Research Topics: Ipod

A Model of Music Procurement Behavior

PART II. IDENTIFICATION OF OPPORTUNITIES             The opportunities imply a continues music revolution through the IPods and cell phones and the opportunity for loyal technology addicts to wait what Apple company is gong to produce next that will be a craze in the society and that people will dream of getting a new one as it is popular and most recent in IPod technology meanwhile, cell phone collectors and enthusiasts will provide Nokia company a stable share in the market as they are also waiting for the new Nokia phone model to be released, knowing the features and how music is accessible over an IPod.             The opportunity for the firms to have better chain management and always in control of its quality management and the opportunity to plan and realize advertising promotions in communicating to the people, who are basically good potential buyers. Thus, there can also be opportunity to execute and implement market communication plan and positive drivers integrating into the music industry market and position. PART III. DEVELOPMENT OF ALTERNATIVES A. Changing patterns of behavior             The music industry poses salutation opportunity to allow young consumers to engage in more activities through IPods and cell phones. Furthermore, the growing amount of changing music medium style and unreliable degree of Internet resemblance and innovative distribution channels make it more difficult to envisage music connected consumer behavior. (Dolan, 2000; Jarvenpaa and Todd, 1996) As for instance, numerous 1consumers access gratis music from Internet but continue to buy compact disks 1which makes it hard to label consumers into cell phone and IPod users. The music industry poses salutation opportunity to allow young consumers to engage in more activities through IPods and cell phones. Furthermore, the growing amount of changing music medium style and unreliable degree 1of Internet resemblance and innovative distribution channels make it more difficult to envisage music connected consumer behavior. (Dolan, 2000; Jarvenpaa and Todd, 1996) As for instance, numerous 1consumers access gratis music from Internet but continue to buy compact disks 1which makes it hard to label consumers into cell phone and IPod users. B. A model of music procurement behavior              In order to acquire enhanced understanding of customer music procurement, a buying decision making approach is used which focuses on how consumers acquire better technology gadgets for having ample music information and how they utilize it to achieve their desired music types. In toting up to the imagined relations between the different stages of music procurement and behavioral reactions situation variables and individual characteristics are illustrated. (Dolan, 2000; Jarvenpaa and Todd, 1996)  PART IV. EVALUATION OF ALTERNATIVES             The industry flourished market value as the music industry is tough and the demand is in high notion and the competition is fierce and tight for IPods and cell phones. The value of market share maybe in low stance and needs rejuvenation probably because one company selling IPod and cell phones is far better than the other company in providing useful and accessible mediums for music revolution such as through music downloads and compilation. The recording labels are not only taking legal action against file-sharing systems, but also beginning to incorporate the Internet into their own distribution networks. Some music companies have launched commercial file-sharing services and others are planning to follow suit. However, none of these commercial offers is particularly successful and several commercial digital music services have suspended operations. (Assael, 1998; Degeratu, Rangaswamy and Wu, 2000)              The preliminary point for development and evaluation would be to explore the motives for using liberated digital online music mediums. It is probable that users associate certain benefits with online music, benefits they would also expect in commercial offers. The exploratory investigation had three aims. First, it seek to identify imperative challenges of the 1music industry, to select and utilize a model of established line of music procurement through using technology tools as provided to detect pirate sales of disks also Internet bound music sharing services and the progressively multi-demanding consumer base that have consequences on music industry sales and profits. (Assael, 1998; Degeratu, Rangaswamy and Wu, 2000)  PART V. SELECTION AND IMPLEMENTATION The process             Depending on the accessibility and awareness with digital knowledge and technology, marketing and the utilization of music records and labels will contrast. The innovative consumers are more likely to download music from the Internet and to listen to it using IPod player, whereas other consumers will prefer conformist sound carriers such as cell phones and or CDs and will opt for usual procurement through suppliers and retailers that will lead to evaluation affecting future marketing decisions of companies such as Apple and Nokia. The music procurement implies that customers can decide among various alternatives of free as well as commercial music download of songs or videos and that some consumer connected uniqueness and situational variables applies music value authority. The buyer need for which type of music is secured in which such arrangement will depend on personal character and situational patterns that is globally presented. (Dolan, 2000; Jarvenpaa and Todd, 1996; Kretschmer, Klimis and Wallis, 1999)   Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

A Model of Music Procurement Behavior

PART II. IDENTIFICATION OF OPPORTUNITIES The opportunities imply a continues music revolution through the IPods and cell pho...

HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION

Interactive products are very interesting and highly innovative products that are enticing to the market especially now in the changing world where most people demand for products that is sophisticated yet with the easiness and convenience of using it.  Thus, the interaction design of the interactive products are pivotal as it creates a representational dialogue between the people or the users and the intelligent products.  As the evolution of technologically driven products has recently become more complicated but gaining support in the marketplace and acceptance from the users.  Interaction designers with capabilities to innovate and redefine the features of these mini powerful interactive products that would cater to the many disparate people who have diverse taste and preferences.  As the number of people wanting this interactive products increases, interactive products on one hand, have become a lot more functional and operable.  Additionally, equipping it with more features, functionality, and capabilities.  Moreover, the success of interactive products in the marketplace depends on the three factors namely, the design of high-quality, engaging interactive experiences and good interaction design. In this paper, we would be exploring two interactive products hardware, one that is greatly designed and the other one as badly designed.  Along with the brief analysis and description of its hardware aspect, an explainaition of what makes it good or not good, the usability principles and the drawing of conclusions that would be based on the assessment and the analysis of the good and bad interactive products.  For the well-designed interactive product, iPod would serve to be a great example, as it is loaded with great features and user-friendly interface and the hard to resist design which makes it very pleasing and popular.  On the other hand, the badly designed interactive product is a mobile unit from nokia and that is N3650.   The Ipod 60 GB model   Description: For people who need to have a dose of their favorite music and videos everyday, instead of buying two interactive products, all can be found in an iPod 60GB model from the makers of Apple Computer.  Indeed, an interactive product that has successfully incorporates both sound and vision into one amazing gizmo. Not only does it come up with innovative design but it gets rid of the bulkiness and come up with a slim design that surely is appealing and in fact, emulated by some competitors to their products.  The hardware input and output components of an iPod dock connectors, 3.5-mm stereo headphone minijack, an audio and video output and the s-video output.  With the size having a height of 4.1 inches, width of 2.4 inches, depth of 0.55 inches and a weight of only 5.5 oz, an iPod spells handiness.  Analysis:   An iPod equipped with a stylish Apple Click wheel makes accessibility a lot easier as one can browse on the entire music, photo and video library features of the gizmo with just from one thumb makes it a well-designed product that suits the taste of the people.  In terms of learnability, despite of the fact of its sophistication yet simplified accessibility for the user makes the iPod very learnable, even without going to the fuzz of learning everything in the manual.  The speed, accuracy and memorability aspects of usability is reinforcing for the users since learnability aspect is easy and can be readily gratified.  Moreover, with the first four aspect of usability being gratified, the level of satisfaction for that matter would likely increase.   Conclusions:               The impact of iPod in the market creates and provide alternative means for the people to enjoy both music and videos altogether with a style.  iPod’s design, innovative features and the easiness of browsing and making use of the gadget, seemingly does not need improvements anymore. Although, the constant redefinition of its functionalities and the operability, would make the iPod product stay long in the market.   The N3650 Description:             Nokia being the most preferred mobile phones makers for some time is known to bring out innovative line of phone models.  However, with the tough competitors around producing their own innovative and stylish phone models  it is really hard to tell if Nokia still is the most preferable brand.  The N3650 of Nokia packed with features such as an integrated video recorder, player and camera, among the first to offer the MMS, wireless technology devices such as bluetooth, triband, and so on, are innovative features that people can indulge into.  Nevertheless, the design of Nokia with its bulkiness, makes it not interesting for the people who prefers to have smaller enhanced mobile phones compare than that of bringing a phone that cannot fit in to the jeans with small pockets. Analysis:             N3650 did not make it big to the market because of its bulky design and discouraging keypads which makes the model badly designed.  Discouraging in a sense that the letters are far from each other making the manipulation less interesting, especially in the composition of an SMS.  With the uninteresting look of the keypads and the distant keys makes the browsing quite difficult particularly for the inexperienced users.  The learnability of the phone is not that easy because of its complexities there is an obvious need to go through with the manual.  Further, the speed and accuracy would be limited to a minimum of the fact that the keys are distant from each other.  Likewise, the memorability would be susceptible to forgetting since the learnability as what has been stated is not easy.  Lastly, the level of satisfaction aspect would likely be low.  Low satisfaction because with the degree of difficulty in the learning aspect combined with the minimality in speed and accuracy makes the users less satified with the product. Conclusion: The point of interactive designers of Nokia is to produce a design that is innovative but with the distant keys, which may at first be attracting because of its uniqueness, would in the long-run makes it less interesting.  In fact, as Nokia sense the unattractiveness of the distant keys, they follow-up the N3650 with an N3660 that has improved design and keypad.  People would always prefer handiness in the design of the interactive products and demands for easiness  in the operability.  Therefore, the design of N3650 makes it discouraging even if it been equipped with innovative features. Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

HUMAN COMPUTER INTERACTION

Interactive products are very interesting and highly innovative products that are enticing to the market especially now in the changing...

MARKETING STRATEGY

MARKETING STRATEGY

Interactive products are very interesting and highly innovative products that are enticing to the market especially now in the changing...

