Dimensions of Media Convergence PDF

Dimensions of media convergence Technological Convergence The technological dimension of convergence is the most readily understood. With the world wide web, smartphones, tablets, televisions, and other digital devices, billions of people are now able to access me...

Dimensions of media convergence Technological Convergence The technological dimension of convergence is the most readily understood. With the world wide web, smartphones, tablets, televisions, and other digital devices, billions of people are now able to access media content that was once tied to specific communications media (print and broadcast) or platforms (newspaper, magazines, radio, television and cinema). Since a diverse array of content is now being accessed through the same devices, media organizations have developed cross-media content. For example, news organizations no longer simply provide just print or audiovisual content but are portals that make material available in forms such as text, video, and podcasts, as well as providing links to other relevant resources, online access to their archives, and opportunities for users to comment on the story or provide links to relevant material. These developments have transformed journalism by breaching longstanding boundaries—between who is and is not a journalist (citizen journalism), between deadlines and other time, between journalists and editors, and between content platforms. Technological Convergence involves converging distinctly separate media delivery platforms. So some examples of this would be the conversion from analog to digital which continues to occur with television, the internet and mobile technologies. Advantages of Technological Convergence Technological convergence simplifies the production of media content. It also expands, accelerates and facilitates its distribution, often with associated cost savings. A digital photograph, for example, can be shot and circulated globally within seconds via the Internet. There is no need for film processing, printing and physical distribution. Similarly, consumers can access multiple forms of media content on a single device whenever they choose, often for free. With technological convergence, the electronic transmission of data can be exponential. This replaces the more singular, physical transportation of material goods. Convergence has also made it easier to produce media. Digitization allows consumers of media content to produce and distribute their own content. They could be everyday people using social media sites. Or they could be professionals (e.g., designers, filmmakers, musicians, writers, etc.) working in their field. Some analysts see this as a democratization of media. Anyone with access to digital media and a computer network can produce, consume and circulate media content. Drawbacks of Technological Convergence Our experience with convergence to date has also revealed some drawbacks. Not everyone has ready and affordable access to digital media, or the skills to employ them. A connection to computer networks (and the literacy required to navigate them) is increasingly vital. It creates a digital divide between haves and have-nots. Also, the tracking capacity of computer programs has resulted in increased surveillance. This has prompted concerns about personal privacy and security. The rapid change of digital formats and the massive quantity of available data has led to challenges. These include concerns about the storage, preservation and protection of things deemed important to the public record. Digital content can be copied, changed and circulated with great ease. This presents a challenge to existing copyright law and makes it difficult to prevent the pirating of content. The music, film and television industries have been impacted by this. The publishing industries have also been threatened by the free circulation of media. Social Convergence Social media is a new driver of the convergent media sector. The term social media refers to technologies, platforms, and services that enable individuals to engage in communication from one-to-one, one-to- many, and many-to-many. While the internet has always allowed individuals to participate in media not only as consumers but also as producers, the social aspect of media convergence did not flourish until the 2000s, with the rise of sites that aimed to be user-focused, decentralized, and able to change over time as users modified them through ongoing participation. Social media is exemplified by the rise of online communication services that include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Blogger and WordPress, and many others. The scale of growth of these social media platforms has been phenomenal. Facebook first became publicly available in 2006, and by 2012 it had over one billion users. American media scholar Howard Rheingold identified three core characteristics of social media. First, social media make it possible for everyone in the network to be simultaneously producer, distributor, and consumer of content. Second, social media’s power comes from the connections between its users. Third, social media allows users to coordinate activities between themselves “on scales and at speeds that were not previously possible.” An important shift associated with convergence and social media is the rise of user-created content, with users changing from audiences to participants. The tools of content creation become cheaper and simpler to use, distinctions between amateurs and experts become blurred, and media content production becomes increasingly shared, social, and collaborative in