influenced by the flow and editorial choices of the digital core, there is a difference, in practice, between the professional profiles of journalists working directly with digital products – breaking news, website updates, social networking and multimedia content production – and experienced print journalists with their skills in analyzing, interpreting and contextualizing the news.

Our findings suggest that the newspaper’s strategic decision to retreat to a slower, less traumatic convergence model lies in the recognition that as long as the print and digital versions coexist in the organizational structure of the company, the different professional profiles complement each other in competencies and attributes. On the one hand by its technical specialty, on the other by its editorial specialty. In this (de) convergent process, the newsroom works because the digital core acts as a pivot in mediating the interactions that make journalistic production possible.

This work had the purpose of contributing to the reflection on the phenomenon of media convergence within a broader perspective that shelters parallel processes of divergence, coexistence and deconvergence still little studied empirically in the field of studies Journalism studies. It is a starting point for understanding what has been happening with convergence experiences and their unfolding as movements that shift the centrality of convergence as a metaphor for specific real-world situational contexts of journalistic newsrooms.

• 1
  Salaverría (2017, p.25) defines the temporality of digital media in three types: “1) los periódicos — aquellos que respetan un intervalo temporal fijo entre sus edicione s—, 2) los de actualización continua — aquellos cuyo ciclo de publicación viene dictado por la existencia de nuevas informaciones o, en última instancia, por el ritmo de la actualidad informativa —, y 3) los policrónicos o multitemporales — aquellos que mezclan características de los dos anteriores”.
• 2
  Base de Dados Portugal Contemporâneo – Pordata (Available at: https://www.pordata.pt. Accessed on: June 23, 2017).
• 3
  The rankings have been published annually since 2014, based on the web-analytics tool gemiusPrism, used in 30 European countries.
• 4
  Correio da Manhã (Lisbon) was founded in 1979 and is known as a popular newspaper.
• 5
  The other two newspapers are Diário de Notícias and Público, both from Lisbon.
• 6
  NetScope Ranking for January 2017. Available at: http://net.marktest.pt/netscope/rankings-netscope/ranking-netscope-de-janeiro-de-2017/. Accessed on: May 15, 2017.
• 7
  Veglis (2016) defines multiplatform as the production of any content (news, music, text, images) for more than one platform (print, web and TV) within the same media organization.
• 8
  The authors refer to the relationality between the human and technique as a constitutive condition of social reality.
• 9
  Jenkins (2008) dealt with the “black box fallacy” to demystify reductionist discourses about the emergence of a single medium of communication, based on convergent digital technologies in formats and patterns that neglect cultural aspects.
• 10
  The authors work with two theories of biological evolution as a process: convergence theory, which explains present states of a species as determined by existing natural preconditions, and contingency theory, which accentuates states present as non-replicable accidental emergencies despite the same pre-existing conditions.
• 11
  A survey, conducted between 2014 and 2016, compared strategies of journalistic convergence in journalistic newsrooms in Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Spain and Portugal.
• 12
  Other forms of interaction among professionals are the weekly planning meetings, on Wednesdays, and the daily meetings that always happen at 10 am.
• 13
  The team of digital journalists works in shifts, with schedules starting at 7h30 am and finishing at 2 am.

