Bachelor of Journalism & Mass communication, Development of Contemporary Media,Path Towards Convergence

1. Path towards convergence
The symbiosis and Convergence ofMedia- one media does not
make the other obsolete. Modern media making use of all
effectively
Objective
This lesson is aimed at making the students appreciate the
interesting convergence of various media
THE NEW MEDIA LANDSCAPE:SYMBIOSIS
AND CONVERGENCE
Mass Media Symbiosis
If we can borrow a term from biology, we can easily see that the
mass media have evolved a system of symbiotic relationships.
In biology, symbiosis is defined as the association of two
organisms for mutual benefit. To draw an analogy, in mass
media, the television and film industries demonstrate what we
might call a form of symbio-sis. The same companies produce
works for both media; films that originally played in the
theaters find their way to television in videocassettes,over cable,
and over net-work and local stations. Film actors and actresses
make TV shows and vice versa; executives from one industry
sometime cross over into the other. The sound record-ing and
radio industries demonstrate another symbiotic relationship.
Most radio sta-tions depend on recordings to fill their air time;
most records need air play to sell. MTV, Channel V demonstrates
a three-way symbiosis: Record companies use it as a
promotional tool; The channel use videos supplied by the
record companies as their programming source; and radio
stations use MTV as a sounding board for new releases. Similar
relationships exist between newspapers and magazines. Most
Sunday editions carry a magazine insert; the same writers
contribute to both media and both employ the same audience
measurement and marketing techniques. Some intermediate
relation-ships have crossed traditional boundaries. Best-selling
books are made into theatrical and TV movies, while movie
scripts are transformed into books. There are TV shows that
review films.
Mufasa,Simba, and Zazu probably don’t realize that they are
part of media symbiosis. The Lion King spawned a hit album,
books, a video game, and a whole line of toys.
LESSON 8
PATH TOWARDS CONVERGENCE
The 1993 movie The Bodyguard, spawned an album that sold 5.5
million copies, a video, and a virtual reality game. Although the
following chapters discuss the various media individually, it
should be kept in mind that they do not exist in a vacuum. In
the future, we are likely to see more examples of the synergy
that exists among ,all communication media. Advertising, since
its beginning has always been supported by other media ike
Newspaper and television.
Convergence
It used to be a lot easier. People made their telephone calls on
the telephone, watched TV on their television sets, listened to
music on their stereos,made toast on their toasters, got their
mail in their mailbox, typed on their typewriters, and
computered on their computer. It was an age of appliance

2. specialization: Each device was pretty good at doing one thing
but one thing only. Now things have changed.
The elecommunication, cable TV, and computer industries are
slowly but surely merging into one business, and our communication
appliances will never be the same. (Even the toaster
might be affected. One company in the US is thinking about
integrating a minicomputer that can recognize voice commands
with the toaster: “Toast a Pop Tart. But not too dark.”
The technical name for this trend is convergence. Convergence is
the blending together of diverse technologies, services,and
products from a range of industries including telecommunications,
entertainment, cable TV, broadcasting, publishing, and
electronics. This convergence is occurring in three different areas:
(1) distribution, (2) content, and (3) hardware.
At the distribution level, the boundaries between the telephone
and cable TV industries are blurring as these companies redefine
their businesses and establish strategic alliances to create new
opportunities. Although a mega deal between cable giant TCI
and Bell Atlantic fell through in 1994, other developments were
noteworthy. Regional phone company U.S. West purchased 25
percent of Time Warner Entertainment, a company that
operates cable systems in thirty-six states. Southwestern Bell
bought two cable systems in suburban Washington, D.C. After
its merger with TCI failed, Bell Atlantic won FCC approval for a
video dial tone service in New Jersey. The phone company
planned to offer 384 channels by1996. In addition to the regular
line-up of broadcast and cable networks, Bell Atlantic planned
to offer home shopping, video games, video on demand (a
system in which a subscriber can order a movie or a TV show to
be played at any time), and direct response advertising. As of
late 1994 more than twenty other phone companies had made
an application for a video dial tone service. They were” also
helped by a court decision that declared unconstitutional a ban
on phone companies offering video programming in their own
service areas. The long distance phone company Sprint even got
into the act in late 1994 when it announced plans to work with
50
DEVELOPMENT OF CONTEMPORARYMEDIA
three cable companies to develop a nationwide telecommunications
system.
For their part, severalcable companies announced plans to offer
local phone service over cable in direct competition with the
local phone company. Time Warner, for example, received
permission to provide local telephone service in New York and
has made application to offer service to about 700,000 cable
subscribers in Ohio. Cable companies are also offering access to
information services that have traditionally been available only
via phone lines and modems hooked to PCs. Cox Cable in San
Diego recently gave its subscribers a chance to receive the Prodigy
information service over cable. Information sent over cable
travels about fifty times faster than through phone lines.
Residents in Cambridge, Massachusetts,can access the Internet
computer network (see Chapter 14) with a cable converter. A
California company is marketing a device that allows consumers
to download audio content via cable TV onto a compact disc.
Cable giant TCI recently linked up with software giant Microsoft

