Media convergence refers to the flow of content across multiple media platforms and the integration of multiple media industries. It has led to new technologies that expand media accessibility and interactivity, while media ownership has concentrated into few large companies. Convergence is an ongoing process that varies in pace depending on a country's development. It affects community ties and national identities, challenges older systems of distribution and ownership, and shifts consumers from passive to active participants through new media like Twitter. Important negotiations now occur between producers and consumers in areas like audience measurement, content regulation, intellectual property, and the relationship between popular culture and citizenship.

1. Media Convergence
Ali Burke & Ben Joly

2. Definition
• Intersection of Old and New Media
• ‘The flow of content across multiple media
platforms, the co-operation of between
multiple media industries, and the migratory
behaviour of media audiences.’ – Jenkins
• Shift in form of media.

3. Two Recent Trends in Media
• New technology has expanded the range of
media and it’s levels of accessibility and
interaction.
• Ownership of all forms of media has
concentrated into the hands of very few. Eg.
Rupert Murdock and News International

4. ‘Convergence a process, not an
endpoint.’
• Convergence is an unfinished process
• Rate of convergence not steady over time
• Rate of convergence uneven over the planet.
Different rates of convergence depending on
how developed the country is. Eg. USA fastest
rate of convergence compared with slow rate
in less developed African countries.

5. Effects of Media Convergence
• Our ties to older forms of social community
are breaking down physical geography is less
important are there are new forms of
community emerging.
• Alliances with nation states re-defined.
• Old systems of distribution and ownership
challenged.

6. • ‘Convergence is both a top down corporate-
driven process and a bottom up and consumer
driven process.’
• Expansion by the media companies but my
participation by the users through new medias.
• ‘Fighting for the right to participate more fully in
their culture…and talk back to the mass market
content.’
• Shift from passive consumers to active ones
through new media forms. Eg. Twitter

7. Effects of the consumer
• More active and influential
• More socially connected and less isolated
• More migratory and less loyal to forms of
media because of greater choice.
• More resistant and less compliant.
• ‘Active and critical consumer…creating new
opportunities for academic intervention.’

8. 9 Sites where important negotiations
occur between producers and
consumers.
• Revising audience measurement- Shifts in cultural
power, some groups gaining influence and others being
marginalising.
• Regulating media content- Push away from consensus
style media. Consumers play greater role in
determining regulation due to more media interaction.
• Re-designing digital economy- New economy emerged
online due to commercialisation of the internet.

9. • Restricting media ownership – Restrictions lifted
therefore some fear more media consolidation by
large media companies, which, however, can lead
to more public awareness and dissatisfaction.
• Rethinking media aesthetics- Comsumers can
create an unprecedented degree of complexity
and generate a depth of engagment. Eg. Films
such as The Matrix with large online fanbase.

10. • Redefining intellectual property rights – New
media complicates traditional intellectual
property rights. Eg. Warner Bros asserting rights
over Harry Potter franchise to shut down fan
websites.
• Negotiating relations between producers and
consumers – Gaming companies promoting
online fan communities to game feedback and
create awareness in contrast to recording
industry.

11. • Remapping globalisation – New media expands
ideas globally not just from the west but also
from the asia. Eg. Nintendo as a Japanese based
gaming company with huge recognition in
America.
• Re-engaging citizens – Popular culture becomes
the venue through which key social and political
issues get debated. ‘Culture where the lines
between consumption and citizenship and
blurring.’ eg. Online protests against Abercrombie
& Fitch for un-politically correct t-shirt range.