Convergence – how and why it is important to consider convergence when planning for the future in the media industry. Use general examples and

your own experience to back up the points you make.

Portability Todays infrastructure Things starting to replace one another. Technological convergence Segmentation

Media has changed drastically over short periods of time. In just the past ten years it has become much more advanced and useful for people all around the world. This includes technology convergence and the changes in the media industry and audiences. There have been advances in the way gatekeeping and content filters are handled. The rise in the technology of books has even been so great that there has been a decrease in the annual sales due to being able to access them cheap or even free elsewhere. With the ascending spiral of technology the world of media will be a great place for the future. The film industry has taken note on how bad the music industry dealt with piracy issues and learnt from their mistakes and the subsequent success of legal music services, for example, iTunes. The way to compete with pirates and illegal file sharing is to offer a legitimate service such as love film or Netflix to help with them avoiding piracy however this cannot always be helped as people still find ways of finding films illegally.

In the 50’s people had no choice but to go to the cinema and watch the one film at a certain time. Today we have much more choice and variety. We don’t have to go to the cinema to see the latest films and worry about the cost of it, for we can simply go onto the internet and illegally stream or download the films for free or simply wait for the DVD to come out. This is damaging the film industry because people no longer want to pay for ‘the cinema experience’ as they can do all this at home for a lower cost. Convergence is allowing more platforms to access these films and have your own at home cinema experience such as, TV’s are now available in 3D, and can also be linked to the internet this allows people to be able to stream or download the film to their TV and create their own home experience at their leisure. People find this an easier and more convenient way for themselves because today it costs quite a lot to go to the cinema especially if you live in a small town or village away from the cinema which you have to pay for travel costs and then cinema and then the snacks and drinks are expensive and by the time you are all settled in the film you are about £20-£30 down, which is a huge problem for the film industry as it is usually people in their teens that go to the cinema and the teens usually rely on their parents or a small part time job to do their leisurely activities. If the cost was lowered I am pretty sure more people would use the cinema.

Things are becoming more portable today. For example, the generation of smart phones are in where you can use them for a range of things. Such as: texting/calling, checking emails, social networking, accessing the internet, watching films, listening to music. This is a problem to the media industry as this offers various new platforms of convergence. People no longer need to buy, a laptop/computer, TV, mp3/4 player, etc. as they can have all this in one small portable gadget. I use my phone every day for almost everything. I use this as it is convenient to carry around as its small and lightweight, it is portable and doesn’t have to be plugged into anything and the fact it’s flexible and can be used at my own leisure.

Convergence is becoming more and more a threat to the ‘old fashioned’ media industries in today’s infrastructure. The technology is now in place to make sure people can do what they want to do. For example, people can now read magazines and newspapers through the internet which is very convenient and again portable for someone to read at one’s own leisure as opposed to buying the newspaper or magazine. This becomes a threat to the publishing houses in the media industry because the printed copies will become very unpopular and disused, which will therefore send their numbers down which will force them to loose profit and close their magazine/newspaper down. They way they do keep their sales up are by special features which you can only get in the hard copy and by giving away freebies which in today’s modern society everyone is a sucker for. PlayStation’s and Wii consoles are used to stream or download games, TV programmes, films etc. this is a modern example of convergence as people are inventing more and more convenient platforms so that the person doesn’t have to buy many different gadgets and can just buy the one that does everything they want out of it as opposed to having loads of different things to run separately.