Assignment 1: Digital media convergence Jeremy Farrugia

Assignment 1

Digital Media Convergence

Online Music Video 

By Jeremy Farrugia

Digital Media convergence is defined as  phenomenon involving the interlocking of computing and information technology companies, telecommunications networks, and content providers from the publishing worlds of newspapers, magazines, music, radio, television, films, and entertainment software (Flew, Terry 2012). Digital media convergence has had significant positive and negative impacts on our society, culture and artists, especially in relation to music videos. These impacts are articulated over a broad basis; from what we talk about at the water cooler to how and where we see our advertisements. Music videos are among the hardest hit in the radical changes brought about by media convergence. This issue is important in this contemporary society as the music and music video industry is vulnerable and could be lost due to the rise in pirating. The creative styles and the way in which Music Videos have previously, and are currently being distributed to a contemporary audience has changed dramatically in recent years. Online media distributors such as “Google and YouTube have accelerated and exaggerated these expectations for availability” (Hilderbrand 2007, p.50) as contemporary society is expected to gain an immediate update on current news and information.

Remember when “video killed the radio star?” Well now it should be ‘internet killed the music video star’ as digital media convergence is destroying the TV music video industry. “Audio visual media has happened as long as it technically could”- Dr. Liz Giuffre. With its emergence in August of 1981, MTV was dedicated to broadcasting music videos to accommodate for new popular culture. Ironically the first song played on the hip new channel was The Buggles “Video Killed the Radio Star". In the late 1990’s and 2000’s MTV began to cut down on its  music videos and commenced screening reality TV shows like Pimp my Ride and Jackass in the search for higher ratings. This was met with much controversy as Van Toffler, president of MTV Network's Music stated; “MTV is a network that adapts to the demands of its audience”. He states this despite the fact that MTV is an acronym for Music TV. In order to compensate for this dramatic loss in broadcasting, digital media convergence took the lead and with the appearance of video websites like You Tube and Hulu in early 2005. YouTube in particular took the lead as media convergence saw music videos uploaded and continuously watched, as it was immediately the main exposure for music videos.

Digital Media Convergence has had significant effects on music videos in general, more specifically how these videos are made weather it's professional or armature. It has now become irrelevant as to how a music videos are made as they are all being exposed. This is emphasised when Hilderbrand said “amateur content is discovered along the way” (Hilderbrand 2007, p.50). This exposure has lead to more armature style videos created and shared as they encompass the same ability to clock up views as a budgeted film clip. This trend is spreading so fast that professionals are purposely acting like amateurs to gain more views and exposure from a from a previously unexploited target audience. This is understandable when you compare and contrast large budgeted music videos to amateur music videos. They both are able to clock up millions of views thanks to the increased accessibility created by media and technological convergence. 

Mainstream artists like Justin Bieber, Avicii and LMFAO all use the video sharing website; You Tube to gain exposure as they have profile pages and ever increasing views on each of their music videos. This makes evident the power that convergence has on society as popular music videos and viral music videos all engage with their audiences whether or not they are large budgeted like LMFAO’s "Party Rock Anthem" with 409 million views and counting compared to Ok Go’s “This too shall pass”  with almost 35 million views. Ok Go rather invested in time, design and organisation in this thoroughly entertaining clip instead of the great filming in LMFAO’s video clips but still reached tens of millions of viewers thanks to the exposure created by You Tube.

Digital media convergence can be held responsible for this online phenomenon as online media content is inexpensive, accessible and has high exposure. With the aid of media convergence and the development of technologies as a part of technological convergence such as smart phones; a wider audience can reach this online world. This is confirmed when “forecasts suggest an explosion in demand with more than half a billion customers subscribing to video services on their mobile phones by 2011 (ABI Research, 2006)” (Orgad 2009, p.198).

Audio visual media is distributed for free on You Tube but there are some minor flaws as it is more selective in that you must already know what to look for before you type it into the search bar. Social media sites like Facebook and twitter have helped resolve this problem by gaining publicity and has allowed for the creation of viral videos such as Kony 2012 which reached a staggering 70 million views in 5 days. However it was seen coming as Hilderbrand stated “television computer convergence has been a long expected prospect” (Hilderbrand 2007, p.48).

Conclusively, Digital media convergence has had a profound effect on society, culture and artists. Music video artists in particular are subject to this large amount of change as the mediums in which their videos are distributed has changed from Music TV channels to online video websites. This has had increased exposure of their videos as amateur and large budgeted videos alike have the ability to generate large audiences. The video sharing website You Tube has enabled artists who would not have had the opportunity to display their art can now do it through the free video posting available. With the accumulation of media and technological convergence this new epidemic of online media will only continue to grow as technological developments grow, in turn constantly affecting the music video industry along the way.

References

Appleby, E (2011) MTV: Why did MTV stop playing music videos regularly? Quora. 26th March. Available at: http://www.quora.com/MTV/Why-did-MTV-stop-playing-music-videos-regularly

Dwyer, T. (2010) 'Media Convergence' McGraw Hall, Berkshire, pp1-23


Hilderbrand, L. (2007), 'Film Quarterly, Vol 61, 'Youtube: Where Cultural Memory and Copyright Converge'' pp 48-57


Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. Introduction. pp. 9. New York University Press.


Media convergence 2012. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 28 March, 2012, fromhttp://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1425043/media-convergence


Orgad, Shani (2009) 'Mobile TV : Old and new in the construction of an emergent technology' Convergence, vol 15 no 2 pp 197 - 214 http://con.sagepub.com.simsrad.net.ocs.mq.edu.au/content/15/2/197.full.pdf+html