nature. Changes in the way users produce, distribute, access and re-use information, knowledge and entertainment potentially give rise to increased user autonomy, increased participation and increased diversity. Textual Convergence Textual convergence is when print media, for example newspapers, books, have been merged with online media. That is how online newspapers came to life. And this is one of the most convenient convergences. Reading news online is one of the most popular and convenient ways to get your daily fix of news. Most of us do it whilst eating our breakfast, heading to work or school, reading news changed since newspapers started transferring to online platforms. Some have even decided to go completely online-only. For example, newspapers like DNA deciding to go online in the recent past. That decision was made because of the success that their online newspaper has gained. They have realised that the news industry is changing. Textual Convergence also refers to the relationship between different forms of media. A great example of this is reality shows that not only rely on the television, but also involve text messaging to vote for contestants, online forums to discuss performances and topics related to the show, videos, polls, and even more recently, an official Facebook page and direct partnerships with platforms. What’s also important is advertising on the internet and how the number of hits, clicks and length on a website can boost profits and allow for a wider audience to be reached. By gaining an understanding of what convergence is in terms of media, we’d be able to get a clearer understanding of how the media around us is working now, and how it will continue to evolve in the future. Textual — the re-use and remixing of media into what has been termed a ‘transmedia’ model, where stories and media content (for example, sounds, images, written text) are dispersed across multiple media platforms. Media convergence has helped us in so many ways, for example information is so easy to access, we can get the latest news online, not having to go to a store and buy a print copy of a newspaper, all the news articles are in the reach of our fingertips. Textual convergence refers to the merging of printed media into online news media. For example, books and newspapers have been converted into social media-based writing and reading practices, also known as citizen journalism. Now anyone can contribute to the media industry by commenting on social media platforms. It is called textual convergence in media. Journalists are earning knowledge and improving themselves through convergence. Now journalists can view others’ content easily because of convergence. They are getting ideas and improving themselves. It allows them to learn more about the rule and regulations of generating media content. Media convergence creates a new way to interact between media practitioners and audiences. Readers comment to express their opinion. So, it allows for making interactive communication atmosphere. Political Media Convergence Digital media have become an integral part of individual citizens’ political lives as a growing number of people around the world use digital media technologies for information and communication. Collectively, digital media have also constituted an important platform that people can use to coordinate and mobilize among like-minded individuals. Nevertheless, while distributing informative and mobilizing messages, digital media also facilitate socio-political factors that raise concern over the dissemination of misinformation, information divides and political polarization. Recent studies on the internet and political activism have highlighted the significant role of digital media in shaping diverse forms of political participation and mobilizing large-scale social protests around the world. Digital media such as Twitter and Facebook provide a platform for cognitive, affective and behavioral connections that enable people to network collaboratively. For instance, digital media provide people with news and mobilizing information and allow them to exchange their opinions with many others, motivating them to engage in public activities. In addition, digital media content can be quickly updated without expending a significant amount of time, money and physical effort, which enables digital media users to easily pursue their communication goals through different activities online. Accordingly, digital media can play a significant role in the development of democracy. Information Divide and Political Polarization While the positive effect of digital media technologies on participatory behaviors has been well documented, a heated debate concerns whether digital media can help to develop a more deliberative society. The proliferation of information communication technologies has provided diversified channels where citizens can engage in free and open dialog and access information on various political and social issues. As people are increasingly turning away from mass media to social media as a way of learning news and civic information, new opportunities and challenges will arise. For instance, online social networks influence the type and amount of information to which people are exposed, and social media platforms curate content based on algorithmic information sorting, which elicits critical issues that affect the development of the democratic process. How much the changing boundaries of social media and the transforming dynamics of digital networks facilitate the information divide and influence individuals’ political information sharing, conversation and engagement will become an influential line of inquiry for years to come. Our current media environment produces a paradox in which citizens could be immersed in larger, more diverse, and heterogenous networks of political discussion and information. Examples: 1. South Korea A national survey in South Korea found that news curation plays a mediating role in the relationship between social media use for news and political knowledge. They also suggested that political interest and efficacy play significant roles in enhancing the association between social media use for news and political knowledge. Their study contributes to the literature on political learning on social media by illuminating the direct and indirect roles of news curation in the mediation models. 