GENRE CHANGE ASSIGNMENT ESSAY INSTRUCTIONS

Assigment : genre change Course: communications and media management     Assignment Brief   Assignment Two: GENRE CHANGE (40%)   Due:April 6 2008 Length: 2 creative designs PLUS 1000 word academic commentary Submit to AssignIT Note: Please compress large image files. Maximum of 3 files can be uploaded (unless zipped) up to 5MB total. Components 1.       Assignment 2 is to take source information from an audio source [to be allocated], then to provide a ‘translation’, or transduction, of the material into 2 of 4 possible kinds of text – one suitable for print publication and the other for electronic publication.            The options for target genre are:                   Print ·    A magazine article with style guide AND         Electronic ·    A webpage or 2.       A 1000 word academic commentary demonstrating your understanding of design principles and publishing issues, research skills in finding recent material in journals or media and online sources, use of academic sources to make your judgements, and your understanding of how the audience, purpose and context differ when the genre changes. Please in-text reference and include a full reference list. How the GENRE CHANGE relates to the course goals The major concept in the course is genre. The mode of presentation of material determines its shape, style and design. This assignment presents ‘the same’ material in different modes; spoken and written, print and electronic. In what ways is it ‘the same’ material? In what ways does the material differ? How does the genre determine aspects of what is and is not presented?   Assessment criteria for Assignment 2: You genre change assignment will be assessed on: ·         Your comprehension of the source text, your engagement with the issues in the text, and your capacity to translate them faithfully into the target genres. ·         Your flexibility in adapting the material to new forms, making the most of the opportunity to increase audience response while maintaining the integrity of the original. ·         Your understanding of design principles and publishing issues as shown in your commentary, and/or as demonstrated in your applications. ·         Research skills: your success in finding recent material in journals or media and online sources, your use of academic sources to make your judgements, the quality of your resources list in the commentary section. ·         Your understanding of how the audience, purpose and context differ when the genre changes. ·         Editing and proofreading of final draft: spelling, punctuation and correct format. You will not be assessed on the technical proficiency which you bring to the genre change. The assessment will not concentrate on the extent of your familiarity with the software, nor your design capability. Your intentions will be judged from your 1000 word commentary.     Transcript for Assignment 2: Genre Change ‘Here comes the mobile phone’ Podcast and transcript were downloaded from ABC Radio National Media Report, originally broadcast on 31/08/06, available at: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2006/1799344.htm Transcript This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers. Antony Funnell: Hello and welcome to the Media Report here on ABC Radio National Summer. I’m Antony Funnell. This week we look again at the new generation of mobile phones, the multi-media platform in your hand that’s going to change your life in ways you never imagined, and maybe kill your I-Pod. The mobile phone is being transformed into a data caster that’s opening up a world of entertainment. It’s the device that people will use in the future to access all forms of media, be it music, video or games. Our first guide in our global mobile adventure today is Jennifer Wilson, Managing Director of a company called HWW, they’re publishers of mobile phone content. Here’s Jennifer Wilson speaking about the potential of the new mobile with the Media report’s former presenter, Gerald Tooth. Jennifer Wilson: I was talking to them particularly about the importance of the mobile phone for what we call generation C, which is really the group of people between 13 and 27, for whom the mobile phone is their primary device for connecting to the world, connecting to their friends, and basically continuing their social networks in the whole sense of community. The mobile phone is an incredibly important and quite, what we call a disruptive device, in that it’s dramatically changed the way that people live their lives and the way they choose to communicate with each other. It’s an incredibly personal device that people have, and people use it in ways they don’t use anything else, including computers. Gerald Tooth: But you did talk about the building of social networks through the use of mobile phones. What is going on there, right now? Jennifer Wilson: What’s really happening is we’re seeing the rise in what we call the sense of community, and it’s really coming out in two particular forms. One of them is what we call digital public spaces, and a digital public space is where you choose to publicly make available information about yourself. So for example, a picture of me that I want people to comment on, a comment on what I’m doing today, a story of what happened to me yesterday. And I post these into a public space and I invite people to make comments on how good I look, how interesting my story is, what happened to me yesterday. And this is what we call a digital public space where validation happens for me through people, many of whom I don’t know, responding to what I’ve said in that space. A social network is where we choose to interact with people, with whom we have a relationship, so for example, a book group where we might sit together and read a book or talk about a book that we’ve read, we would have a different relationship with those people than we might for example have with people we play squash with, and those are social networks. The mobile phone allows both digital public spaces to happen on a day to day ad hoc basis, and they also allow the creation of social networks. One of the things you see for example, is that if you do go to a restaurant, you’ll sometimes see people sitting in a restaurant tapping away on their mobile phone. They might at that point actually be writing a review of their meal, so they are at that point posting to a digital public space. Gerald Tooth: How many people are aware that they can do this stuff with their mobile phone? Jennifer Wilson: Generally you find that about 8% of the population is a fairly active user of mobile content, about 15% of people dip into it every now and then, but it is quite interesting that you see on some carriers where accessing mobile content is very easy, you find the take-up much greater. So for example, on the Hutchison network, the Three network, you’ll find that about 60% to 80% of their users will interact with mobile content on a fairly regular basis. Whereas with Telstra or Optus, the figures are much lower. Gerald Tooth: And what are we going to be offered in the new generation of mobile phones that are just over the horizon, in terms of what you’re talking about? Jennifer Wilson: Well some of the things are actually on the horizon now. So for example, you can right now buy (not in Australia) but you can buy mobile phones that have 5 gigabytes of memory, which means that you can store phenomenal amounts of information on your phone. You can get 5 megapixel cameras on your mobile phone. Of interest to most of us will be the fact that the 3G network, the faster network, will allow us to communicate in a much richer manner. It’s not just about video, but it’s about being able to have an interactive experience which is faster than an old dial-up experience, if you want. And that, coupled with the fact that increasingly location on the mobile phone, knowing where you are, and therefore giving you information relevant to your place, those two things together means that if I know where you’re standing at one time and what time of day it is and what your interests are, I can start to deliver to you information which is really relevant to you right then, right there. Gerald Tooth: How do we compare with overseas where you’ve just returned from? Is the mobile phone network like our broadband network, that in fact is far inferior to what’s on offer in other countries? Jennifer Wilson: It’s interesting you say that. In some ways, yes. What’s very interesting is that Australia