3. to develop software that would enable cable subscribers to
receive video on demand. Computer chip manufacturer Intel
and CNN are working on a deal that would broadcast CNN on
computer screens in offices. Mega-game-company Nintendo is
working with a California computer company to develop a
game machine that will also enable TV sets to receive 500
channels and permit owners to do interactive TV tasks such as
home shopping and banking.
Obviously, the barriers between traditional industries are
crumbling. These new electronic pathways into the home can
change the way individuals use, pay for and interact with
entertainment and information services on a grand scale.
Chairman of Apple Computers, John Scully, has gone so far as
to label this convergence an “isoquantic” shift, akin to the
invention of the telephone or the steam engine.
Convergence is also reshaping the companies that bring
consumers information and entertainment. In years past,
magazines and newspapers published their messages on paper,
film producers made movies, TV production companies turned
out programs for the small screen,and telephone companies
didn’t produce any content at all. These days it’s a bit more
complicated.
Many newspapers provide an online edition to computerized
information services. Prodigy,for example, carries electronic
versions of eight newspapers,including the Atlanta Journal-
Constitution and Newsday. In India major newspaper run their
online e-publishing. Many magazines also have electronic
counterparts. America Online carries more than twenty including
Time, Wired,and Scientific American. Sports Illustrated
published its swimsuit calendar on CD-ROM. MarvelComics
distributed the first edition of its new Generation X comic
book on several computer online services. Book publisher
Simon & Schuster has entered into a venture with America
Online to produce College Online, a service that will provide
reference works and interactive discussions between students
and professors.
The same convergence is evident in the electronic media. In late
1994, the Walt Disney Company announced a joint venture
with three regional phone companies in which the companies
would work together to produce television programming that
the phone companies would eventually distribute to their
customers over phone lines. A few days later, Creative Artists
Agency, which handles about 900 actors,producers, and
directors including Steven Spielberg, announced it was joining
in a similar venture with three other phone companies. Slowly
but surely it appears that the phone companies are easing into
the entertainment business.
Ted Turner’s Cable News Network will soon be available via
computer. All of the four major broadcast television networks
have their own content areas on computerized information
services. For example, CBS provides Prodigy users with
promotional announcements of upcoming shows and a chance
to make comments about their favorite CBS programs. NBC
and ABC have similar set-ups with America Online. ABC has
also gotten into the software business. In 1994 the network
signed a deal with a software company to produce interactive

4. games that would permit viewers to play along with ABC’s
sports and game programs. Independent movie production
companies are now producing “quick time” movies for
computer games, such as “Wing Commander III.” These
examples suggest that it may be no longer accurate to label
companies as in the newspaper,magazine, movie, or TV
business. Perhaps a more accurate blanket term would be media
“content providers.”
The third convergence,the one involving hardware,may take
the longest to come about. Nonetheless, the signs are already
clear: Technological advances are bringing together the home
computer and the home TV For a while, at least, the two
devices may be separate with a set-top converter providing the
computing part of the home TV Eventually, however, the two
machines will converge. Researchers have even come up with a
possible new name for this hybrid device, “Compu- TV” In
addition to running regular programs, this device can be
programmed to scan 500 or so TV channels to select information
of interest to you. If, for example, your hobby is
archaeology, you could program the set to videotape all
programs that have the word “archaeology” in their program
descriptions. In addition, the Compu- TV can handle such
interactive tasks as home shopping, answering the phone,
sending and receiving faxes, e-mail, navigating information
services and the Internet (see Chapter 14), ordering movies,
electronic polling, and responding to offers made in ads. And if
that’s not enough, the Compu- TV also serves as a
videophone. Although it can’t yet do all the things described
above, Compaq’s Presario 500 series is an early example of such
a machine. In addition to doing the standard computer things,
it can metamorphasize into other appliances. Click the mouse
button on one menu option and the computer becomes a
speakerphone, another click and its an answering machine,
another click and its a CD player, click again and its a personal
message center,click one more time and its a TV set. IBM plans
to have a similar model that will also recognize voice commands:
“Computer. . . energize. Send fax to Scotty.”
References-
1. Davis, Anthony; Magazine Journalism Today; (1988); Heinemann
2. Baird, Click; Magazine and Production; 4th edition
3. Mogel; The Magazine
4. Anderson, Douglas;
Contemporary Sports Reporting; (1985); Nelson-Hall
5. Melkote, Srinivas; Communication for development in the third world; (1991); Sage
6. Ed. Glasser, Theodore; The idea of Public, Journalism;(1999); Guilford Press