Press modelling and design before the age of media convergence: convergence policy of printed media and the problem of its description model

The article focuses on the problems of press modelling and design techniques development in the era of media convergence, the possible scenarios of this development are predicted in the context of optimistic and pessimistic forecasts for the subsystem of the print media. Modelling and design methods are inevitably upgraded due to the development of newsroom convergent practices. The authors indicate the range of options for the development of techniques: from absorption of press modelling, its inclusion into more common methods of web development - to gradually adding layers of modelling describing the convergent evolution within the accepted publication model. A wide range of current research in the field of convergence, describing the philosophical, practical and technical aspects of media convergence should be included in the knowledge base of modelling and design. At the same time, press modelling and design need the compilation of good practices of convergence, which can be found in advanced newsrooms that define industry standards. Summarizing the experience of TSU laboratory of press modelling and design and laboratory editorial and publishing activities in the study of convergence policy of different types of modern media, the authors propose a working version of the converged policy description, which is a necessary intermediate step in the generation of ideas of the "converged model" of printed media. The model contains a number of levels corresponding to the areas of convergence and the fundamental criteria for their descriptions. Among the levels are: the presence of the Internet version of the publication or an independent online publication of the same brand, the presence and specificity of newsroom in the social networks, the presence of channels and representative publications in blogs, microblogs and web hosting services, communication policy on these platforms, the use of mobile Internet services, support for tablet media. Several options of convergence policy description are highlighted as its fundamental criteria. These are its structure, genre, topical specificity of the publication, common and unique features of different versions, audience and functional orientation of the publication, specific functions, reader groups, consumption patterns, implementation of specific features of a particular platform, the potential of the platform in the realization of the basic functions of media, the potential of multi-media platforms, and the potential of interactivity model.

Keywords

Authors

References