Convergent Social Media

There are many scholarly articles, papers, and books on media convergence and social media seperately, but what exactly is convergent social media?

I decided to add this term to the classroom glossary for the wiki project because, while I had heard those words before in previous classes, I’ve never come across “convergent social media” as a defined practice.

In New Media, Terry Flew explains the differences between modern mass communication and contemporary convergence. It’s through this side-by-side comparison that one can really understand what is meant by convergent social media. Basically, the core value that distinguishes convergent social media from other forms of mass communication are:

• The ability for users to access various social media platforms, often simultaneously, for free
• The ability for users to not only view/interact with media, but create and share their own content
• The ability for users to potentially profit off of their content, despite not being affiliated with or employed by a broadcasting service

The glossary project was difficult because it felt like a great responsibility to express this information correctly. I had (and still have) a lot of self-doubt about whether or not I fully understand Flew’s concepts. I hope I do, and I hope I did his explanation justice. Even though people are discouraged from relying on Wikipedia and other wiki services as sources of information since they are user-created and vulnerable to error, I understand now how important it is for those who work on those pages to check and re-check their data. I greatly admire people who do this on a volunteer basis. It was not easy to create a glossary entry, and I imagine it’s much more nerve-wracking to write a full wiki entry!