1) What is media convergence and how is it facilitated by the Internet?
2) What opportunities does media convergence provide for both the a producer and audience of a newmedia work? (or why is new media new?)
Google is an example of a technology company that until very recently, only existed within the realm of the computer industry. But now it has made the transition into a major media company. The Australian telecommunications company Telstra has also, to some degree, tried to reinvent itself as a major media company; as have divisions within Microsoft, and Apple with its IPod and ITunes. And as these companies enter into the world of media, then they also enter into the broader critique of how we understood the media. (And there is an emerging body of literature that critically engages with the political economy of companies such as Google and for instance, its somewhat uncomfortable relationship with digital book publishing (see: Google Book Search) Also see: CNET’s article on Copyright)
And there was reasonably good article about Google in the Age newspaper earlier this year (February 11) titled: The Search Engine that Could: How a Search Engine Overtook the World. The article was interesting for a number of reasons, not simply because it is part of an emerging discussion on how we critique Google as a media company, but also in its use of language such as ‘take over the world’ and ‘make all information universally accessible’ and Google is an important as the invention as the steam train’.
These are the sort of claims that were being made about ‘information tachnology’ by Vannevar Bush and Ted Nelson 50 and 60 years ago; and were as intellectually parochial then as they are now. This sort of proselytising, all-encompassing, and transcendent language imbued by a techno-inevitability is as old as the computer industry itself. In other words, all technology exists in the real world of politics and the real world of conflict and the real world of inequality and the real world of business and its not a matter of Google taking over the world, it a matter of the real world taking over Google (or at least our understandings of the broader social and political world will soon burst any illusions that Google exists in a world of its own)
And if I could just make a few stabs at where I think we are now at in the roller-coaster ride that is the recent history of the Internet; I think that we are at a very interesting juncture; especially for media professionals. One is that a lot of the stuff that was said about the Internet during the so-called dot-com boom around the 2000 period was a complete load of crap designed to inflate the stock prices of companies and innovations that really weren’t that special. And this often happens in the computer industry in that it is prone to boom and bust, roughly along 10 year cycles. And my first job that I had way back in the dark ages of the late 1980s was packing boxes in a small computer company on Bridge Road Richmond that sold software for desktop computers. And this was during a technology boom that was largely driven by the belief that one day everyone will have their own computer at home on their desktop. And for a lot of people ten or fifteen years before this, in the 1970s, the idea of everyone having their own computer at home was absurd; as absurd as the belief in the early 20th Century that one day everyone is going to own their own aeroplane that they will fly to work in it and park next to their house in the evenings.
The point being that there are times in history where there is a technology boom and technology is firmly in the driving seat; and we get lots of fantastic claims about where technology is leading us and the inevitabilities of this and some of these claims do in fact come true, but most of them do not.
And another interesting point is that often the less you know (or want to know) about the technical workings and practicalities of the Internet or other technologies, the more likely it is that you will make claims about them that are not true. And you see this all the time in the writings of a lot of journalists and media and technology theorists; that they don’t really understand the technology; thus project upon it all sorts of Utopian and dystopian fantasies (and there is nothing new about this). And after you make a web site, you come to realise that they really aren’t that special and there isn’t much hope of Google taking over the world unless its directors can solve the issues of terrorism and fundamentalism or electricity blackouts in Bangalore or nuclear non-proliferation in Iran . Again all technologies exist in a social and political context and often it takes us a little while to understand exactly what these are and how they fit in.
And now we are at this interesting stage in the recent history of the Internet because the first stage of how we popularly understood it (or misunderstood it) is firmly behind us and we can now discuss the Internet in a much more mature way; we have some mature Internet companies with solid business models; we have some fantastic Internet technologies for making web pages; we have fast and reasonably cheap Internet access; and an emerging and considered critique of the Internet; especially coming out of the media studies field.
And the Internet industry has changed quite a lot since the last technology boom and the field of Media and Communication is at the moment one the bright spots. One is because many Internet companies, such as Google, are increasingly being seen as media companies and require the skills of media professionals, and two many of the programming type jobs that were available during the last technology boom have perhaps migrated to low wage countries such as India forever. So it’s not just the technical skills that are required by today’s media companies, it is also the skills of being a professional communicator and these are the very things you learn in a humanities degree and the Internet is just one of many tools that you can use to communicate your concerns to various audiences. (And I have seen a recent spate of Internet-type jobs advertised from various media companies; ie. the Age that requires video produces for its online and mobile video service (I didn’t know the age even had a mobile video service). And also I’ve seen other companies and political organisations that require media and communication specialists to run online campaigns and manage there web site).