is probably I’d say, 6 to 12 months ahead of the US. Our mobile phone industry and our mobile phone content is much more advanced than it is in the States. But in terms of the comparison with Europe, we’re probably about six months behind. And in part that’s to do with the fact that it’s been slower for 3G networks to take off here. The biggest problem really is that there’s so few Australians that there are ultimately so few people here to buy content, that it’s actually very difficult to make a living in the mobile industry. Gerald Tooth: And how are people making a living in the mobile industry? We’re going to see quite an uptake of gaming on mobile phones, something we haven’t really seen before in a serious way. Jennifer Wilson: You’ve seen it to a degree. About 8% to 15% of the people who use content regularly, are fairly regular gamers. But you will start to see more and richer gaming. You have to consider that games like Tomb Raider, and Doom, can be played on mobile phones in a very rich environment. And it is interesting that hand-held devices, for example, hand-held media players, music players like Ipods, digital cameras, or PSP Nintendo devices, they are now morphing into the mobile phone. So as the mobile phone becomes more of a converged device, it becomes even more important to people’s lives. And I think we’ll start to see people using those services a lot more, basically as entertainment and to interact with either other people or to interact just with an application on the phone. Gerald Tooth: Do you think the mobile phone will kill off the Ipod? Jennifer Wilson: It’s interesting. There’s an article out that says ’2006, the Year the Ipod Died’, and I think there’s an element of truth to that. There will always be a market for dedicated devices. So for example, I would never replace my digital camera with a camera in my mobile phone. I would probably never replace my dedicated music player with a music player in my mobile phone. But if I’ve got a mobile phone that’s got 5 gigabytes of memory, a decent set of speakers, and I carry it with me everywhere, will I want to carry an Ipod with me as well? Gerald Tooth: And is the market for this young people, as you say? Jennifer Wilson: The biggest market for this remains that classic Gen C demographic, if you want the 14 to 27. But that said, bear in mind that in Australia we have more than 95% penetration of mobile phones. There’s about 19 million mobile phones in Australia, and that means that isn’t just the young demographic that has mobile phones. My father, for example, who’s in his 80s, is now a regular mobile phone user. One of the fastest growing segments of mobile phone use is in the older generations. Gerald Tooth: Is there an opportunity for the ABC as a content provider, to tap into this market and actually make money from it? Jennifer Wilson: Well actually the ABC’s one of the people who is making money from this content market at the moment. Right now the ABC News is available on every carrier across Australia, the Triple-J has a gig guide, Rage is available on Hutchison’s Three services, there’s a movie service on Optus, there are comedy and lifestyle programs available on some of the other carriers. So the ABC is currently providing quite a lot of the content that exists on mobile phones, in part because the ABC was very quick to recognise that making content specifically for this environment would help them get ahead of the herd. So for example, whereas it’s taken some of the other networks longer to actually get around to making content specifically for the small mobile screen, the ABC’s been doing so for more than two years. And that’s put you in a very good driving seat, to actually be a dominant provider, and as a credible news provider in Australia, you do sit in the position of having the most credible news on mobile phones. Gerald Tooth: Are we also seeing ads on mobile phones? Jennifer Wilson: Advertising on mobile phones is interesting. One of the problems that we have is that many cases carriers will charge you for consuming data on the mobile phone, and they charge at really quite high rates. And it’s a very hidden cost, so it’s difficult for people to know how much it’s costing them. If I give you an ad on a mobile phone, it could cost you anything from 6 cents to to actually see that ad. And I don’t think people want to pay for advertising, so it’s very difficult to put ads on mobile phones, knowing that you can’t really determine how much it’s going to cost. But that said, it is likely that in the same way as the internet, we’ll start to see advertising on mobile phones subsidising the costs of what might be otherwise a subscription service. So for example, instead of paying a a month subscription service, you might pay a month and receive some banner advertising, for example. Gerald Tooth: Jennifer Wilson, Managing Director of HWW. Excerpt of Bollywood music Gerald Tooth: The world’s quickest growing mobile phone market is in India, where there are already over 100 million users. That figure is expected to treble over the next three years. Primed to take advantage of those staggering numbers is a company called Hungama Mobile. They’ve bought up the digital rights to 70% of all the content produced by Bollywood, India’s film industry. Bollywood pumps out an astonishing 1000 films a year, chock full of ready-made music video clips. Based in Mumbai, Hungama Mobile bill themselves as the largest developers and publishers of mobile and digital entertainment content in India. The company’s Managing Director of Neeraj Roy, who was recently in Australia at the Cross Media Lab Conference in Melbourne, where he spoke about the mind boggling expansion of the mobile entertainment industry. Neeraj Roy: Mobile entertainment last year was about a -billion business, broken up into four distinct categories of content. There was music, imagery, video and games. Music accounted for about 50%, 55% of that content. It’s estimated that over the next four years, that same -billion is likely to be between -billion to -billion, because what’s happening is globally most of the carriers are no longer relying on their voice revenues, they are now moving fast towards more data-driven revenues, as you would be seeing in markets like this, where Three as a network has Big Brother and they could bundle that lead for subscription etc. etc., as it were. The overall detail market by 2010 which is non SMS revenue, is estimated about 4-billion business, of which one-third of that is mobile entertainment which will be across those four categories. Of course Bollywood is a very, very, small fraction of that, but if I were to aggregate both the opportunity in India because India is the fastest growing mobile market in the world right now, we’ve been adding about 5-million new subscribers each month for the last six months or so, and we’re staring at anything between 300-million, 350-million consumers by 2010. It is estimated that just the mobile entertainment opportunity out of India is somewhere in the range of about -billion to -1/2-billion or so. And as a company, Hungama Mobile has about 70% of Bollywood content. So we’re hoping that there is a significant business opportunity that we’ll be in a position to create. But I think the interesting thing is yes, it is a large enough opportunity, but it’s something that we believe that if you were to try to put this together in a triple play format, which is what we’re attempting, so we’re not just focusing only on the mobile business, we’re also looking at the internet business in a big way, with the kind of things that we’re doing; at the same time also looking at the whole format of in cable TV and IPTV etc., because there again, the same thing will happen. You have the networks ready, they will then want to put as much content from as many different parts of the world out there, and let it convert into users seeking that sort of content and whatever. So that’s the kind of format and structure that we’re working on. I don’t know if I’ve answered your question, but I’ve at least hopefully given you a little perspective on the overall opportunity. Gerald Tooth: Neeraj, what I’m hearing from you is that old fellows like you and I, we’re past the game….. Neeraj Roy: That’s actually very true. It is. In fact if you see all the major innovation as far as this is concerned, I don’t think we are past it, because we’re certainly participating in this process; I’m delighted to be just a part of this whole period as such. But we