2. USA A survey conducted in the states of Ohio and Texas found that Democrats are more likely to use a variety of media platforms, while Republicans were more likely to segregate themselves to like-minded media and to avoid traditional objective sources like national newspapers or broadcast TV news. They also provided evidence that exposure to counter-attitudinal news outlets did not diminish partisan attitudes, while exposure to attitude-consistent media validated them. 3. China Chinese nationalism discourse on Weibo, the most popular Chinese social media platform is an attempt to understand the different roles of online actors in setting the agenda. Different Weibo accounts were explored, including organizational accounts, individual influencers’ accounts and ordinary individual accounts and found that media agenda influences individuals’ agenda, while the construction of nationalism follows a bottom-up direction. The impact of information uses of different media is not the same. They documented that the informational use of news content from print newspaper, radio and social media sources increases the likelihood of political participation, and the positive relationships between news content use from the radio and social media sources and political participation are stronger for higher- than lower-educated groups. Press freedom is also a significant contextual factor reinforcing the role of TV news, print news and social media use in participatory inequality. Industrial Convergence Technological transformations have been met by industry convergence and consolidation, as well as by the rise of giant new digital media players. The 1990s and early 2000s saw large mergers, where the biggest media companies sought to diversify their interests across media platforms. Among the largest mergers were Viacom-Paramount (1994), Disney-ABC (1995), Viacom-CBS (2000), NBC-Universal (2004), and the biggest merger in corporate history at the time, the 2000 merger of America On Line (AOL) and Time Warner. There were also takeovers of new media start-up companies by the established media players, such as News Corporation’s 2005 takeover of Intermix Media Inc., the parent company of MySpace. The methods taken by industries are disintermediation – breaking down traditional structures that mediate the relationship between producers and consumers, and reintermediation – where industries function with network distribution and e-commerce.  Media convergence It is a phenomenon involving the interconnection of information and communications technologies, computer networks, and media content. It brings together the “three C’s”— computing, communication, and content — and is a direct consequence of the digitization of media content and the popularization of internet. Media convergence transforms established industries, services, and work practices and enables entirely new forms of content to emerge. It erodes long-established media industry and content “silos” and increasingly uncouples content from particular devices, which in turn presents major challenges for public policy and regulation. The five major elements of media convergence—the technological, the industrial, the social, the textual, and the political. Convergence Is Happening All Around Us Did you know that Nokia manufactures a mobile phone every 13 seconds? Did you know that in the month leading up to the U.S Presidential campaign, Barack Obama used online social networks to raise US $55 million in those 29 days? Most importantly, did you know that what now fits inside our pockets, will all fit inside something the size of a blood cell in about 25 years? Media and technology continues to evolve every day, altering our media landscape, and as a result, we’ve needed to find ways to bring everything all together, to coexist. This, and all the stuff we didn’t know above, all relies on Convergence. Henry Jenkins, media analyst and one of the foremost leading experts on the convergence culture paradigm, as well as, the DeFlorz Professor of Humanities and the Founder and Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT defined Convergence as: “a situation in which multiple media systems coexist and where media content flows fluidly across them…an ongoing process or series of intersections between different media systems, not a fixed relationship”. Not so long ago, if you were going on vacation, you'd need to drag out a litany of devices and resources just to get you there and help you enjoy and capture all the best moments: a GPS for routing you the right way; a camera and camcorder for taking pictures and videos; a CD player (or, if you're old enough to remember them, a cassette player) stocked with all your favorite tunes; a book or portable DVD player to keep you entertained; and your wallet for purchasing mementos from your trip. Today, you need only one device: your smartphone. Smartphones