Multiple Media, Convergent Processes, and Divergent Products: Organizational Innovation in Digital Media Production at a European Firm

Abstract

This article addresses the intersection of two underexplored themes in studies of cultural production in traditional and digital media: the role of technology in news work and the processes that shape media convergence. The authors analyze organizational innovation in digital media production at GMS, a European firm that operates print and broadcast outlets in several specialized news markets. Between 1994 and 2003, GMS went from a phase of digital media experimentation under-taken by teams located within each existing newsroom, to the creation of a separate unit handling the online content of all print and broadcast newsrooms, to the ongoing integration of news production into a single newsroom per specialized market that generates different products for the various outlets in each market. This analysis illuminates how adopting online technologies has involved shifts in the locus of content creation in a path of increasing convergence in production processes but continued divergence of media products.