MAC301robert.jewitt@sunderland.ac.uk

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Digitisation Convergence Mobile phones Summary

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Increased tendency in recent years to encode visuals, sound and print in binary digital terms

All of our media platforms are pushing towards digital platforms

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Analogue signal to give way (2012) Make way for:

Mobile Television servicesWireless broadband servicesWider coverage for advanced services

in remote and rural areasHigh definition services

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Digital compression allows for more efficient use of bandwidth

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Convenient for content owners to manipulate/edit

Push comes from consolidation in large media entities

Digital distribution is a lot cheaper than physical distribution

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[Benefits] ‘to the consumer only seem to come when the multi-nationals lose control of product and copyright – music on the Internet, pirate DVD copies, cheap copies of equipment from the developing world ... Convergence does not simply generate new media. It opens up new possibilities for “old media”’Burton, 2005: 211

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‘A word that describes technological, industrial, cultural, and social changes in the way media circulates within our culture. Some common ideas referred by the term include the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, the search for new structures of media financing that fall at the interstices between old and new media, and migratory behaviour of media audiences who would go almost anywhere in search of the kind of entertainment experiences they want’ Jenkins, 2006: 282

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‘Once upon a time .. companies that published newspapers, magazines, and books did very little else; their involvement with other media was slight’ Ithiel de Sola Pool, 1983: 23

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Piracy as threat to industry or evidence of new opportunities?

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http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=2uQLeE_LYx0

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24: Conspiracy (2004) Prison Break: Proof of Innocence

(2006) Lost: Missing Pieces (2007)

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Dr Who See Perryman, 2008

BBC, 2007:they "were not the hit we expected

although they were popular on broadband”

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Bollywood movie Rok Sako To Rok Lo (2004)

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Touted as ‘revolutionary’ convergence device

Steve Jobs, Mac World expo, 2007

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http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8sPVfFXC6AY

Complaint to ASA (August 2008)http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/adjudications/

Public/TF_ADJ_44891.htm

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http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OknElEusVhM

Complaint to ASA (November 2008)http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/adjudications/

Public/TF_ADJ_45381.htm November 2008-12-08

Trust in corporations?21

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TrT1gzQHsI4

Access to 2 million+ tunes from Sony, Warner, Universal

Annual cost approx £300

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‘Black Box Fallacy’ (Jenkins, 2006: 13-14)

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Promise of convergence = hype? iPhone = camera, Internet, music,

movies, phone Convenient ‘Black Box’?

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Convergence is a process not an end point (Jenkins, 2006: 16)

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To what extent is convergence a promise that fails to deliver?

How important is multi-functionality to new media hardware/software providers?

Is it worth companies exaggerating claims over products and services if they cannot possibly deliver what they actually suggest?

Can we trust the media?26

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BBC, 2007, Annual Report and Accounts 2006-7, http://www.bbc.co.uk/annualreport/2007/

BBC, 2008, ‘Apple profits up on iPhone sales’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7682962.stm

Graeme Burton, 2005, Media and Society: critical perspectives, Maidenhead: Open University Press

Gizmodo, 2004, ‘Indian Film “Rok Sako To Rok Lo” to Premiere via Cellphone’, http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/cellphones/indian-film-rok-sako-to-rok-lo-to-premiere-via-cellphone-027046.php

Henry Jenkins, 2006, Convergence Culture: Where old and new media collide, New York University Press: New York & London

Steve Jobs, 2007, Mac World Expo San Francisco keynote. Nicholas Negroponte, 1995, Being Digital, New York: Alfred A Knopf Neil Perryman, 2008, ‘Doctor Who and the Convergence of Media: A Case Study in

“Transmedia Storytelling”’, Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 14 21.

Jonathan Richards, 2008, ‘Nokia takes on Apple with “all you can eat” music’, http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article4660380.ece

Jeremy Rifkin, 2000, The Age of Access: How The Shift From Ownership To Access is Transforming Modern Life, Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin Book

Ithiel de Sola Pool, 1983, Technologies of Freedom: On Free Speech in an Electronic Age, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press

Mark Sweeney, 2008, ‘Project Kangaroo punctured by Competition Commission’, The Guardian Dec 3rd, http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/dec/03/project-kangaroo-competition

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