Technology and storytelling seamlessly go hand in hand. Technological advancements contribute to an improvement in news reporting, a specific form of storytelling. A perfect example is Yahoo News employing former Today and CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric to provide news commentary for the search engine. ABC News and Yahoo already had a binding agreement where ABC News would provide news content exclusively to Yahoo users in the form of videos, commentary and breaking news stories. Due to the continued emergence of convergence, it is not considered arbitrary for a journalist of Couric's ilk to seek employment with Yahoo to provide commentary. If you look at search engine websites as a whole, they are pushing the envelope in regards to convergence. Yahoo has incorporated numerous media platforms as a brand extension to Yahoo with Yahoo Sports, Yahoo News and Yahoo Answers. Microsoft's Bing has adopted a similar game plan as evidenced by their partnership with Droga5, a marketing company to promote Jay-Z's Decoded book in innovative ways across many media platforms such as Twitter and then some.
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| Hiphop24-7.com: Jay-Z |
In order to become less inundated with convergence, one has to gain more comfort. You obtain that comfort through previous knowledge. Fortunately, throughout the semester, we have been warned about what kind of role convergence can have in society through Guy Debord in Society of the Spectacle, Clay Shirky in his presentation for TED on citizen journalism and Jane McGonigal on video games' benefit to society. Debord mentioned in Society of the Spectacle, "All that once was directly lived has become mere representation"(Debord Thesis 1). In other words, that mere representation has been derived from the emergence of mass media. Media in the modern society represents people in ways that were not the case previously. Your LinkedIn and Twitter account are a direct representation of who you are. If you challenge that theory, look no further to the point that employers monitor your social media platforms to determine if you represent their corporate and organizational ideals.
Clay Shirky mentioned that citizen journalism will continue and that has become obvious to see when you consider that only a Twitter activated account, another extension of mass media courtesy of convergence, is all that is needed for anyone to report on a news story whether its erroneous or carries a shred of creditability. In this aspect, one should expect citizen journalism to remain viable as long as there are platforms available providing it an opportunity to remain existent. This results in erroneous information due to that reporting coming from a citizen journalist.
McGonigal has made the argument that video gaming is beneficial for society in her TED presentation 'Gaming Can Make a Better World.' If you consider the next generation video game consoles that have been developed in Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's Playstation 4, both companies are trying to bill their systems as multimedia platforms rather than just a video game console. These systems feature the ability to stream movie content through Netfilx, connect to social media platforms such as Twitter instantaneously as well as play video games. Multiple media available on one device which is another derived component of convergence. You could say that in this sense, McGonigal is right. Video games may be beneficial to society. But the platforms on which these video games are available such as the Xbox One and PS4 allow society to make live more convenient by featuring mass media capabilities via a single home device. It's a best of both worlds that can cater to any audience whether its the younger generation who yearn for the system for its gaming prowess or the adults that buy the system can use it to Skype or stream movies. This is a model that was proven successfully with previous gaming consoles and it would not be possible without convergence or mass media.
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| Irish Examiner: A Happy and Relived Customer |
The future of media will continue to evolve, whether that's for the better is subject to interpretation. If your old school, you probably hate that media has become more prone to making mistakes via outlets such as citizen journalism despite the newfound convenience it presents. If your more accepting to evolve with what media has now become, you are more likely comfortable with media's future direction. It's quite difficult to predict where media is heading but one thing is certain, through convergence, mass media and transmedia, media as whole will be pushed through these subdivisions into something more powerful, more efficient and on a grander scale than what is present today. I tend to think that society and media will continue to work in an integrated community similar to what was talked about in the case study 'I Love Bees.'
Resources:
Debord, Guy: Society of the Spectacle, Thesis 1
McGonigal, Jane: Gaming Can Make A Better World, TED
Shirky, Clay: Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations (2008)
Droga5
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