are no longer the consumers, we’re no longer the people – we all have our Ipods, and these multi devices and do all of those things, but there is a generation out there which is going to be coming up never having read a newspaper, never having consumed news content via television. You know, when it comes to television to them, it ends at MTV or a certain show or a soap or whatever. Yet now they’re suddenly getting involved in even news reporting, seeing a certain side of let’s say the whole Israeli-Lebanon conflict, and therefore getting an opinion on it and getting involved in the entire process, because there is a whole generation which till now was not really participating in that. I think that generation, how it will unfold, I continue to believe it’s not about one media versus the other. It will continue to coexist. The newspaper will continue to coexist at least for the next – till my lifetime, for sure. Because there are certain things we can never replace, as it were. But I think it’s about, in this coexistence format, and to that extent, yes it is the youth which is driving it, no doubt about it. Gerald Tooth: Neeraj Roy, Managing Director of Hungama Mobile in India. Australian Mark Ollila is the co-founder and non-executive director of the Swedish-based company, Telcogames, which as the name suggests, develops games for phones. He talks of the advent of Mobile Ubiquitous Media, which he alls MUM, and says the technology incorporated in the latest generation of phones mean they will, like perfect mothers, be everywhere, doing everything, even replacing MP3 players. Mark Ollila points to global sales figures showing music capable smart phones are already outselling Ipods, but he’s not predicting the death of the Ipod, not just yet anyway. Mark Ollila: No, I’m definitely not predicting the death of the Ipod, I think the Ipod’s been a great success for Apple and will continue to be so, but I think what I’m now seeing and predicting is that the device that people will use in the future will be a Smartphone, because the prices of Smartphones are becoming cheaper over the years, and actually the number of units of Smartphones cheapening is increasing quite significantly, and there are more Smartphones selling that are music capable or media capable than there are Ipod equivalents. Gerald Tooth: What are the numbers there? You’ve got them. Mark Ollila: Well the numbers that we’ve seen and they’re publicly available when you search for this information, is that like April, May, June 2006 you could actually see that Nokia alone announced that they sold about 15 million music capable phones, or Smartphones, whereas Apple sold about 8 million Ipods. So you can just see that from one handset manufacturer that they’re selling twice as more than Apple is. Gerald Tooth: And what we’re seeing is divergent paths being taken by the sale numbers for Ipods compared with the sale numbers for those music capable mobile phones that you’re talking about. Phones are going up and Ipods are going down. Mark Ollila: Well like again, Apple’s had a wonderful success I think; what you see is that they had 17 quarters of significant growth in unit sales for the Ipod, with I think a peak in the Christmas period last year of about 14 million Ipods. But then for the first half of this year it was about 8-1/2 million Ipod sales in the first three months, and then just over 8 million again in the second set of three months. So again, their sort of sales are going down and it’s the first time that they actually have gone down, whereas Smartphone sales have been going up. And again, I think that is very indicative of the price of Smartphones coming down and people carry their phone with them all the time and are expecting a media rich experience with their phone. Gerald Tooth: And what sort of media rich experience are those phones providing that you can’t get off your MP3 player? Mark Ollila: Well like obviously if you have just a stand alone MP3 player like the phones allow you obviously to play music obviously, but also have in certain cases the ability to actually watch videos, and some of these phones have the ability to actually play full-length videos, if you buy a card to put into it. And these abilities of actually having communication with friends and so forth with media rich experiences such as gaming as well, which in itself is a huge market, means that the device is becoming a one-all device, it can do everything for you. Gerald Tooth: Where does the content come for that, and what’s that doing to the marketplace? Mark Ollila: Well the content side of things is very interesting, because on let’s say the mobile video side, it’s going to be generally coming, I believe, from user-generated content because camera phones are mass market devices now, and users can basically create content that they can send and distribute in many ways. When it comes to gaming, mobile games, that’s going to be a more specialised market with specialised developers actually creating that content and getting that out through traditional channels, such as over the internet or over the air to the actual gamer, and with music, again I believe it’s going to be a combination of the well-known brands such as Madonna and so forth, as well as maybe new bands which are using alternative distribution techniques to get their content out to the mobile. Gerald Tooth: For years we’ve been talking about convergence, and is it your view that the mobile phone is where everything has come together, where we have the internet, gaming, communications, access to television, all in the one device in your pocket? Mark Ollila: I believe the mobile phone is a device, and it’s becoming more and more powerful every time. Like over the next two years, we’re going to see more and more devices which have more enhanced graphics abilities which are basically equivalent to what we see in PCs of only a few years ago and things like this. And that mobile device is becoming more and more powerful and getting more powerful not by the year but by the month. It’s only natural for it to become the hub of your life, and even today the mobile phone you get worried if you’ve lost your mobile phone. You don’t leave home unless you’ve got your mobile phone. It’s like the set of keys, you leave your home with your wallet, your keys and your mobile phone. Gerald Tooth: Mark Ollila, the non-executive director of The Swedish-based company, Telcogames. In Brisbane, well aware of exactly where her mobile phone is, and its potential to entertain, is Deb Polson. She’s the Creative Director at the Australasian CRC for Interaction Design. Deb Polson is behind the development of what is called a location based game that brings together the internet and mobile phones to bring a whole new type of experience to a visit to an art gallery or museum. And Deb Polson’s name for her game, is Scoot. Deb Polson: Well Scoot, we call it a mixed reality adventure game, and it kind of has its roots in my early days of Dungeons and Dragons, and I’m finally getting to be the Dungeon Master (if anyone knows what that means). But basically it’s a location-based game where I’ve designed this one for families to play together in museums and galleries and public spaces, because it’s funded by the Cultural Broadband Network of Victoria. So basically what happens is, there’s these creatures that live online that the kids get to meet when they go online at Scootgame.com and they’re challenged to look for clues, kind of like a treasure hunt or a da Vinci Code in the real world. And when they discover those clues they communicate what they find through SMS back to the game world, and the game world automatically sends them more SMSs that basically take them on a trail through the site, teaching them about the history of the site, taking them to services, introducing them to interactives in that site, asking them questions about what they see in paintings, what they see in artefacts. But the families play it together, so some of the clues kind of require them to collaborate and some of them are very much designed for the kids or the parents separately. And it’s really nice to watch them collaborate in these spaces. So the game is really about families and particularly kids, to feel comfortable in these spaces, that they are spaces for them to engage in, in a cultural or creative way. Gerald Tooth: Why did you choose the mobile phone as a platform for that? Deb Polson: Well I was interested in location-based games, and I’m interested in computer