Prezi: How has consumer behavior and audience response been transformed by the internet, in relation to the past?

Prezi: To what extent has convergence transformed the media?

Future of the Film Industry

Andrew Karpen - Focus Features - 'Films can be seen by more people in more ways' - because of different platforms and technologies. This means more people are seeing film, and smaller budget films/independent can get noticed much easier because of this.

 

New Cinema Technologies: Dolby Atmos Surround Sound

New technologies are being made to enhance the viewing experience for spectators in cinemas, this is to also try and get more people wanting to go to the cinema, instead of watching films on the internet or at home. One new technologoy is the Dolby Atmos surround sound system that is being installed in cinemas around the world. Basic 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound allows noise to sound like it is moving across the cinema, through the speakers around the room. However the Atmos system enhances this experience by having speakers placed around the room, and above the spectators. I feel that this will get people wanting to go to the cinema, to experience this new sound system, and that it might encourage people to not watch films through their laptops.



Other new technologies include 3D without the need of glasses and interactive cinema screens. Technology for production includes smaller cameras for cinematographers to be more versatile with.

New cinema technologies 

Clay Shirky: Web 2.0 and Cognitive Surplus

Web blogging - 'web blogging is a classic example of mass amaterisation, it has de-professionalised publishing'

Clay Shirky is an Advocate of Web 2.0 and the online age



He believes in Cognitive Surplus - consumers are now being more productive with activities online. For example there are now more consumers watching and making their own films, and more gamers playing and creating their own content because of Web 2.0.

'People like to create, and we want to share'

'The number of people that are going to participate in these projects is going to grow' - more people making use of participatory culture on the internet to create more media content.

Henry Jenkins: Convergence Culture

'A group as a whole can put together knowledge, in a more complex way, than any individual is capable of doing' - relating this to my videogames case study, the consumers of the EA Skate franchise are prosumers, they produce their own media content specificall for the games, and share them on Skate.Create for other consumers to use in their Skate game. This is Convergence Culture because a large group of consumers are all creating content for each other, a mass of media content that EA could not produce by themselves.
Social media allows different groups of people to get their perspectives heard by thousands of people. For example a small film production company can get their film seen by thousands, such as Triune Films 'TELL' which received over 250,000 views on YouTube, or their film 'LOSSES' which has over 400,000 views.

Jenkins also talks about Transmedia Storytelling, which is the telling of a story across multiple media platforms. Relating to my gaming case study for Angry Birds, the simple story of birds being angry because the pigs have stolen their eggs, has converged out to different platforms such as YouTube web series on RovioMobile channel, books, physical console copies of the game, themed play parks for children that are across the world and even in the future there will be a TV show and a film made to tell the story of Angry Birds.

Henry Jenkins: Participatory Culture

Young people can change the world around them, more young people are becoming participants of the society.

People use the internet to get information on different topics quickly. In the past people would use the newspaper to get this information, however newspapers aren't instant like the internet. The internet can also be used by consumers to give out their own thoughts on specific things, they participate by using the Web 2.0. For example relating this to one of my videogame case studies, consumers of EA Skate participate by sharing their own media content to Skate.Create.

Henry says in the video that people use new technology as a 'vehicle' to participate to engage in the world and make a difference. He specifically gives Super 8mm camcorder consumers as an example, and how super 8mm 'activists' used the technology to build social networks way before the internet was around.

He talks about how people can use games such as WOW to express their political concerns, in a way that wouldn't be possible in a real space.

Participatory practices can teach consumers how to be prosumers. YouTube video tutorials are a great example; Indy Mogul and Film Riot are two filmmaking shows on YouTube which give great advice to aspiring filmmakers to help them become prosumers of the film industry. Relating to one of my case studies, Indie Rights film distribution has a 'tutorial/how-to' playlist of films on their YouTube channel, which participates in the culture of contemporary media.

What happened before YouTube -

Quotes taken from Henry Jenkins book on YouTube -

''In this new network culture with its lowered costs of production and distributions  participants are not 'constrained to organize their relationship through a price system or in a traditional hierarchical model of social and economic organization' (Benkler, 2006:8)'' - Shows how anyone can make media for cheap

''Arguably many people are taking advantage of the distribution platform YouTube provides in part, because they feel the emotional support of a community eager to see their productions''

''Transforms all consumers into potential authors'' - YouTube allows prosumerism

Graph from the video