Referências

• ARANGO-FORERO, G.; RONCALLO-DOW, S.; URIBE-JONGBLOED, E. Rethinking convergence: A new word to describe an old idea. In: LUGMAYR, A.; DAL ZOTTO, C. Media convergence handbook - Vol. 1: Journalism, broadcasting and social media aspects of convergence. Berlin: Springer, 2016. p.17-28.
• AVILÉS, J. A. et al. Newsroom integration in Austria, Spain and Germany: models of media convergence. Journalism Practice, v.3, n.3, p.285-303, 2009.
• BALBI, G. Deconstructing “Media Convergence”: a cultural history of the buzzword, 1820s-2010s. In: SPARVIERO, S.; PEIL, C.; BALBI, G. Media convergence and deconvergence: global transformations in media and communication research. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2017. p.31-50.
• BLUMER, H. What is wrong with social theory? American Sociological Review, v. XIX, p.3-10, 1954.
• ______. Symbolic Interactionism: perspective and method. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1969.
• ERDAL, I. J. Researching media convergence and crossmedia news production. Nordicom Review, v.28, n.2, p.51-61, 2007.
• FAGERJORD, A.; STORSUL, T. Questioning convergence. In: STORSUL, T.; STUEDAHL, D. Ambivalence towards convergence: digitalization and media change. Göteborg: Nordicom, 2007. p.19-31.
• FERRARA, L. D. A estratégia empírica da comunicação. In: BRAGA, J. L.; VASSALO DE LOPES, M.; MARTINO, L. C. Pesquisa empírica em comunicação São Paulo: Paulus, 2010. p.51-69.
• GORDON, R. The meanings and implications of convergence. In: KAWAMOTO, K. Digital journalism: merging media and the changing horizons of journalism. Oxford: Rowman & Littledfield, 2003. p.57-72.
• JENKINS, H. Cultura da convergência São Paulo: Aleph, 2009.
• JIN, D. Y. De-convergence and the deconsolidation in the global media industries: the rise and fall of (some) media conglomerates. In: WINSECK, D.; JIN, D. Y. Political economies of the media: the transformation of the global media. London, UK: Bloomsburry, 2011. p.167-182.
• JORNAL DE NOTÍCIAS. Editorial Caminhos do Inferno, Porto, p.2, 19 junho 2017.
• LUGMAYR, A.; DAL ZOTTO, C. Media convergence is NOT king: the triadic phenomenon of media “convergence-divergence-coexistence” IS king. In: LUGMAYR, A.; DAL ZOTTO, C. Media convergence handbook - Vol. 2, Firms and Users Perspectives Berlin: Springer, 2016. p.429-455.
• MADIANOU, M. Audience reception and news in every day life. In: WAHL-JORGENSEN, K.; HANITZSCH, T. The handbook of journalism studies New York: Routledge, 2009. p.325-337.
• MEAD, G. Mind, self, and society Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1934.
• MENKE, M. et al. Convergence culture in European newsrooms: comparing editorial strategies for cross-media news production in six countries. Journalism Studies, 2016, v. 19, n.6. Disponivel em: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2016.1232175 Acesso em: 11 out. 2016.
  » http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2016.1232175
• MITCHELSTEIN, E.; BOCZKOWSKI, P. Between tradition and change: a review of recent research on online news production. Journalism, v.10, n.5, p.562-586, 2009.
• PEIL, C.; SPARVIERO, S. Media convergence meets deconvergence. In: BALBI, G.; SPARVIERO, S.; PEIL, C. Media convergence and deconvergence: global transformations in media and communication research. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2017. p.3-30.
• PICARD, R. Digitization and media business models: mapping digital media. Open Society Institute, 2011. Disponivel em: https://www.opensocietyfoundation.org/sites/default/files/digitization-media-business-models-20110721.pdf Acesso em: abr. 2017.
  » https://www.opensocietyfoundation.org/sites/default/files/digitization-media-business-models-20110721.pdf
• PRUS, R. Symbolic interaction and ethnographic research New York: State University of New York, 1996.
• QUANDT, T.; SINGER, J. B. Convergence and cross-platform content production. In: WAHL-JORGENSEN, K.; HANITZCH, T. The handbook of journalism studies New York: Routledge, 2009. p.130-144.
• QUÉRÉ, L. L’événement. In: BEAUD, P. Sociologie de la communication Paris: CNET, 1997. p.401-432.
• SALAVERRÍA, R. Tipologia de los cibermedios periodísticos: bases teóricas para su clasificación. Revista mediterránea de Comunicación, v.8, n.1, p.19-32, 2017.
• SPYRIDOU, L. P.; VEGLIS, A. Convergence and the changing labor of journalism: towards the ‘super journalist’ paradigm. In: LUGMAYR, A.; DAL ZOTTO, C. Media convergence handbook - Vol. 1: Journalism, broadcasting, and social media aspects of convergence. Berlin: Springer, 2016. p.99-116.
• VEGLIS, A.; DIMOULAS, C.; KALLIRIS, G. Towards intelligence cross-media publishing: media practices and technology convergence perspectives. In: LUGMAYR, A.; DAL ZOTTO, C. Media convergence handbook - Vol. 1: Journalism, broadcasting and social media aspects of convergence. Berlin: Springer, 2016. p.131-150.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  May-Aug 2018

History

• Received
  08 Dec 2017
• Accepted
  30 Oct 2018