Convergnece: Internetization and mediatization

There were quite a few key definitions outlined in Nightengale’s reading, “New Media Worlds? Challenges for Convergence” that seemed to help summarize the whole conception of convergence eventuating in our contemporary media world.

I found these key terms really helpful in consolidating what concept of convergence embody in media theories so I thought I will share this! 🙂

Firstly the definitions of Reach and Richness refer to the distribution of media and how accurately, securely and broadly it could be conveyed. This concept may seem very basic but by outlining the importance of media deliverance really helped in understanding what the key values are when we engage in any media and also from media markets or producer’s point of view.

Secondly, the reading briefly identifies deconstruction and deintermediation. Deconstruction simply mean reformulation of traditional business structure and deintermediation could indicate to two events; one is when competitor company challenges another company by entering the market place with lower cost but often with less richness while the other event could be associated with technology, how with introduction of new technology entering the market place could provide both ‘reach and richness’.

When we observe these terms we can clearly see that this is exactly what is happening in our current media age where older traditional mediums such as ‘public broadcasting’ and ‘mass media’ namely Newspapers and Television are faced with new technological shift; digitization and internet. The internet is now a immensely celebrated form of media and the digital quality and experience that is embodied with this new(?) technology approach the audience in different means of scale, time and space.

In this sense, I really liked how Fortunati(2005) described this convergence phenomenon as a process of ‘internetisation’ and ‘meditization’ as I strongly believe that this is precisely what is taking place in our digital age. Our traditional media forms are digitizing; converging with internet and vice versa, where internet is becoming more and more mediatized. Now it becomes quite common and natural to gain what we used to transact from traditional medias from their digitized versions through the internet. There is also a profound shift in practices from analog and digital and it seems that this shift in technology is also influencing how we implement our daily routines and practices.

Nightengale, Virginia. “New Media Worlds? Challenges for Convergence” Pgs 130-147

Doubling of Space?

 

 ‘Doubling of Space’ basically portrays our common phenomenon of how now we can co-exist in two places at the same time through our engagememt with various media. Shaun Moores extends this notion illustrated by Scannell to examine various mediums people intensely engage in our everyday life. 

 In our current age where everything seems to converge, especially in technological aspect, we see an entropy caused by overload of information/ideas/cultural exchange and every matter in the world that travel and influence us through various media forms. For example, our engagment level with media is no longer simple nor one way as mass broadcasting or mass publications, ie watching public broadcast television and reading daily newspapers. In our current time, media convergence seems neverending. With the rise of the internet and introduction of new media practices ( how we engage with internet is very different to watching TV or reading newspapers) we are given more control in what we could engage or expose ourselves to regardless of time, physical space or activities.  For example, now we can access internet and be connected globally anywhere we go through various mediums, let it be your laptop, you mobile phone, ipod or you personal electronic gadget. Then again, you maybe talking/communicating  to someone online, ‘cherry picking’ on your online TV, downloading files and also have multiple windows open which are ready to immerse you into different landscapes and information. There’s no longer ‘doubling of space’ but ‘multiplying of space’.

 The terminology of ‘Space’ used here is also very interesting. With emergence of media studies and our everchanging practices/engagments with  media, the terminology ‘space’ now embodies more abstract value. Our constant shift into different media forms such as films, TV shows, news, websites, podcasts and etc  does not exist in the same physical space as we are when we are engaging with them but transport us or trenscend us subconciously into another space that exsists virtually or in different geographical landscape. In this sense, we probably can say that media spaces exist in many dimensions and us as a media user, we engage/ tune in/tune out into various spaces simultaneously acknowledging both our physical space as well as our spaces we choose to immerse into through media.

 Also while we are contantly transported into different media scapes, I think it’s important to note that our physical space hold us in place in our physical world of identity. It is the space where we actively construct our identity and self being as we engage in different media and stimulus of the world. I guess in a sense we could also say that it is our ‘root’ where we extend to make sense of the world and engage with the world.

 

Moores, Shaun. “The Doubling of Place: Electronic Media, Time-Space Arrangements and Social Relationships”. In Couldry, N. and McCarthy, A, Eds. MediaSpace: Place, Scale and Culture in a Media Age. Routledge, London, 2004, 21-37.

