Shawn RiceOnline journalism is the future of media communications and I, for one, am glad that Cabrini is taking strides to become what many other media networks are already doing, a widely-based information source. Although the Loquitur is known mostly as a newspaper, it reaches a larger audience readership on the Internet that needs to be capitalized by introducing other mediums with an article.
Besides reprinting the articles from the newspaper format, the “web” Loquitur offers exclusives not found in the newspaper. Some of these web exclusives include extra stories but recently an effort has been made to produce videos to accompany the articles by a few people and myself.
Cabrini has the potential to use multiple platforms such as television, newspaper, radio and the web for the sole purpose of providing current news to all the diverse audience groups. The future goal of Cabrini’s web version of the Loquitur is to create video or audio features that further develop a written article.
The idea of media convergence cannot succeed without the teamwork, which includes the efforts of people from all fields of communications. I hope interest is soon generated among students because this idea of convergence can be found outside in the larger communications market and it will be expected of everyone in the industry to be able to work in conjunction with this concept.
I am challenging all communications students to take the initiative and make an effort to work with the department to put together a multimedia platform, which would stand out amongst the college spectrum. The opportunity to better our ability to communicate Cabrini news to the community is available to us right now.
People take for granted the accessibility that is given to them on the Internet but there is a craft to what you see on the web when it comes to video, audio and the written article. The ability to tell a story on many diverse fields of communication is a great skill to learn and working with other students can really help.
I encourage everyone to attempt working on this idea of media convergence. The more people get involved, the quicker Cabrini’s chance of perfecting and reaching the goal of complete convergence of all media.
The future of online journalism is looking good for Cabrini but the main objective is to make the audience feel that the video or audio accompanying stories is not just a one-time deal but also rather a necessity. To accomplish this, the communications department needs students to take up the challenge. I think it can be done and right now media convergence is looking pretty good.
Posted to the web by: Cecelia Francisco
