Convergence Newsletter - special communities issue

The Convergence Newsletter is seeking contributions for its June issue on the impact of convergence and distributed journalism in communities.

We are looking for articles not only on geographic communities, but also on social and economic ones. How has the online world fostered community? Or split it apart? Or realigned it? We hear a lot about the issues of big-city dailies, but how is this playing out in smaller communities, or in communities never envisioned before?

What "convergence" are we looking for, how do we define it? We don't. We think Rich Gordon did a great job many years ago and will consider submissions in any of these areas. Likewise, this is not solely about news and journalism (as we classically define it). Technological convergence, for instance, may be forming its own social communities with their own means of information sharing. And, shifting back to the geographical for a moment, how is all this interacting with the warp and weave of community structures and life?

The June issue is part of our new realignment into topical issues. We hope to have a communities and convergence issue twice a year.

The Convergence Newsletter has about 1,000 subscribers (and growing - if you don't get it, please feel free to subscribe for free or visit our blog), is published out of the University of South Carolina and Newsplex once a month except for June and January. We call it a journal of first impression. Most pieces run from 600-1,200 words. It is not peer reviewed, but it is edited. It's an excellent place to work on the kernel of a thought that may blossom into a longer publication or to write about notable things that may not become a longer project but are just as valuable to know about. (For instance, I saw a paper for a class the other day that had a unique set of interviews with Lawrence Journal-World staffers about the problems with comments on the site and how to deal with those.)

If you have a proposal, please e-mail me (dfisher@sc.edu). You'll probably hear back from Brad Petit, the day-to-day editor, who will work out details with you.

Thanks,
Doug Fisher
Executive Editor