Mobile Phones and Japanese Youth

Ito, Mizuko.”Mobile Phones, Japanese Youth, and the Replacement of Social Contact.” In Ling, Rich and Pederson, Per, Eds. Mobile Communications: Renegotiation of the Social Sphere. London: Springer 0 Verlag, 2005, 131-148.

As Mizuko Ito describes mobile technology as time-space compression which enable us to be connected in most places and situations, our discursive use of mobile phones provides us with a virtual space where our privacy is acknowledged. Reading this research paper assembled by Ito, it was fascinating to see how mobile technology introduced to youth does not only provide an alternative method of communication but how it has empowered their inferior social status by providing them a private space for social youth engagement in their otherwise heavily monitored lifestyle by their parents and adulthood.

In this engagement of youth communication there’s a sense of release, escape and freedom where what was considered inappropriate or restricted by adults now could be discretely conducted among youth where the previous control of their parents and teachers are somewhat disintegrated.

However, with the rise with this new cultural form of engagement among youth, it seems to reiterate or reform the whole youth culture in the means of their vernacular, practices and social engagement. For example, Ito explains how the feature of mobile emailing has enabled youth to communicate freely in public spaces without intervening other people’s private spaces. While making a voice call seems to be a faster and easier option to contact others, mobile emailing provides different values to Japanese youth. For example, from mobile emailing, they are able to express their status through emoticons and abbreviated phrases celebrated in this mobile emailing culture. This special form of expression made up by youth in a sense seems to intensify and celebrate their ‘youth’ identity which also seems to associate with the concept of ‘cool’ within their collective group.

Overall, by examining how mobile communications are used in different spaces, Mizuko Ito is able to delineate how the concept of being constantly connected with others through mobile phones in youth culture intensifies their experiences of being ‘youth’ or being part of that identity.

Dailiness

Time, Space and Media Immersion

After reading about Scannell’s proposal of ‘doubling of space’ it made me wonder what is now could be defined as ‘being-in-the-world’. As we are now living in a generation where we are constantly immersed in various media, can we really assert that we only exist in a space where we physically belong? Even though our consciousness could have shifted to somewhere else by our immersion in media?

This really interested me.

Before the rise of ‘users’ of the internet, development in technologies and convergence of different media forms which now provides us with more choice, critical mass were exposed to ‘mass media’, namely the national broadcast on Television, Radio and Newspapers. The public’s daily engagement with the mass media could be seen as a ‘national ritual’ and maybe also as a ‘national clock’ or ‘time structure’ as they proliferated into their everyday daily routines.

For example, we can use Couldry’s analogy of ‘media rituals’ here- when we think about it, reading daily newspapers or watching the news or a popular TV show on a certain time, we are engaging in these practices with our individual will but at the same time we are aware that such practices are also being conducted by the mass. Through their engagement with the mass media, they made sense of the world, sorting through information, ideas and concepts projected before them. Most importantly, mass broadcasting provided point of engagement and socializing among society; in another word, it created a sense of ‘national identity’, ‘community’ which brought people together.

Scannell also talks about how the Television programs are structured also affected how the mass organized their time. So for example conforming our time to watch 7o’clock news and reorganizing dinner times for their favourite TV shows, we could see how media became a dominant part of people’s everyday routines and how their care structure revolved around public broadcast.

However, with the rise of the internet and new technologies, we now have more control in what we expose ourselves to. Such new media forms as podcast, internet television and online news, we can now choose to watch and listen to different productions/programs in our own choice of time, space and state. Such as TV series that we usually only could watch at certain times on certain days of the week is now available online and one can watch the whole series in few days if they choose to. Also we can now record and download certain radio segments or TV shows to ‘catch up’ later. This on one hand gives us the power to control what we could not before with the mass broadcasting. We now have a choice in what we choose to watch when and where. However, on the other hand, I feel this annihilates some of the values we had with the traditional media. Firstly, it’s our sense of ‘community’ or ‘national ritual’ we had when we knew that everyone else was watching 7o’clock news when I was watching. The practice of socially engaging with others about the same soap we watch at the same time and also while waiting for the next episode. The sense of ‘immediacy’ we had when we were all watching ‘Live’ television and ‘Live’ radio.

I wonder would it really be the same listening to a downladed radio segment that has been broadcasted live few hours ago?

From Scannell, P. ‘Radio, Television and Modern Life’ Blackwell, 144-178