games in general, but I’m not particularly interested in sitting at a computer for great lengths of time. So I was interested in how GPS and mobile devices could move games out into the physical space and get people moving around, and making people’s worlds more interesting, rather than making virtual worlds more interesting. I was interested in how games might be able to superimpose our imaginings on the everyday. And the mobile phones are the most accessible because I played location-based games with people like Blast Theory from the UK and Nokia, and they kind of require a kind of high technology to play them, and I kind of wanted to use mobile phones because I wanted people to learn from playing Scoot what they could do themselves. It’s quite a simple low-tech version of how you can use mobile phones. Gerald Tooth: I turn up with my kids at the National Gallery and my mobile phone in hand. What happens then? Deb Polson: Well there are three major headquarters in Melbourne. One’s in the State Library of Victoria, one’s in ACMI on Fed. Square, and one’s in the Melbourne Museum. And when you go to headquarters, you log on at a headquarter site on the computers there, where you’re given your mission for that area. And your mission just gives you your first SMS. And so you SMS ‘I accept this mission’ and the game then send you your first clue, and then you’re off. So you’re either sent to the National Gallery of Victoria, or you’re sent into Federation Square, or you’re sent on a mission. And that just leads you on a trail of SMS clues, pretty much like I used to play with my parents when we’d do in the old Falcon; we’d get in the car and you’d drive along to a point and you’d find on a balloon a message of where to get to next, and you’d end up in a tennis court somewhere in Belair National Park. You know, it’s kind of learnt from those sorts of family treasure hunts that I would do as a child. Gerald Tooth: So how is the phone used? Are you using the camera in the phone, a GPS locator, all of those things to come together to drive the game? Deb Polson: We’ve built a system that can actually recognise GPS and can actually take an MMS, like a photo. The problem with the photo is the game can’t actually interpret that and understand it and send you something interesting. So at the moment we’re only using SMS, but people can take MMSs or pictures and upload them to the website. They can also design their own characters for the website which we can then send to them on their mobile phone. The mobile phone itself is used primarily as a navigation tool, and to receive, and the challenges that we’re getting are very narrative-based as well, so we’re getting a story of the site through the phone as well. So the phone is seen almost like a looking-glass as they move through the site. That’s what’s important to me, is that they can start to look at their phone as an object for storytelling, an object for discovery or adventure, rather than just for SMSs to their girlfriends, or downloading music which are all great fun, but it’s kind of putting different demands on the phone to have different types of services. Gerald Tooth: Deb Polson, Creative Director at the Australasian CRC for Interaction Design in Brisbane. In Finland, mobile phone giant Nokia is taking the concept of location based games for phones to a whole new level. Elina Koivisto is a research engineer at Nokia’s so-called Game House. Elina Koivisto: In the research project we have been looking a lot into location based gaming. Let’s say that we have a game where the player is for instance collecting virtual game cards from his environment. So you go to the local park to pick up some game cards, or so on. You might encounter monsters virtual, monsters in real life environment when you go to the railway station, there is a huge monster that you have to kill and so on. The location is probably the most easiest context to use and you could even think that the mobile phone camera is the sensor, and you could use pictures that the player is taking from his surroundings for creating content in the game. Gerald Tooth: So I go down to my local train station, and I turn on my mobile phone and my mobile phone camera, and I look at the screen on my mobile phone and there’s a monster there that I have to kill before I can get on my train. That’s what you’re telling me, is that where games are going? Elina Koivisto: No, I don’t know if you are really going there. Well, but that’s one way. We can maybe see more of those kind of games in the future, but also I think, this is my personal view on this, location based games it’s not too wise to enforce the player to go somewhere. Let’s say that your game contacts you in the middle of the night, you wake up, it tells you OK, now you have to go to the railway station to fight the Boss Monster; if you don’t do it, you and your friends and your guild or clan, you will lose the game, or whatever. That’s not maybe something that users or players are looking for. Gerald Tooth: But every day, I go to the train station to go to work, so when I get there, do I have to fight a new monster every day? Or is it the same one every day? Is that the sort of thing you’re looking at? Elina Koivisto: If you have a location based game it’s definitely good that it’s something that you would do anyway everyday. So like, you go to the train station anyway every day, and maybe you can find something in there. It could be a traitor, it could be a monster, I’m not talking about a specific game concept I’m just like giving an example here. Gerald Tooth: But those sort of examples that I’m very interested in, that that’s where gaming is heading, that with an environment-sensitive device which is a mobile phone with a camera in it, you can then attach that to a game that you can play wherever you are, and that that will be location specific. And it’s kind of blurring the line then between reality and gaming, isn’t it. And that’s the sort of thing that you’re looking at, is that right? Elina Koivisto: Yes, that’s right. We call that pervasive gaming. Gerald Tooth: Pervasive gaming, or ubiquitous gaming, yes? Elina Koivisto: Yes, that’s right. Gerald Tooth: Elina Koivisto, a Research Engineer from Nokia’s Multimedia Technologies Laboratory in Finland. And finally, a word of warning about where all this is going. Professor John Buchanan, from the Carnegie Mellon Entertainment Technology Centre in Adelaide is concerned that while the technology for information delivery is changing dramatically, the chance to change what is being delivered may be missed. John Buchanan: My primary challenge is that it’s easy to do the same thing again and again. It’s easy to turn these new technologies into delivery for what we already know. Now don’t get me wrong, I love story, I am a big consumer of linear media, I’m a great watcher of movies, I’m not a big fan of television. So I’m not saying that what we’ve done in the past is wrong, I’m simply saying that in addition to continuing to do what we’ve always done, let’s try to find new and innovative ways of using these technologies to provide different experiences other than simply the delivery of linear media. Antony Funnell: Professor John Buchanan of the Entertainment Technology Centre in South Australia speaking with Gerald Tooth. And that ends this week’s Media Report. Thanks to the team of producer Andrew Davies and to our technical producer this week Costa Zouliou. If you’d like a transcript of the show or you’re after the details of how to download the audio to your MP3 player, then head for the webpage: abc.net.au/rn. All you have to do is select the Media Report from the program list and follow the instructions. I’m Antony Funnell, thanks for your company, I hope you can join me again next week for another edition of the Media Report here on ABC Radio National Summer. Guests Mark Ollila Co-founder & non-executive Director of Telcogames. Jennifer Wilson Managing Director of HWW. Neeraj Roy Managing Director of Hungama Mobile. Deb Polson Creative Director at the Australasian CRC for Interaction Design. Elina Koivisto Research Engineer from Nokia’s Multimedia Technologies Laboratory Professor John Buchanan Entertainment Technology Centre in South Australia. Presenter Antony Funnell Producer Andrew Davies Thursday 8.30am repeated 8pm Presented by Antony Funnell     See PDF files for lecture notes on subject. 1.           Design-lecturenotes 2.           Genre-lecturenotes       Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

