A Probe Into The Development Of Convergent Journalism Against The Background Of Media Convergence

Facing the emergence of new communication technologies and new media, such as the Internet and wireless communication, the trend of digitalization and multimedia in communication is unstoppable. The emergence of new media is changing the media entironment. There is more and more intercourse between traditional media and new media. Traditional media have taken the pace of digitalization and cross-media development. Media convergence is considered as the inevitable destination of media by a number of scholars. Convergence has become the mainstream of media development and core ideology of news reportage.Media convergence is the most important phenomenon in news communication nowadays. The development of media convergence promoted the emergence of convergent journalism. Media convergence is the background and foundation of convergent journalism.The fundamental and direct inducement of convergent journalism is the mature of digital technology. Except for the technical inducement, there are two other ones, economic inducement in production area and market inducement in consumption area. The first inducement is the thrust of convergent journalism while the last two ones are gravitation. Considering from the perspective of the logical starting point and the ultimate point of the three inducements, scale and differences are their collective target.Convergent journalism is not a product of media hodgepodge. According to the different administrative levels of media convergence, convergent journalism can be divided into five basic modes, interactive extending, content copying, cooperating-competing, resource-participating, multidimensional convergence.Convergent journalism shows new characteristics which traditional mode doesn't show in news communication, conformity of content, structure changing of information sources, capability improving of communication carrier, role changing of audience, subdivision of audience colony, diversification of communication feedback etc. All these characteristics are reflected on the five factors of communication.The emergence of convergent journalism brings both vital force and challenge to news communication. It puts forward new demands for media itself, practitioners and audience. There is a long way for the media practitioners to go in order to probe into a continuable way to develop convergent journalism.