Media Convergence
The concept of media convergence is often considered to be a
greatly progressive step into the future of media production. Certainly, it has
drastically reduced the costs of media production through the act of converging
– thus eliminating the need for producers to be confined to a single, specific
field. However, it has also had a negative impact on many areas of the media,
negating various aspects of production and eclipsing certain forms of analogue
media in favour of its digital counterpart. Newspapers, for instance, are
becoming much less popular than their multimedia, online equivalents, leading
to a loss of appreciation for journalism in print. By forming a society
embedded in convergent digital media, where the content is shaped as much by
the consumer as the producer, we have been led to want more – not only from our
technology, but from our lives.
Media convergence has instigated social and cultural change,
creating societies semi-reliant on these convergent technologies to live their
lives. In some ways, this shift in the cultural norm has had a damaging effect,
not only on analogue media, but also on the cultural paradigm. A simple
telephone, for example, in becoming a culmination of various media formats, is
no longer simply a communications device. While these multi-purpose devices
have contributed to creating a more global society, simple human relations have
suffered. It is far more likely, in modern society, that communication will be
through the form of typed words, as opposed to being instigated over the phone
or in person. We can now access material from across the globe no matter where
we are, and hold the world at our fingertips – but with our options constantly shifting and expanding,
it is easy to become caught up in technological advance and allow the physical
world to become somewhat secondary.
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