GENRE CHANGE ASSIGNMENT ESSAY INSTRUCTIONS

Assigment : genre change Course: communications and media management Assignment Brief Assignment Two: GENRE CHANGE (40%) Due ...

Media and International Politics

Media and International Politics   Preliminary Remarks               We are told that this generation is far more complicated in terms of people’s lifestyle and behavior compared to the 60’s and 70’s generation. Indeed, there is a great gap between our generation and the generation of our parents. In fact, we are no longer adheres to their beliefs, myths, fables, and tradition. We have our own beliefs, myths, and tradition in which in turn our parents can hardly understand.             This reality seems so naive to them, yet, it is very clear. The emergence of technology and complex phenomena happened to be the primary factor in which we, the new generation, become detached from the previous generation and tradition. Moreover, we are not only detached to them but gradually become more and more independent in terms of how to define our life.             By and large, media become one of the many instruments in which influences our way of life. We look at media in different perspectives and in different ways. We become witnesses of the transformation and evolution of media. From standing as a paragon of peace, freedom and equality, to deterioration and ratification of reality, media seem to stand on its own, independent to the branching institutions. However, media become naive in some ways because it somehow caught unguarded with the lure of globalization. Here, we come to analyze how the trend of globalization comes to influence the media sphere.        The New Trend: Globalization               This construct renders a vast meanings and definition derived from various scholars of various disciplines.    The vast definitions of globalization make us puzzled and logically inferred that absolute is non-existent insofar as a definitive meaning of globalization cannot be comprehended and capsulated.  In the book, Articulating the Global and the Local: Globalization and Cultural Studies, Ann Svetkovich and Douglas Kellner defined globalization as “a code word that stands for a tremendous diversity of issues and problems and that serves as a front for a variety of theoretical and political positions (1997).” This in a way served as a substitute term for modernization and continues as a legitimating ideology for the westernization of the world, cultural differences, and struggles.             Svetkovich and Kellner (1997), think that this phenomenon gradually replacing concepts such as imperialism, thus displacing focus on domination of developing countries by overdeveloped ones  or on national and local economies by transnational corporations. In this discourse globalization functions and concepts are important in understanding the phenomenon which in nature a theoretical construct which varies according to the assumptions and perspectives in question. In this context, the authors would like to treat globalization as a term used to describe the ways global economic, political, cultural forces are rapidly penetrating the world in the creation of the “new world market, new transnational political organizations, and a new global culture.”  Furthermore, globalization involves a dissemination of new technologies that have tremendous influence and impact on polity, economics, culture, society and in our daily life. New technologies such as communication instruments become the primal tool in creating a world, though, has frontiers, tremors to collapsed borders, inflicting and creating global cultural village wherein everyone defined his culture as universal and homogenuis. The diversity of culture, on the other hand, is neither protected nor preserved, rather the fundamental project of globalization is to collapse all barriers in order to form one single unit of culture—a new global culture.             Hence, globalization brings forth the consciousness of reconstruction, deconstruction and rehabilitation of what was present in civilizations long ago. The Old and New Media             When we speak of old media, we immediately think of the three fundamental mediums namely: print, radio and television. These instruments that comprise the traditional concept of media are still present and powerful. Yet, it can be thought that each instrument occupies a certain level of power measured in terms of its effect to the producers or receivers. While print became the first medium invented, radio and television was the offshoot of reasonable guesses by its inventors, the three has its own inherent power to influence its audience.             On the other hand, theoretically speaking, when we thought of media models and theories we are immediately thinking about the linearity of communication popularized by Schramm and later on refuted, remodeled, revised, and modified by other media theorists and scholars. The historical pedigree of media is not exclusive only to those who theorizes communication and exploits the mediums, but became open to other critiques in different fields of academic pursuits. For instance, one of the most popular in terms of understanding the political economy of media was Karl Marx which thought that the ideological role of media always in favor to the capitalist ideologies since they have the power to manipulate and exploit using their capital in order to enable them to diffuse and proliferate their ‘believed’ ideologies to the public.  Moreover, media serve to be instrumental in the propagation of national identity and unity among the people within a community. The best to describe these qualities of the media is directly found on the journalistic doctrine in which media assumed a principal role being a fourth estate in a democratic society. Media help stabilize states’ three democratic branches: judiciary, legislative and executive, more so, to protect the democratic ideals of the society.  This is very much related to Joseph Man Chan’s article Media, Democracy and Globalization: A Comparative Perspective, in which he believed that, the “the roles of media in a society are very much defined by its mode of media control which varies mainly with its power structure. In general, when power is concentrated, media tend to serve as an extension of the state and support the status quo.” The existing journalistic archetype is adherent and administrative in nature. Yet, when power is more spread, media can maintain greater relative autonomy and serve as a forum for a wider sector of the public.   The role of media practitioners is to carry out the cardinal values of their journalistic archetype which is to observe an objective, impartial, and true reporting of information to the public. This is true in the field of the old media, but I am not telling an absolute truth about the practice or the use of media instruments. What I am saying is that, these principles is somehow been practiced in the old times, yet, not all necessarily observed such practice. Hence, due to the emerging trend set by technology and globalization, media became the foremost sphere which is being victimized and attacked. Globalization and technological innovation become primary factors in which emergence of new media put forth dramatically in order to serve a specific purpose. New media is described to be a phenomenon of ‘convergence’. This concept refers to “all forms of communications written text, statistical data, still and moving images, music and the human voice that now can be coded, stored and relayed in digital form, and made accessible and convertible through the end-used technology of the computer and/or television screen” (Golding and Murdoch, 1996). Moreover, Slaatta (1998) conjures that “changes in media and communications technology are simultaneously changes in the structuration of the social and cultural spaces for social interaction and integration.” Indeed, the structural and cultural formation of one’s behavior reflects the effects of the new media. The emergence of internet, ipod’s, mp4’s, sophisticated mobile phones, and other new gadgets presents an alarming mood for us. To examine the effects of these new media technologies in a wider perspective, we can say that these are purposively made and proliferated for economic gain. The economic value of these is transcendental. In this sense, the value becomes transcendental because it contributes to the constant violence among individuals and disparities of principles among nations. Moreover, new media provide us a wider time and compressed space in which we can easily participate in a wider arena of socialization and political activities. It indeed brings a new paradigm to the civil society in terms of its role in opening a more accessible public spheres. Yet, these are still controlled and manipulated by the capitalist institutions. And as Slaatta argued, “the new media and information technology give an imperative