Response to the Dwyer, T. ( 2010) Media Convergence, McGraw Hill, Berkshire, pp 1-23

Media Convergence is viewed by Dwyer through a number of lenses. One is his discussion  of the ability of government and industry to manipulate the networks and what effect this could have on democracy. Whilst Dwyer recognises that industry, academics and policy makers are concerned with different issues to the audience he places too much emphasis on the threat these former groups pose to democracy. It is understandable that with converging mediums of media on many platforms the same news story is able to be distributed to more people. It is also true that industries are consolidating and this means there is less variation in the providers of media. However, he somewhat overlooks the power of communication technology, such as blogs, in creating new areas for expression. He does refer to media being held accountable by democracy but doesn’t go into much detail. It has never been easier or cheaper to spread your own opinion. Unquestioningly, there are many individuals acting as outlets for media in the community of the World Wide Web which go almost unnoticed, expect for acting as a statistic. A few mange to break through though, and communicate with a significant portion of the public. These freelance media providers are at the core of maintaining standards in the media. Access to this non-industry based media means audiences aren’t restricted in their judgement of industry media. With the ability to evaluate content audiences become the most powerful in their relationship with the industry. Their demands are at the heart of media evolution. A new media technology which doesn’t meet their needs, of interaction and a high performance standard, is simply rejected, as today there is more choice than ever before. The only real risk exists if a monopoly is created in the media industry.

Another lens is the cultural effects of this increasing interaction of media over a number technological devices. In terms of this cultural change, he speaks of how media convergence isn’t as prominent at a regional or transnational level. Instead there can be said to actually be divergence a contradiction. Internet industries are more confident in their distribution of media as convergence has given them a new found glory. Prior to 2000 consumers were losing faith in the reliability of the internet. Today it is at the heart of all communication and thus all media. People depend on the internet for business, for family communication, for the maintenance of friendships, for education and personal recreation. Social media is a major form of cultural media (eg. Facebook and Twitter) as it creates an individualised community which can be controlled by the user. For this reason device mania is a dominate trend in teen culture today. As Dwyer articulates it offers the ability to connect on a vast number of platforms, including social media, and access varied forms of media almost instantaneously. These ease of this communication creates high expectations in the new generation, generation Y or generation X. Media industries have the ability to control how the future generations are culturally shaped but to hold the power to shape those searching for their identity within the globalized community they must engage their users. Ultimately, this means that whilst they hold unlimited cultural power they must first be able to employ this power effectively and across a number of communication platforms. This is a discussion of just a few of the cultural changes which have been derived by the phenomena that is media convergence.