Film Industry’s Contribution as Convergence Culture

According to Jenkins (2006), convergence culture maps a new territory, which is the intersect of old and new media, the grassroots and corporate media collide, the power of the media producer and the power of the consumer interact in unpredictable ways. Thus, it is a merge of traditional and new media. There have different types of convergence, which is technological, economic, global, social or organic and cultural convergence.

Besides that, film industry is the entertainment industries that involved in producing and distributing movies. It consists of the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking. For example, film studios, film production company, film directors, actors and more (Definitions.net, 2018).

The contribution of film industry as convergence culture which is technological convergence. Technological convergence is when different forms of technologies cohabitate in a single device, sharing resources and interacting, creating new technology and convenience (Roland, 2017). It is the joining of multiple media technologies. It allows one media product to perform many different tasks. Through the growth of technological convergence, with website like YouTube, Netflix the film industry has become democratised. It helps the film industry can get the benefits through the technological convergence. Following the growth of technological convergence, independent films industry is no longer severely limited in audience size, they can reach more audience and no need to worry about the budget problem. Moreover, nowadays people can through YouTube, Netflix to watch the film they want and it is low price or completely free. Audience can decide when they want to watch and they can do it at home (Jackson, 2016).

Besides that, through the website such as YouTube, it has brought a big effect on the film industry. As YouTube can play a role of marketing campaigns and it is free marketing. For example, there have a lot of channels on YouTube that upload film trailers. It allows people to search the film trailers and share it to other place such as Facebook, Twitter and more. When people share it, it can help the film industry increase their audience size. Thus, the growth of technological convergence had a positive impact to the film industry. Moreover, with the invention of games consoles such as Xbox, PS3, film now has a new exhibition platform, and also a new way of marketing. This is film industry can promote their film by games based on their own movie. For example, the 'Harry Potter' films. Many videogames have been made from this franchise (DomWrightA2media, 2012). This alone further enhances audience size. Besides that, film can also be sold in different ways such as DVD, 3D, blue ray and more. By selling the film on blue ray it can help the film industry shows that their film is high quality and will attract people buy it (ShibZ95, 2012). In a nutshell, the growth of technological convergence has an positive impact on the film industry.

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References:

Definitions.net, 2018. What does film industry mean?. [Online] Available at: https://www.definitions.net/definition/film+industry [Accessed 13 December 2018].

DomWrightA2media, 2012. The Impact of Technical Convergence In Film. [Online] Available at: http://filmindustryabl.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-impact-of-technical-convergence-in.html [Accessed 14 December 2018].

Jackson, C., 2016. Convergence in the film industry. [Online] Available at: https://networksocietymedia1.wordpress.com/2016/02/17/convergence-in-the-film-industry/ [Accessed 14 December 2018].

Jenkins, H., 2006. Convergence Culture Where Old and New Media Collide. United States of America : New York University Press.

Roland, C., 2017. The complete and modern guide to technology convergence. [Online] Available at: https://shape.att.com/blog/technology-convergence [Accessed 13 December 2018].

ShibZ95, 2012. Technological convergence. [Online] Available at: https://www.slideshare.net/ShibZ95/technological-convergence-12284141 [Accessed 14 December 2018].