Media Morphing

Technology was once thought of as the 'impossible.' But through gradual change the 'impossible' has become very much real and a part of societies daily lives. Media has changed dramatically and there are certain concepts that are used to conceptualize media change. For example the idea that media can morph together to create a stronger and more capable type of media is an idea that would have previously been laughed at, however the change has taken place and the new sophisticated media has taken over. Media changes has many different concepts but I'd like to particularly focus on the concept of Media Convergence, which is the combining of various different types of media together in order to make a better single media technology. The choice to focus on this comes from my choice in university course, Multimedia Journalism and is consequently very relevant to myself.

The diagram here shows the change in media over the past 90 years, and how media has been able to progress and therefore combine to create a more sophisitcated type of media. For example, the idea that todays mobile phone acts as a computer, a camera, a video camera a music player and much more is a prime example of how media convergence takes place. This idea also links in well with the course I am currently studying, Multimedia Journalism, making it an extremley relevant concept. This is a course which links all ideas and areas of journalism together, radio, television, reporting and writing, showing a similarity to the concept of Media Convergence. Multimedia was defined as "the seamless integration of data, text, images and sound within a single digital information environment" in 'Multimedia: A critial introduction by Richard Wise. And in my eyes this is exactly what media change is, it is the integration of different medias to create a new and better technology. I also believe that media change will continue to take place rapidly because of a human desire to be better and do things quicker, meaning media change and development will only stop when we choose to stop it.