The Internet is a global network of networks enabling computers to directly communicate in order to share information and services. A network is a chain of computers linked together. To imagine the Internet is to imagine millions of computers connected. It was conceived by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the U.S. government in 1969 and was first known as the ARPANet.[1]
The Internet is a pervasive entity whose massive virtual machinery translates into "real time" influences and physical effects. Its astronomical growth, along with the digital age that we live in, indicates that the Internet will have a major impact on things to come. In 1999 a USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll found that 74 percent of Americans think that the Internet will alter society more than the telephone and television did.[2]
This paper defines convergence of a medium to mean a process of adaptation, integration and subsequent change. Media Metamorphosis is defined to be a series of convergences among diverse media products, resulting in a product that meets the collective needs of the all of the contributing media. The Internet is the catalyst for, as well as an element within, this process. This new product will be the preferred medium. A product of media metamorphosis.
Current trends suggest that there will be complete convergence of mass media industries with the Internet leading the way. What the end product will be is left up to the creative vision of inventors.
In "Media Literacy", James Potter uses a life cycle metaphor in his discussion of the development of media industries. He uses 5 stages: Innovation, characterized by a technological innovation that makes a channel of transmission possible; Penetration, characterized by the public's growing acceptance of that medium; Peak, reached when the medium commands the most attention from the public and generates the most revenue compared to other media; Decline, characterized by loss of audience acceptance; and Adaptation, when a medium accepts the challenge of redefining its position in the media marketplace[3].
Although today's media industries are diverse, there are common denominators among them. Each industry has an ancestral element that has undergone some form of convergence to reach its current stage of existence. It was through the vision of inventors, in making products better, that new products was created. For example, before there were televisions there was radio and film. Television can be described as a radio with moving images. In essence, the television is a product of the early film and radio industries.
According to Potter's life cycle model[4], radio and film industries reached the adaptation stage close to the same time (1970's), when television was at the center of its peak. I suggest that the adaptation stage is a period of convergence. During the peak of television, film studios began producing film for television while the radio became more portable. The portability element was integrated by radio in an effort to increase its competitiveness as it was made available in cars and as a stand-alone (battery powered).
With the invention of the printing press came the birth of books. Even this form of media, dating as far back as the 1400's, underwent physical changes. The expensive hard covers, available to the affluent and educated of that time, gave way to paperbacks in the late 1800's. This helped to transform books into a mass medium.
As this medium held its own among newer traditional media, it redefined itself in a partial convergence. In 1998, E-books were created and made available to the general public. The e-books are software that are plugged into a device that displays the words on a screen rather than on paper. In essence this is the book industry partially converging with computer technology.
The latest innovation, the computer, ushered in the age of the Internet. Computers quickly became pervasive as evidenced by the penetration stage. They are not only on the desks and our laps, but they are in our cars, appliances and stereos etc. The graph shows that all of the media industries, with the exception of broadcast and cable television, entered their adaptation stages during the innovation period of Computers. This suggests that in some way computers may have influenced some form of convergence and integration in those industries.
The Internet, in its growth alone, is a phenomenon. According to the National Geographic Society, "the number of "Internet hosts or networked computers has grown more that six fold since 1995"[5]. Although "it took television 13 years to acquire 50 million users, the Internet took only five."[6]
The fact that America Online(AOL), a twenty year old Internet service provider company, bought Time Warner a company that's over one hundred years old, is an indicator of how fast the online community has grown and its potential.
As indicators point to new innovations on the horizon, the Internet will in some way integrate existing media and vice versa. The common denominator, then, will be a virtual reality on which hinges reality. Although traditional media will still exist to some degree, the media consumers, virtually by their choices, will render traditional media obsolete.
In 1998 several electrical engineering students from Stanford University debated on whether the web and television will converge. Those arguing for convergence contend that current television shows will merge into a hybrid with WWW style content. Those arguing against say that television shows and world wide web content will remain distinct media forms, using television for viewing television shows and the computer to browse the web[7].
The debate touched on a concept of advanced commercials. Those arguing for convergence contend that broadcasters would be able to send several commercial streams during commercial breaks and the viewer could decide which one to watch. One advantage could be the "smart tv/web/computer" remembering the preferences of the user over time and developing a commercial preference profile.
Although this is an interesting futuristic model, given the pervasive nature of advertising, it is doubtful that users will ever have complete control over the exposure to media messages. As the product changes, so does the advertising methods. In addition to this the privacy of the user may be compromised since the "information highway" goes in both directions. There is potential for interested companies to access the user's personal information.
The argument against convergence described the television as a consumer-level device and that it has to be cheap for the average person. This indicates that the expense of this convergent medium would not be available nor marketable to the masses. However history tells a different story, since most media in their innovation stage were not available to the average person. That has changed over time.
The argument against convergence contends that the web and TV will not merge partly because of the proliferation of handheld devices (such as palm pilots etc.). It indicates that "the presence of such 'lite' devices will drive media development away from integrated content and into 'lite' content that deliver concentrated doses of information". On the contrary, it is primarily hand held devices that are leading the way to media metamorphosis. One has only to take a walk in an electronics store to see a small portable colored television. Cell phones are now receiving and sending email as well as surfing the Internet.
