Media Assessment

Convergence in ‘The Independent’ – A News Media Case Study

In 1986 the Newspaper ‘The Independent’ was established. Whilst this paper is still fairly popular to consumers, the company has had to adapt to changes in the news media environment which has led to the convergence of this text. It has developed a website, an app for phones, Facebook and iPods and has its own profile on Facebook and Twitter.

Originally, news stories that would appear in papers could have happened a few days ago so its audience were a little behind in terms of information however, with developments in technology, particularly the internet, news and information can be accessed instantly. However, the time it takes to create, print and distribute newspapers mean that the articles contained within them are always several hours behind current information and events. To compete with media that can provide more instant news, papers such as ‘The Independent’ have begun using new media to allow their audiences to receive stories quicker as well as to access a greater audience.

One of the most recent developments in new media is the micro-blogging site ‘Twitter’ which allows “for the online and instant dissemination of short fragments of data from a variety of official and unofficial sources,” which is to say that the site lets its users create short stories, often headlines with links to detailed articles on other websites, which can be shared instantly with its followers via the internet. This system turns its users into prosumers as they can both read and produce their own texts as well as share other people’s texts with others. This creates an interactivity that is not seen in old media; users can reply directly to the producers of content and allows people to share their views and the views of others in a way that can be made as selective as is desired. Twitter is also useful as a way of finding news stories for papers as it enables all its users to “obtain immediate access to information held by all or at least most, and in which each person can instantly add to that knowledge” so that people can share events as they happen with users and add details as they find them which is useful both to papers and to users as they can find out information quicker.

The Independent’s twitter feed is divided into different sections in much the same way as the newspaper itself is, for example separating media, politics and world news into different parts of the paper as well as different twitter profiles. This allows its audience to receive information only about the parts of the news they find of interest and lets people with a specific interest to find their Twitter profile who may not have normally been part of the audience for the paper. The use of Twitter in this way is often seen from either a technological determinist or liberal perspective. Technological determinists would suggest that we use this service as we have adapted to want more immediate news because the technology has evolved to support this whilst those using a liberal perception would suggest that as we have needed more instant information, the technology developed to fill this gap. However, you could look at this from a free market model and suggest that when these technologies developed, the owners of such sites and the industries that use them have marketed them to consumers as useful in an attempt to generate greater profits.

The most obvious example of convergence is probably seen in the use of website links in the Independent’s Twitter and Facebook feeds; within their posts on these two sites, they often include the wed address to the article on their website. This allows people who have an interest in the story they are promoting to find out extra details but also serves the purpose of driving more people to the site which means that they can create a bigger profit from their advertising on the site. This suggests that the use of micro-blogging sites is to quickly update its audience whilst the website is for detail as well as serving as the way in which the paper generates money for providing these services. The news site also allows people to comment on the story but in a “generally filtered or moderated form of participatory communication” compared to Facebook and Twitter as the website is controlled by the company itself so they are able to remove any content that they feel is inappropriate with greater ease.

The other feature The Independents uses on Facebook is their app. This allows Facebook users to show their friends what articles they have been reading, show app users what articles are popular both with their friends and the world and suggests articles that might be of interest. The app links Facebook users directly to the article on the website, again driving up views and profitability, and allows users’ friends to see that they have read these articles and provides them with a link to these articles. This is beneficial not only to The Independent, as it allows them to access a greater audience, but also to consumers as they are able to keep up with trends of information, giving them the gratification of information as well as integration and social interaction both through the use of commenting on texts and through being able to discuss articles with friends and share this information and their opinions with others.

Apps are also available on other platforms, such as mobile phones, tablet computers and mp4 devices such as iPods. Often to access these there is a subscription fee and it is through this that The Independent make their profit. However, the development of this can be seen through other perspectives rather than just free market. As the audience for newspapers are largely commuters, it can be seen that these professionals desired an easier, more compact and less time consuming way of accessing articles which lead to the development of these apps. It can also be seen from the technological determinist perspective that we now access the news in this way as this is how the technology has developed and we have adapted accordingly to make use of it.

The Independent have also recently begun a sister paper ‘The I’ which reflects the modern use of technology to access news in its format; it uses a lot of the same information and pictures as The Independent but changes the order and the level of detail to suit both its target audience and the values it portrays. Articles are grouped into pages according to their relevance to one another, much like how online articles contain links to others that are likely to be of interest or are relevant to what is being read, rather than necessarily by their importance as is traditional in newspapers.

To see this, you can compare the way in which the same story appears in both papers and on their website. Looking at the story about Vince Cable’s feeling over the BskyB saga, ‘The Independent’ uses less images and a longer headline compared to ‘The I’. The story is also more detailed and, unlike ‘The I,’ does not have a related story directly next or underneath it. The website uses a more similar headline to ‘The Independent’ but the style and depth of the story more closely resembles that of ‘The I.’ It also has links down the side of the article to popular and related stories, which again is more like ‘The I’ than ‘The Independent.’

It also interesting to compare The Independent’s use of new media and convergence to that of ‘The Times’. The way in which these two newspapers have decided to use technology is similar but they are using different models to create their profits – whilst access to most of The Independent’s online content and apps is free, ‘The Times’ charges a subscription fee to access both their website and apps. This means that they may create a greater profit from their audience but they have limited the size of the audience they can reach compared to The Independent.

The Independent has made use of new media both to create greater revenue and reach a wider audience. The development of new technologies has meant that their articles can be accessed anywhere and by almost anyone and instantly, which has led to changes in the design of their paper, the creation of ‘This I’ and the greater use and importance of their website, social networking feeds and applications for mobile devices.

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