Multi-platform production: full speed ahead. The case of the Canadian company Québecor, 1995–2010

Resumo

This paper analyzes the strategies of the Canadian corporation Quebecor, a conglomerate regarded as the prototypical media company and a veteran in the process of gradual media convergence. This case study is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 1999 and 2005, and on a review of the corporation’s activities five years later, in 2010. Synergistically integrating cross–promoting media, strategic partnerships with other media, and structural innovation, Quebecor is the most strongly committed actor in multiplatform production in Quebec – and beyond in English Canada. It has also become an increasingly avid proponent of the concept of the multitasking journalist. The analysis proposed here illustrates not only the transformation of the work of Quebecor employees but also the strategies deployed by a conglomerate to control financial and business opportunities anticipated through media convergence.