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.