Distribution and convergence
Which brings me to the major points; the Internet is not only the first truly interactive medium, it is also the first medium that can include all other mediums. And it is this later feature that we call media convergence. (And ‘convergence’ is when a company like the Age newspaper becomes a video distributor, or Google becomes a book publisher, or Apple becomes a record producer, or a mobile phone company like ‘3’ becomes a television broadcaster). In other words, it all becomes pretty confusing.
The Internet upsets the boundaries and audiences of traditional media companies and creates a new space called multi-media or new media or convergent media. The new video Ipod from Apple computers is an interesting example as Apple is a computer company from the world of science and engineering that has created a device that plays movies and music that can be downloaded from its online store. (And there is nothing particularly innovative about the Ipod; it’s just a hard disk and the true innovators in the industry were perhaps companies like Napstar)
Does the Ipod make Apple a mere distributor of music and video or will it someday become a producer or its own music label or even its own movie studio? Will it start broadcasting (or Podcasting) from its own news station or will it start to distribute books that can be read on the Ipod or will an Ipod be released that includes a mobile phone (and mobile phone companies are already starting to move into the territory of the Ipod through the inclusion of Mp3 players). So the Internet (and I am including the mobile Internet in my definition) can include all other mediums and can distribute all other mediums. Hutchinson Telecommunications through it’s brand ‘3’ is distributing television on its mobiles, Apples music on its Ipods, and Google books to e-book readers.
Two Types of Convergence
But this is where I would like to demarcate a difference in how we can understand the concept of ‘convergence’ and the coming together of various mediums through the Internet (that were once separate entities and even entire industries). I.e. is watching the cricket on a mobile phone really that innovative or is it just same old wine in a new bottle? Or is listening to Elton John on an Ipod all that much different than when you first heard it on your mother’s new stereo in 1974? Point being that innovation in distribution is an important innovation in itself, but it is not the whole picture. There are also new things that you can do once you bring various mediums together through the Internet.
Check out this example of hypertext from one the early innovators of hypertext fiction; being Stuart Maulthrop.
http://iat.ubalt.edu/moulthrop/hypertexts/HGS/
As you can see, it sort of like a choose your own adventure story where there are multiple paths and once you start going down these paths; you get to understand the larger structure of the piece. This piece only exists online; meaning that if you print it out it isn’t going to work so it’s an example of how the Internet works as a new medium and not just a distributor of old media. In other words, the web allows you to structure knowledge in new ways that allows your audience to see things in new ways. If you take this concept of online hypertext (ie. choose your own adventure) and the concept of convergence (or the coming together of media) then you can do some really funky things online and a lot of them are coming out of the blog community. This weblog from a broadcaster in the US is sort of interesting, but it still not quite there because he’s still simply talking about distributing ‘old media’ programmes online via the Internet but I’m still not completely sure why this is such a big innovation.
http://stevegarfield.blogs.com/
What’s wrong with listening to a radio programme at the same time as everyone else does?
The Internet: The ATM machine of the media industries.
Let’s go over a couple of these concepts that are central to the understanding of the Internet as a new media and not just a new means of distributing old media in a new way (if you can understand that). For many in the media industries, the Internet is seen as an ATM machine that is open 24 hours that you can go to and get a movie out of or a book or a song. But beyond this, it’s also a medium in its own right that has new ways to structures knowledge and creativity. I.e. A newspaper structures knowledge in a certain way that is dependent on the print form and television structures the 7.00 O’clock news that is dependent on broadcasting. So too the Internet can structure knowledge in a new way. Once upon a time media companies were fairly distinct entities such as radio, and television, newspapers, and book publishers, and likewise the computer industry which has its own distinct history. But then the Internet came along which allowed parts of these industries to converge through devices hooked to it such as computers, mobile phones, and IPODS. And once this happened it allowed these various mediums to be structured in news ways that wasn’t dependent on the print or broadcasting model (or at least you would hope).
Check out this is a piece that I produced a few years back on the history of Fitzroy and it could be termed hypertextual video. And this is where you combine concepts of hypertext and online digital video with a search capacity.
http://tropestorm.intermedia.uib.no/projects/mats/smafe/milkbar/
Conclusions:
So to conclude, convergence is the coming together of various mediums that have their own particular history of engagement with the world. And the mediums come together in a contested space and each medium brings with it its own baggage and understandings. And to be a professional communicator at this stage of the post -technology -boom -Internet, where the technology has become ubiquitous, is in some ways much more exciting than the technology boom days when you could say any old crap and people would believe you (and possibly throw a lot of money at you as well).
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