Soooooooo....Group 3 Is Pretty Amazing!

On Monday, my group presented on Henry Jenkin’s “Introduction: Worship at the
Altar of Convergence”. This has been one of my favorite readings during the course because it is so different from the rest of the material we have covered. The other readings have heavily dealt with copyrights and free software. This reading introduced me to the idea of media convergence.

Jenkins defines media convergence as the flow of the same content across different means/mediums of media. At the end of our presentation, it was asked whether or not the class thought media convergence was more threatening for consumers or companies. Now I would like to take the time to express my personal opinion on this question.

Media convergence is more threatening for companies. With media convergence comes a lot of competition for companies to stay up to date. While it is true that some companies must cooperate with each other so that media convergence can occur, several companies are also competing against each other. Even though a lot of consumers own devices that do the same thing, a lot of these devices come from different companies. It is hard for a lot of companies to thrive if they don’t participate in media convergence. Most people agree that they like the effects of media convergence. For example, I don’t want a simple cell phone and most people like that their cell phones aren’t simple either. Life for me has become so much easier with the help of media convergence. If a company decides not to ride the media convergence wave, then they are in danger of falling behind and losing a lot of consumers. Also, in the race for companies to collaborate with one another and produce products quickly for their consumers, companies are at the risk of being left behind once monopolies form. Even though monopolies are bad for consumers because they cause consumers not to have options and prices can get very expensive, they are also bad for companies because several companies can simply vanish because they couldn’t keep up. This in itself has many negative consequences.

Let’s take a look at all the way media convergence helps the consumer. Media convergence allows consumers to have a wide range of convenience available to them. Instead of buying multiple devices, media convergence allows consumers to have a few devices that do everything they need. Most consumers prefer having a few devices that contain multiple devices. This way, they don’t have to spend an extreme amount of money to buy things separately and it is easier to keep up with their devices.

As a consumer, I enjoy being an active participant in media convergence. I love the fact that I can get the same information from different sources. I also like the fact that even though I don’t get the highest quality devices, I get all the devices I need at a relatively fair price.

Copyfight - Who's Copyright Is It?

In "Technology and Below-the-Line Labor in the Copyfight over Intellectual Property", by Andrew Ross, there is a debate on who should own a copyright. Ross discusses whether or not the companies or the workers should own the rights to intellectual properties.

Although I can see how the argument for either side can be made, I make an argument for the companies. In reality, copyrights are a very complicated thing. I think that a regular person is more concerned with the profit made from a copyright instead of the actual copyright. It seems to me that dealing with all the responsibility that comes with a copyright might be too much for a person.

When companies get copyrights in their name, they become responsible for that intellectual property. It makes sense that a large group of people will know what to do with whatever intellectual property is being copyrighted over one person. More ideas can go into refining the intellectual property and more experience will be valuable to protecting the copyright and knowing how to handle it properly. Although workers should have some say in what they create, their work is probably safer in the company’s hands. The worker’s ideas have a chance to be advertised properly. Without the company, it is possible that the worker’s ideas would never even reach the public. Even though it seems unfair, this is simply how things work. A lot of times, workers should be grateful that companies even have enough faith in their work to expose it to the public and put their name behind it. A good name and support system behind an idea is sometimes all it takes to make an idea successful.

One day I might be in a position where a company is trying to own the rights to an idea that I came up with. As a future computer engineer, I am looking forward to working for a highly successful and established company. In doing so, I realize that if I happen to produce some helpful and important intellectual property and present it to the company, I will not be the one that gets the fame for it. The company’s name will go behind the idea. I am perfectly fine with this because this is my job and this is what I am being paid to do. As long as I get my money at the end of the day and get the satisfaction of doing my job extremely well, then I will be fine. I’m not becoming a computer engineer to get famous for my ideas. I’m becoming a computer engineer because this is something I want to genuinely do with my life. I can only assume that many other workers feel the same way.