Courtesy of Taylor B.
The process of convergence has been happening in the world around us on a daily basis. Media convergence has been changing in a way that shapes how and where people get information, whether it is news, music, or television (Jenkins, 2006). Convergence has occurred not just on a technological level, but also between industries where merging is taking place and new business models are taking form in order to keep up with the consumers’ desires and expectations (Flaw, 2009). With this process occurring day after day, media convergence has exposed people to media forms, which they would not otherwise have consumed.
It is first important to understand how people find and choose the media they consume. Now days, television is everywhere. You can barely walk into a fast food restaurant without finding a television somewhere inside. In this respect, many times people are not choosing the media they consume, but rather it is forced upon them. Say a person never watches the news, but when they sit down to have a meal at McDonalds, Fox News is on every TV in the building. Even if they try to ignore it, it is likely that they will end up consuming, even subconsciously perhaps, this media, purely because of the convergence that has occurred through the placement of these TVs in this restaurant. Without this convergence, it is likely this person may not have seen or consumed this type of media.
But the media in which people consume is no longer purely based on what is given to them. Through convergence, and the rise of digital publishing, it is much easier for the public to become active and involved in creating their own content due to the ease in digital publishing over the internet now days (Flaw, 2009). Almost anyone can just upload a video on YouTube, and there are so many different types of videos, that one could sit for hours viewing countless of different topics covered. In this way, convergence has increased the media we consume. This media is shared through social networking cites, such as Facebook. Through this ability to readily make such media available, and share it through a social networking site like Facebook, people are introduced to new media that they may not have seen had it not just appeared on a friend’s Facebook page, or on their news feed. With so many people interacting in one place, it not only makes communication easier, but provides an easy way to transmit forms of media. Maybe someone wouldn’t go searching for a particular type of media, but through a site like Facebook, it may just present itself without them having to dig for it, and they would then consume a new type of media they would not otherwise have ever seen.
Even Myspace is introducing people to new Media. Just by featuring a “Music” section they are introducing an already prominent online community to music that one would not normally hear on the radio. It features underground bands and even new types of music. In 2005, an international media entrepreneur by the name of Rupert Murdoch bought Myspace, in order to incorporate his news corporation (Flaw, 2009). By doing so, he introduced forms of media to a community of younger kids who may not have searched for news on a daily basis, but by seeing it through their Myspace, it was consumed. Industrial convergence has occurred in this way and in others, causing businesses to come together in hopes of distributing new media across to the public. In 1996, NBC Universal teamed up with the Microsoft Corporation in order to form MSNBC, a cable and internet news service (Flaw, 2009). Industries such as these are teaming up in order to create a wider variety of media and make it more readily available to public consumers.
Today’s world is all about the here and now. The rate at which our technologies are converging is alarming. It is rare now days to find a cell-phone that only makes phone calls. And Jenkins in his blog, refers to the camera-phone as the “digital equivalent of the Swiss Army Knife” (Jenkins, 2006). The point being, with so many phones decked out with the latest in “3G technology” as those phone commercials claim, with the convenience of access to so much media at your fingertips, it is enticing for people to try it out. People who don’t want to sit down and watch their ten o clock news, can now take five minutes out of their day to check a news website, right on their cell. Many devices, not just phones, are converging. The Amazon Kindle is a device made primarily to store hundreds of books on, with the convenience of just one book sized device. But what a shame it would be if this was all the device could do. It can handle audio files, so you can listen to music while reading and it even can store black and white photos (Taylor, 2009). With the media presented so conveniently through convergence, more and more people are likely to gain access to these new media forms. Everyday media is presented through new forms, and different technologies, and through media convergence, people have been exposed to media forms in which they might not otherwise have consumed.
Bibliography
Flaw, Terry. (2009). Media Convergence. Encyclopædia britannica. Retrieved (2009, October 30) from http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1425043/media-convergence#
Jenkins, Henry. (2006, June 29). Convergence and Divergence. Confessions of an Aca-Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins. Retrieved October 30, 2009 from http://www.henryjenkins.org/2006/06/convergence_and_divergence_two.html
Jenkins, Henry. (2006, June 19). Welcome To Culture Convergence. Confessions of an Aca-Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins. Retrieved October 30, 2009 from http://www.henryjenkins.org/2006/06/welcome_to_convergence_culture.html
Taylor, Robert. (2009, August 20). Media Convergence. Build and Break. Retrieved October 30, 2009 from http://bandb.blogspot.com/2009/08/media-convergence.html