have rendered most of these other object obsolete, doing the job of—by some estimates—up to 50 different things in one portable, ultra-powerful package. This process in which some technologies are no longer useful and others are simply changed in the way we use them, is known as media convergence. Media convergence is the joining, or ''converging,'' of distinct technologies into one. It takes completely separate ideas and smashes them together, so that we're left with one big idea. Take, for example, the smartphone from the lesson's opening. One tool gives us the opportunity to communicate while functioning as a computer on which we view and share content, whereas before we would have needed multiple devices to accomplish each task individually. But media convergence isn't only an end result like a smartphone, but also a process in how we create, consume, and distribute media. Think for a minute about how you found out about the latest big event in the news. Were you watching television? Reading a newspaper? Probably not. Most likely you were informed thanks to convergence, perhaps reading it on a social media feed on your smartphone as you commuted to work. Media convergence has even changed the way we receive data. Instead of getting a news report from TV, we're getting that same report from a television station by way of the internet and social media, in particular. For people who work in media, convergence has changed the way they do their jobs. Instead of reporters simply writing a story to appear in tomorrow's newspaper, they're filming short video clips and tweeting about it, too—a smash-up of different digital technologies. Communication and technology are just two of the areas where convergence has been impactful. Media scholar Henry Jenkins theorized that there are actually five categories of convergence that we see today. Convergence of media occurs when multiple products come together to form one product with the advantages of all of them, also known as the black box. Media convergence is a concept in which old and new media intersect; when grassroots and corporate media intertwine in such a way that the balance of power between media producers and media consumers shifts in unpredictable ways. Media convergence is not just a technological shift or a technological process, it also includes shifts within the industrial, cultural, and social paradigms that encourage the consumer to seek out new information. Convergence, simply put, is how individual consumers interact with others on a social level and use various media platforms to create new experiences, new forms of media and content that connect us socially, and not just to other consumers, but to the corporate producers of media in ways that have not been as readily accessible in the past. For the consumer, it means more features in less space, while for the media conglomerates it means remaining competitive in the struggle for market dominance. However, convergence can have its downside. Particularly in their initial forms, converged devices are frequently less functional and reliable than their component parts. As the amount of functions in a single device escalates, the ability of that device to serve its original function decreases. For example, a smartphone won’t have a traditional numerical pad to make phone calls which some users may find troublesome. Regardless, an ever-wider range of technologies are being converged into single multipurpose devices. Since technology has evolved in the past 10-20 years, companies are beginning to converge technologies to create demand for new products. Phone companies now integrating 5G on their phones. Television on mobile phones. Converging technologies seems to be squashing many types of demanded technologies into one. These paradigm shifts often occur from time to time as the technology to create better devices evolves. Convergence paradigm suggests that new and old media would interact in more complex ways than previously predicted. The paradigm shift that followed the digital revolution assumed that new media was going to change everything. Many industry leaders are increasingly reverting to media convergence as a way of making sense in an era of disorientating change. Media convergence is more than just a shift in technology. It alters the relationship that already exists between industries, technologies, audiences, genres and markets. Media convergence changes the rationality in which media industries operate and also the way that media consumers process news and entertainment. Bearing in mind that media convergence in reality is essentially a process and not an outcome, there is no single black box that controls the flow of media into our homes and workplaces. With the proliferation of different media channels and the increasing portability of new telecommunications and computing technologies, we have entered into an era where the media is constantly surrounding us. Media convergence requires companies operating within the scope of the media to rethink existing assumptions about media from the consumer's point of view, as these assumptions affect both marketing and programming decisions. Media producers have to respond to these newly-empowered consumers in today's society to reinvent existing concepts to keep them up to date with emerging trends. Consumers these days want to interact. They want to create. They want to participate. Media convergence has allowed that to happen and as the proliferation of new communication technologies continues to occur, this trend is here to stay. Advantages of convergence: In term of industry, with the development of