The Internet forced media outlets to integrate it. With its creation and rapid growth, media houses are forced to have a presence on it. As its popularity grew, people started to turn to it for information. It is faster than flipping through the yellow pages for a good furniture company in the area of your zip code. When searching for research info, it may provide updated information rather than the encyclopedias one might have purchased a year ago. The Internet has become a "living and breathing" repository of information, where if you're not in it, you practically don't exist. It gives the competitive edge to those with access and those who contribute to it.
Access to news online has become quicker and easier since there is stiff competition among online news agencies. Search engines such as Yahoo and Google also provide news. Whereas CNN may have preeminence in television news, online they are simply one among a growing group of news providers. Journalist and technical reporter for ABC News, Sree Sreenavisan, says that news agencies were forced to change. "If you look over the last five years, they have been forced to become more international, have been forced to be more up to date. They have been forced to have more analysis and criticism in their output, and have had to look and follow what really is being sought by their customers."
Pervasive Media MessagesIn as much as the Internet is pervasive, so are media messages. It is hard to surf the Internet without a pop-up ad showing up on the screen. With the Internet, advertising has entered a technological age where clever programming is key to getting the message through. Spamming goes through your e-mail while special HTML coding can drop a "cookie" on your computer to remember you for future sales and promotions.
There are special links on pages that will take you to web sites with a different purpose than what you had intended when you logged on. It is very easy to get sidetracked while surfing the web. Web pages with ""punch the monkey" type ads are especially humorous, since punching the monkey is another clever way of getting the user to click on the ad.
Advertising on the Internet challenges ones field independency. Potter characterizes field dependency by one's ability to distinguish between signal and noise in any message. In this case the signal is the desired information from the web page, and the noise being the ads.
Media messages comes in different forms. AOL makes it easy for people with a tolerance for ambiguity, who are not interested in sifting through media mesages. AOL's merge with CNN offers its subscribers, among other things, a direct source of news. For their subscribers, this may translate to relying on only one source of information. However, relying on one source can skew one's perceptions, especially since there are many sides to a story.
Everyone can have a presence on the Internet. Mr. John Doe, somewhere in Utah who has a dynamic sports page, can be "side by side" with huge companies like ESPN.com and CNNSI.com, for example. Each site has a web address (a URL), and therefore anyone with knowledge of the site can visit. Although the number of "hits" depend on the popularity of the site, the potential exists for a small town protest, to be heard around the world. Even for minority groups, there is latitude for "correcting" the images in traditional media. The Internet brings the global world to the individual and the individual to the global world.
Duy Lin Tu, of Missing Pixel, a digital production company, believes that the small development companies have identical online opportunities as the 'big guns' in the industry, while creativity gives one the edge. "When you're a small independent filmmaker, or a small production company you need to be creative. That's your great equalizer. If you're creative it doesn't matter how many billions of dollars Universal Pictures has, for example, in the film industry." He cites the Blair Witch Project, which took about $30,000 to make and grossed over one hundred million dollars, as an example. He says that their whole advertising campaign was a web site and the online community. "Because the technology is so accessible anyone can create a web site. Some will be prettier than others and some will be more advanced than others, and that's where the element of creativity comes in. If you create a very creative web site, it doesn't matter, you can be one person or all of AOL, its the same media. Its the web site, one web page at a time."
Widening the GapIn as much as the Internet equalizes, it is still a part of the entity that divides. Presently the most common way to access the Internet is through the computer. According to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, African American and Latino households are about half as likely to own a computer at home than whites and Asians, and three times less likely to have Internet access.[8]
As the Internet emerges as a critical path to practically every aspect of human life, the issues of the digital divide become more prominent. Sreenavisan says that "no one would care about the digital divide if there wasn't the Internet. In the early days of the Internet, it didn't matter that there was this divide because the Internet was basically a rich person's plaything and a thing for academics to use. But what has happened in the years since then it has become a vital place for information, job training, educational material, all in one place. It didn't matter if you were not online before, but now if you're not, you are missing out."
I went into Sears approximately 2 years ago to look at treadmills. A sales person showed me a treadmill that can connect to the internet to an online trainer. I was amazed. It is not far from now when refridgetrators can use the internet to place shopping list orders.
Fusion between radio, television and the internet is already occurring with live radio and TV available on the internet. For example, if you're driving listening the WBLS in the morning and get to work where you have access to the internet, you can tune in to hear the rest of the morning show.
The Internet is a medium like no other. Its growth rate has surpassed that of other media. It has permeated society, becoming increasingly the primary source for information. As it becomes the preferred medium, other media will be in their adaptation stages. It is through this process that media metamorphosis will occur.
As all traditional media redefine themselves, the Internet will flow like blood through the veins of these industries. This will result in a great interdependence among all media with a greater dependence on the Internet. While the physical product will be defined by future innovators in this digital age, the Internet will be the presence residing this new medium.