Monday, April 2, 2018

Core Post 4 – Week 12 – The Extent of Convergence

All the readings for this week delved directly with relation of television and the advent of convergence in the present age. However, for me, Jenkins’ short paper provided a lot of insight into an already tumultuous media landscape. To summarize his argument, he goes into detail about how media convergence theory goes beyond the technical to the cultural i.e. cultural ideologies within society have a strong influence on the manner in which media, audience, and technology converge, thus creating a very altered sphere of television theory. According to him, convergence doesn’t just happen because of advancements but that is a two-fold and two-way phenomenon, where it is influenced by the innovations of today, audience opinions but also influences their outcomes in return. This most dominant when he talks about how ‘convergence is also a risk for creative industries, because it requires media companies to rethink old assumptions about what it means to consume media – assumptions that shape both programing and marketing decisions’ (pp. 37). 

This is something I have observed in the rapid evolution of Indian television content and production over the past 15 years. Till about the 90s, television in India was still in its infancy, with very few channels and almost all of them routed through the government. But as the percentage of the middle class burgeoned, the demand for more content also increased, which in turn led to the launch of satellite televisionand countless channels and programs that exist today. In addition, in the past 5-6 years, many of the main television channels that air fictional content such as Star TV, Colors, Sony Entertainment Television etc. have also had to turn digital in lieu of large number of streaming applications entering the market. Further, echoing what Jenkins discusses throughout his article, Sony Entertainment Television (India) is launching a new reality show that is tying their Sony LIV app along with the show, where the theme is to test an audience’s power of observation about India and its people by getting them to audition, answer questions, and interact with the show’s anchor/producers only through the app. According to news, ‘to up the engagement quotient, the app will also bring alive the charismatic show host, Salman Khan (a popular Bollywood star), via special fun video messages and give users an opportunity to record and share a ‘velfie’ (Video Selfie) with him.’

Since the show is to be released later this year, we will have to wait to see the success of this experiment and what it means for the television landscape of India. But it is clear that they are working on some of the changes Jenkins listed out – revising audience measurement, redesigning the digital economy, rethinking media aesthetics, renegotiating relationships between producers and consumers, and re-engaging citizens. However, there are still other factors that seem unclear on how they will feature in this experiement, even in other markets, namely regulation and ownership, as both aspects have been highly debated topics that have gone constant scrutinty and changes to fit the dynamic social environments.

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