technology, the cost of products and software was lowered. Now different news crews for every medium, one converged media operation can use the same reporters and staff to produce stories for, television, telecommunication and Internet mediums Combining each medium’s resource, a converged operation can increase the quality of its product. As a result, satisfaction of customer is increased, which leads to a larger audience. From the public’s standpoint, the increased convenience of information provided by converged stories makes using the media a better experience. Media convergence cause the fragmentation of audiences for news. People talk about not having enough time to everything they want in a day or doing more than one thing at one time. Convergence lead the media is more interactive and audience participation is encouraged. In addition, greater audience engagement can help to enhance the way people experience the media. Moreover, with the interactive World Wide Web, audiences are able to download and share music, videos, photos via social networking and become media producers. Disadvantages of convergence Audiences complain about information overload and they can be overwhelmed and find it difficult.  The rapidly changing of technology has obstructed audience’s activities. People lack skill to take full advantage of new media especially old people and disable. Audience used to traditional forms of media find it tough to embrace a new way of receiving information. Media companies pursue audiences by greater benefit from marketing and advertising through cross-selling. Job losses Expensive to buy – smart phones / tablets Not everyone has access Not always user-friendly Unable to find support Policy Issues: Media convergence has also thrown up new challenges for policy. For most of the 20th century, media content was delivered through particular platforms, such as books, newspapers, magazines, radio, television, cinema, and video games. These different media were subject to different levels of regulation based upon whether they were distributed in public or consumed in private, whether children could access the content, whether a particular medium may have more impact on its audience, and so on. In the 21st century the content and platforms have separated, with content now accessible in digital form across multiple devices. Moreover, as noted above, users themselves are not just the consumers of content but increasingly its producers and distributors. The environment in which media policy and regulation are undertaken has been radically shifting as users more easily control their own media environments and younger users (“digital natives”) are often most familiar with convergent media technologies. The nature of media companies has also changed. For example, the computer company Apple, Inc., has become by far the world’s largest distributor of music. The search-engine firm Google, Inc., plays a key role in making both news and TV content available to global audiences. How to achieve long-established principles of media policy, such as ensuring diversity of ownership and content, regulating access on the basis of community standards, and meeting local content requirements in an age of global media, is a major challenge for policy makers in the age of media convergence. 3Cs of convergence: Content Content in media convergence ensures that people are reached with the right message, individual, and time. Content must be well branded to get people engaged. Today, every act of communication in media is accomplished through content. One way that content has engaged with media convergence is through storytelling; users can use their content to tell stories across various platforms. Content is a source of brand extension, reaching a new audience, profit and revenue generation, and increased product sales for media and other business corporations. Rich and narrative content engages with media consumers. It refers to meaningful data or information that is expressed through some medium such as speech writing or images. Content can be transmitted and shared through diverse media such as the internet, television, books, magazines and CDs. Computing It refers to the design and construction of computers to perform various types of tasks. An example of computing technology is the development of a software program that allows people to work at home on the tax assigned to them from their job’s location. The advent of the Internet and the digital highway has provided any marketer (print provider) with a fast-lane, a sort of digital easy pass to touch, survey, measure and track any level of communication that the consumer accepts, or even rejects. The question on the table is – how do we — the communicator — use this highway? Where are the on and off ramps, speed limit, signs, rest areas and on-the-road support? There may be many on ramps, but, until now, few exits. Is there a map? Branded content is today, and media convergence will help guide the correct message to the right person at the right time via the correct media. Communication It refers to the interaction of multiple computers over a network to share data, information and other resources. Some examples of communication technology include mobile communication and internet-based communication technologies. A digital highway is a nearly perfect conduit for communication. The advanced marketer can allow the consumer to define the method of being “touched,” the frequency of that contact and even specificity of the message. The content end of the media convergence highway is the key to success, for it is the heart and blood of the new future.