Media studies scholars and commentators have categorised the media in distinct periods: 'old media' such as television, radio and print; 'new media' which include online media, computers, and PDAs. Now we are in a period of 'media convergence' - print newspapers sent as MP3 - but also the increasing convergence of media policy, media ownership and media practices. This book looks at how 'traditional' media companies are moving in to converged media, questions of ownership, questions of working practices and questions of the audience.

Convergence has gained an enormous amount of attention in media studies within the last several years. It is used to describe the merging of formerly distinct functions, markets and fields of application, which has changed the way companies operate and consumers perceive and process media content. These transformations have not only led business practices to change and required companies to adapt to new conditions, they also continue to have a lasting impact on research in this area. This book’s main purpose is to shed some light on crucial phenomena of media and convergence management, while also addressing more specific issues brought about by innovations related to media, technologies, industries, business models, consumer behavior and content management. This book gathers insights from renowned academic researchers and pursues a highly interdisciplinary approach. It will serve as a valuable reference guide for students, practitioners and researchers interested in media convergence processes.

Why do screen narratives remain so different in an age of convergence and globalisation that many think is blurring distinctions? This collection attempts to answer this question using examples drawn from a range of media, from Hollywood franchises to digital comics, and a range of countries, from the United States to Japan

The Media Convergence Handbook sheds new light on the complexity of media convergence and the related business challenges. Approaching the topic from a managerial, technological as well as end-consumer perspective, it acts as a reference book and educational resource in the field. Media convergence at business level may imply transforming business models and using multiplatform content production and distribution tools. However, it is shown that the implementation of convergence strategies can only succeed when expectations and aspirations of every actor involved are taken into account. Media consumers, content producers and managers face different challenges in the process of media convergence. Volume I of the Media Convergence Handbook encourages an active discourse on media convergence by introducing the concept through general perspective articles and addressing the real-world challenges of conversion in the publishing, broadcasting and social media sectors.

This volume offers a timely examination of technology's impact on media companies and the results of convergence among media industries, considering the effects on journalistic, business, and economic practices. Media Organizations and Convergence: Case Studies of Media Convergence Pioneers considers the many definitions of convergence and explores the changes in communication technologies. Author Gracie L. Lawson-Borders provides a brief history of media segments and their evolutions as they adapt to emerging technologies, media conglomeration, and the competitive and global changes that have occurred in the industry. She also examines the theoretical implications of technology and convergence in the operations and practices of media organizations. The case studies included here profile three media convergence pioneers--Tribune Company in Chicago, Media General in Richmond, and Belo Corporation in Dallas--that have incorporated convergence into their journalistic practices. Lawson-Borders considers the social, cultural, and political implications of convergence, and presents issues and concerns for the future of convergence in the media industry. As a snapshot of media convergence at the current stage in its evolution, this book offers important insights into the business of media at a time of dramatic change. It will be a valuable resource for scholars and students in media management, mass media, and related areas of the media industry.

Legitimating Television: Media Convergence and Cultural Status explores how and why television is gaining a new level of cultural respectability in the 21st century. Once looked down upon as a "plug-in drug" offering little redeeming social or artistic value, television is now said to be in a creative renaissance, with critics hailing the rise of Quality series such as Mad Men and 30 Rock. Likewise, DVDs and DVRs, web video, HDTV, and mobile devices have shifted the longstanding conception of television as a household appliance toward a new understanding of TV as a sophisticated, high-tech gadget. Newman and Levine argue that television’s growing prestige emerges alongside the convergence of media at technological, industrial, and experiential levels. Television is permitted to rise in respectability once it is connected to more highly valued media and audiences. Legitimation works by denigrating "ordinary" television associated with the past, distancing the television of the present from the feminized and mass audiences assumed to be inherent to the "old" TV. It is no coincidence that the most validated programming and technologies of the convergence era are associated with a more privileged viewership. The legitimation of television articulates the medium with the masculine over the feminine, the elite over the mass, reinforcing cultural hierarchies that have long perpetuated inequalities of gender and class. Legitimating Television urges readers to move beyond the question of taste—whether TV is "good" or "bad"—and to focus instead on the cultural, political, and economic issues at stake in television’s transformation in the digital age.

Convergence Media History explores the ways that digital convergence has radically changed the field of media history. Writing media history is no longer a matter of charting the historical development of an individual medium such as film or television. Instead, now that various media from blockbuster films to everyday computer use intersect regularly via convergence, scholars must find new ways to write media history across multiple media formats. This collection of eighteen new essays by leading media historians and scholars examines the issues today in writing media history and histories. Each essay addresses a single medium—including film, television, advertising, sound recording, new media, and more—and connects that specific medium’s history to larger issues for the field in writing multi-media or convergent histories. Among the volume’s topics are new media technologies and their impact on traditional approaches to media history; alternative accounts of film production and exhibition, with a special emphasis on film across multiple media platforms; the changing relationships between audiences, fans, and consumers within media culture; and the globalization of our media culture.