towards scrutinizing the changes in the political economy of the international media industry.” Media Globalization               Arjun Appadurai popularized the idea of scape that fundamentally described the central concept of sometimes ambiguously interpreted term globalization. In this context, we are introduced to terms like ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, finanscapes, and idioscapes. These terms illustrate the ideological, empirical, and structural dimensions of globalization in which variably affect the complex system of the society. What seems a basic knowledge and assumption about globalization in a theoretical debate, framing our thought on Marxism, is the idea of cultural homogenization. Moreover, in the discourse of Sinclair (2004), postmodern theorists see the trend as being much more in tension with its opposite, heterogenization—that is the proliferation of cultural fusion or ‘hybridity’ which occurs as global influences become absorbed and adapted in a host of local settings. Other globalization theorists would simply define the phenomenon as “the compression of the world”, “the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole”, “annihilation of space by time”, and ‘time-space compression.” However, these theorists have different highly qualified definition on globalization it could be nice to find the neutral between their dissimilarities. These theorists, though, aware of being in disagreement regarding such matter, “all identified the control of space and time as a defining abstract principle behind globalization” (Sinclair, 2004).             Given these descriptive and theoretical definition of globalization offered by different theorists, it can be argued that the presence of media globalization continuously penetrates the cultural virginity of some societies that tried to keep their socio-cultural identity distinct, yet, with the emergence of new media flourishing in every corner of the globe, social theories dictate that it is inevitable to maintain the cultural virginity due to new media emergence. It reflects on the idea that globalization primarily caters to the homogenization of culture, by trying to use effective means like media. David Held argues that “the growth of global communications above all of television, video and film, gives people new ways of seeing and participating in global development which opens up the possibility of new mechanisms of identification at a global or even a local level” (Held, 1995:124) Slaatta’s melancholic description of new media reflects the trending effect of globalization by stating that: “The coming of the internet and the convergence technology, the traditional link between the cultural and the political space for social organization within the nation-state, and the organizational logic of the media and communication industry, is once more disconnected. This time is potentially into an almost anarchic disorder. The television screen, in its commodified, household form is presently turned into a veritable battle field or perhaps a battle screen where a formidable race is taking place between competing formats of software, operative systems, processors, sockets, hardware, cables and networks (1998: 6). One concrete example that manifests a global media is found in Beverley Yu’s article Critical Analysis of Readings: Global Television which she cited the  analysis made by Sowards in her article MTV Asia: Localizing the Global Media which contends that MTV Asia “repackages and disguises Western narratives of class, culture, values and consumerism which in effect helps construct a globalized, consumerist culture for middle-class Asians based on their consent and participation of MTV’s cultural hegemony. The new media is characterized by the convergence phenomenon in which Slaatta (1998) articulates that due to convergence, “the present structure of the media industry will become increasingly blurred, as the boundaries between media technologies and their respective audience markets will collapse.” This phenomenon becomes a concrete picture of what media globalization is. Moreover, to look further into the significance of media globalization, we should take a simple act of analyzing certain offshoot of media globalization by bringing into the light the issue on media trends.  Critique on Media Globalization               Is media globalization helpful or does it misleads us to think that it is beneficial to our development?             The question posits differently answers coming from different theoretical and empirical perspectives. The advancement of media due to globalization in one hand is beneficial and helpful. On the other hand, it becomes alarming and misleading us. To speak of media globalization as beneficial and helpful is to speak of the globalized democratic system. Today, democracy becomes the global political system. Although, there are remnants of communism and socialism, majority of countries nowadays is democratized. The role of media in democratization is essential. Say for example, the well-known People Power Revolution in the Philippines that toppled down the dictatorial leadership of their former President Marcos was became successful not only because of the collective power of the masses but also because through the media in which people are gathered together to bring down the dictator to its presidency.             On the other hand, the ideological of media may have a negative and alarming state. Global media corporations are blinded by the pursuit of economic gain, oftentimes at the expense of quality and the interest of the public. This is always the critique under the Marxist doctrine. The media globalization misleads us to think of its primary purpose. The ideology in which it propagates can be a “false” ideology due to what the global media demonstrates is its noble task of bringing countries out of political oppression and authoritarian ruling system. Yet, the political economy of media still adheres to the idea that the main purpose of globalizing media is the political interest of those powerful countries like the United States to gain control over other regions and nation-states.     Further, media globalization brings significant effects like a compromise of journalistic integrity in favor of a commercially profitable global product and cultural identity in the case of MTV. Globalization implicitly promotes certain ideologies to foreign cultures by means of a mass medium and hence creating a state of hegemony. Conclusion               The emergence of globalization is undoubtedly shatters our way of life. The cultural and anthropological relevance of the phenomenon came into existence through our recognition of the effects of media. In one way, through media we knew something about globalization like the emergence of scapes popularized by Appadurai. Moreover, we should treat this phenomenon in a balance platform in order to see both edges of it. In one hand, media globalization significantly brings easy access to the events of the world and promotes democratization. On the other had, media globalization may only be a trap of the main purpose of powerful international media outfits. Media globalization supports on the noble act of helping the world to cope with problems related to freedom, equality, and peace, may only be a pretense to the real socio-political interest which is to gain control of other countries.             The issue on media globalization is complex. It needs to be examined well and trying to make a more objective and empirical analysis. Although, media theorists and sociologist may already provide ample discussions and theories in order to bring media globalization in the litmus-test, it can again be argued that constant update and assessment should be put forth.       References Adesoji, A. (2006). Globalization of the media and the challenges of democratization in Nigeria. http://www.nobleworld.biz/images/Adesoji.pdf Chan, J. (n. d.) Media, Democracy and Globalization: A Comparative Perspective. http://www.waccglobal.org/index.php/wacc/content/pdf/680 Golding, P. & Murdoch, G. (1996). Culture, Communications and Political Economy, in Curran, J. & Gurevitch, M (1996)             Mass Media and Society. London: Arnold Held, D (1995). Democracy and the Global Order. Cambridge: Polity Press Sinclair, J. (2004). Globalization, Supranational Institutions, and Media. http://www.sagepub.co.uk/mcquail5/downloads/Handbookchaps/ch3%20Downing%20HB.pdf Slaatta, T. (1998). Media and Politics: Research Strategies in a Crossdisciplinary Field. http://www.nordicom.gu.se/common/publ_pdf/30_slaatta.pdf Yu, B. (n. d). Critical Analysis of Readings: Global Television. http://beverleyyu.com/Documents/criticalanalysis.pdf Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Media and International Politics

Media and International Politics Preliminary Remarks We are told that this generation is far more complicated in ter...