Wednesday, 19 March 2014

Convergence in Media

Over the past century, convergence within media has changed stupendously, with technological advancements altering the world of media forever. The term “media convergence” is probably not familiar and would at first seem rather confusing.

The fact is, converged media is everywhere- television, radio, newspapers, blogs, podcasts- these are all types of media. Lines between paid media, owned media and earned media have all been blurred, for example going to an online newspaper may require subscription and even payment to access the news. A collaboration of broadcast media and consumer online services have created media such as YouTube and Megashare, where movies and television programs can be watched over the internet. Reusing the same material for different types of media is not the big picture of convergence in media.

The big picture is more sophisticated.
Think about what convergence means.
Meeting, uniting, joining, merging. The coming together of two separate concepts.
Ultimately, all forms of media will be combined together- this will create a new medium altogether and it is probable that this evolution will occur through computers.


It is obvious that the world and especially technology will continue to change and evolve over the course of time. I do not therefore think that this convergence of media- to meet, unite, join and merge media- is necessarily a bad thing. Although the world has become an extremely man-made, technologically-focused planet, the combination of these mediums will give a smoother experience online. With each page working together, the understanding of this technology should greatly improve.

The article below, written recently by J.J. Colao from Forbes.com, discusses the impending change of the internet and 15 predictions for the World Wide Web’s digital future:

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