Thursday, January 20, 2005
Key Concepts
The majority of your work in this unit will involve gathering research into general NMTs and your chosen case study. However, there are some key concepts that will help to guide your thinking as you go about this research.
- Convergence. This is the term to describe the process of multiple technologies being brought together to form a new product. Games consoles are an excellent example of this as they frequently fuse gaming technology with DVD playing, CD/audio playing and recording, accessing the internet, and camera usage.
- Personalisation. A characteristic of many NMTs is their ability to offer users a personalised experience. For example, Sky+ allows users to personalise their viewing schedule including the ability to pause live TV and automatically record their favourite programmes. iPods and the iTunes store allow music to be more personalised than ever, with users enjoying the ability to buy just the tracks they want from an album and then listen to them anywhere.
- Interactivity. Interactivity is a two-way communication and in the context of NMTs means content that is reactive to the audience's choices. Traditional TV is very un-interactive, whereas interactive TV encourages the audience to be less passive. The truth is even interactive TV isn't very interactive in that the choices are limited and the influence of the audience on content minimal. As a concept, though, it's important: look out for examples of how audiences are encouraged to engage with media rather than simply consuming.
- Linear / Non-linear. Linear experiences are those that move in a straight line from start to finish. Watching a film at the cinema is a very linear experience in that you start watching at the beginning of the film and finish watching when it ends. Interactive TV allows the audience to experience programmes in a number of ways by offering features such as an alternative voiceover, extra video footage or explanatory text. When used, each individual will have a unique experience of the programme depending on when he or she presses the red button. The viewing experience therefore can be described as non-linear.
- Democratisation. The ability to communicate your opinions and ideas, or share your creative output has never been easier thanks to new media technologies. Blogging, the creation of your own TV schedule, on-demand and personalised content are all examples of how some power is now in the hands of ordinary people. The digital divide shouldn't be forgotten, however; not everyone has internet access never mind a blog.
- Digitisation. At its most basic form all digital material, whether it is a picture, plain text or a movie, is made up of a (long) series of 1s and 0s. You don't need to know much about this other than having an awareness that this means the material can be reproduced perfectly by a computer (or computerised system, like a Sky+ box) and transported more effectively, across the internet, for example; the material can arrive in any order because the receiver can reorder it and, because it is digital, it will be reproduced perfectly.
// posted by Gavin Luhrs @ 8:10 am 
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