Digital Lifestyle

Brian Solis is a well-known digital analyst, keynote speaker, and bestselling author.

In Converging Media: A New Introduction to Mass Communication, Third Edition, authors John V. Pavlik and Shawn McIntosh have quoted Joseph Pulitzer: "Our republic and its press will rise and fall together. An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. A cynical mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations" (McIntosh 464).

Transparency and more dialog will be  be crucial in the future of convergence. How media interacts with the public and how the new forms of media -social networks, citizen journalism techniques, and new technological advances -will be modified and used to educate and spread awareness, is the future of convergence. More facebook revolutions, twitter protests, and Instagram creations, will rise but literacy will also grow with the understanding of how these outlets can present a positive change in society.

The Future of Converging MEDIA; Photo credit Baheth Center

Hashem Bajwa a product builder and a brand designer, that goes by the slogan 'Flying Forward', strongly believes that one should not limit oneself -but ironically believes that constraints are positive. "Having good problems and good tools, at the same time paying attention to the execution of media and using what you have and the present day media outlets" is key. The future of convergence is simple which is a real complex thing -it's when storytelling drives the media and the media becomes the story.
Collaborations, new innovations, using basic technology to create something out of the box is the future. He's the perfect example how government experience with the experience of branding can come together for the future of convergence and media collaborations.

Social Media REVOLUTION 

Convergence of media will come down to the basics of what technology can do or assist with, agenda setting and political action are basics. In the chapter, "Photoshop for Democracy" from Convergence Culture, Henry Jenkins says "The new media operate with different principles than the broadcast media that dominated American politics for so long: access, participation, reciprocity, and peer-to-peer rather than one-to-many communication. Given such principles, we should anticipate that digital democracy will be decentralized unevenly dispersed, profoundly contradictory and slow to emerge" (Jenkins). Incorporating examples such as grassroots and base mobilization.  The future of media is moving away from passive technology such as television.

Distributing information will in turn distribute power which is the future of convergence and society as a whole. "For democracy to function there needs to be social contract between participants and a sense their actions have consequence within the community." In turn we need to deliberate together for mutual understanding and worldly collaboration. Tim Berners-Lee the creator of the World Wide Web, has said, "The web is more a social operation than a technical one. I designed it for a social effect -to help people work together -and not as a technical toy" -from Weaving The Web -a paper that outlined what the WWW was.

LINKS

How Twitter will revolutionise academic research and teaching

"The convergence of digital media and technology, under way since the dawn of the Internet, will accelerate. Distinctions between old and new media will fade; most media will be digital. Mobile devices, already the preferred media and Internet platform for many people, will continue to proliferate. We may wear them on our bodies or weave them into our clothing."

BIBLO

Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture, Where Old And New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press, 2008. Print.

McIntosh, Shawn, and John Pavlik. Converging media: A new introduction to mass communication. 3. New York, NY: Oxford University Press Inc, 2011. Print.