Media Ownership: Convergence and Expansion

Key Words: 

Digital Technology: Media being reduce to binary code consisting of zeros and ones.
Media Convergence: Different media institutions or sectors that are merged together.
Technology Convergence: Devices bringing media content together.
Multimedia: More than one media.

Convergent: The merger of two or more media.

Common Digital Storage (CDS): Smartphones, Flash Drive (USB), Hard Drive. ECT

Pluralism: The coexisting of different or the same media.

Globalisation: Develop International Influence

Dissemination: The spreading of information and/or media products

RSS Feed (Really Simple Syndication): Is the automatic updated news (or similar) feed. The effect of this is the movement away from searching.

Web 1.0: is the simple search and receive (Google)

Web 2.0: is the user generated content (YouTube)

Web 3.0: is content run on Apps (Google Doc)

Digitisation: conversion of analog information into digital information.

Internet: is the connection of computers or servers to each other. 

WWW. (World Wide Web): the way a website is displayed (HTML or Flash)

Cloud Computing: is programes or storage that is accessed for the internet (Gmail or Drop Box)

Media Convergence

Media Convergence are weakening the market boundaries that separate different media products from one another, due to media organisations repackaging and disseminating them in alternative formats. E.g.  image and text for a printed book and can be digitised into a Ebook. Convergence is also drawing together the broadcasting, computing and IT sectors. The globalisation of different sectors e.g. broadcasting and distributing have began to blur the market boundaries and barriers, have increased the competition amongst the number of perceived distributing outlets or ‘windows’ that are available.

Globalisation and convergence have created additional possibilities and incentives to re-package or to ‘repurpose’ media content into as many different formats as is technically and commercially feasible and to sell that product through as many distribution channels in as many geographic markets, to as many paying consumers as possible. Media takeovers, mergers and other strategic deals and alliances have increase at a fast rate of the last fur year the before.

The three types of expansion

Horizontal

This is the expansion of media sectors with in the same area long the supply chain to another media sector that produces the same product. This is used to bring expertise from other institutions or to cut out competition.

Vertical

This expansion is one media institutions expanding into different media sectors of the supply chain e.g. a Media production company will buyout and marketing company so that it is cheaper and/or so that they have more control over the final out put.

Diagonal or ‘Lateral’

This is expansion, of when media corporations diversify into new business areas. This helps to spread risk for a media corporation as if one media sector is hit with damaging movements the other are safe and the corporations is still viable.