Last minute slides thrown together for a MAC301 session I was standing in for.

1. MAC301
robert.jewitt@sunderland.ac.uk
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2.  From analogue to digital
 Convergence
 The smartphone wars
 Discussion point
 One bad Apple?
 Crisis in communications
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3.  Dominance of the smartphone
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4.  Dominance of the smartphone
 Uptake in tablet devices
 New multimedia gaming devices
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5. 5

6. 6

7.  ‘The global media system is better
understood as one that advances corporate
and commercial interests and values and
denigrates or ignores that which cannot be
incorporated into its mission’
 (McChesney, 2003: 266). 7

8. Vertical integration
Production
Distribution Horizontal integration
Publishing Radio Television Press
Consumption
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9. 9

10. 10

11.  Increased tendency in recent years to encode
visuals, sound and print in binary digital terms
 All of our media platforms are pushing
towards digital platforms
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12. 12

13. 13

14.  Google’s market cap (October 2009): $174.3 billion
 Google’s market cap (November 2010): $197.6 billion
 Google’s market cap (March 2012): $196.7 billion
 Source: Yahoo Finance
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15.  Convenient for content owners to
manipulate/edit digital data
 Push comes from consolidation in large
media entities
 Digital distribution is a lot cheaper than
physical distribution
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16. 16

17. 1. Consolidation of industry
 Eg Sony = music, movies, games, hardware,
software, etc
1. Diffusion across platforms
 Eg Lost = TV show, DVD sales, video game,
mobile phone series, fan sites, merchandise, etc
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18. 18

19.  ‘A word that describes technological, industrial,
cultural, and social changes in the way media
circulates within our culture. Some common
ideas referred by the term include the flow of
content across multiple media platforms, the
cooperation between multiple media industries,
the search for new structures of media financing
that fall at the interstices between old and new
media, and migratory behaviour of media
audiences who would go almost anywhere in
search of the kind of entertainment experiences
they want’
 Jenkins, 2006: 282
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20.  ‘Once upon a time .. companies that
published newspapers, magazines, and books
did very little else; their involvement with
other media was slight’
 Ithiel de Sola Pool, 1983: 23
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21.  ‘convergence does not mean stability or
unity. It operates as a constant force for
unification but always in dynamic tension
with change…. There is no immutable law of
growing convergence; the process of change
is more complicated than that’
 Ithiel de Sola Pool, 1983: 53-4
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22.  Source: Reuters
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23. 23

24. 24

25. 25

26.  Digital compression allows for more efficient
use of bandwidth
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27. 27
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28. 28

29. The ‘Jesus phone’?
- Campbell & La Pastina, 2010
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30.  Touted as ‘revolutionary’ convergence device
 Steve Jobs, Mac World expo, 2007
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31.  http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=8sPVfFXC6AY
 Complaint to ASA (August 2008)
 http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/adjudications/Public/TF_AD
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32.  http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OknElEusVhM
 Complaint to ASA (November 2008)
 http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/adjudications/Public/T
F_ADJ_45381.htm November 2008-12-08
 Trust in corporations?
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33.  Days after June 2010 iPhone
4 launch Gizmodo publishes
blog post about faulty signal
 Flooded with complaints
 How should you deal with
such a PR disaster?
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34. 1. Apologize and take full
responsibility?
2. Announce a huge media event and
prime expectations?
3. Begrudgingly offer a give-away
late in the day?
4. Attack your competitors?
5. Expose the entire industries
failings?
6. Call the issue AntennaGate?
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35.  Environmental concerns
 Supply chain problems
 Foxconn suicides
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36.  http://uk.youtube.com/watch?
v=TrT1gzQHsI4
 Access to 2 million+ tunes from Sony,
Warner, Universal
 Annual cost approx £300
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37.  http://uk.youtube.com/watch?
v=TrT1gzQHsI4
 Access to 2 million+ tunes from Sony,
Warner, Universal
 Annual cost approx £300
 Binned in January 2011
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38.  Increasing competition from Apple and Android
 Business focused on non-smartphones
 BBC clip
2007: revenue of €51bn
2007: profit of €7bn
2008: revenue of €50.7bn
2008: profit of 3.7bn
2009: revenue of €40.9bn
2009: profit of €260m
2010: Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo replaced by
Microsoft’s Stephen Elop
2010: Symbian OS to be replaced by
Microsoft’s Windows Mobile
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39. 39

40.  October 2011 – huge network
outage
 Faulty router to blame
 Lack of email service for
corporate users
 Unsure about the backup solution
which threatened to do more
damage
 How to deal with this?
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41.  Mike Lazardis video apology
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42.  Dec 2011: Blackberry Playbooks written down by $485
million
 Jan 2012: Mike Lazardis & Jim Balsillie resign
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