Media Convergence

In today’s society, mobile devices have allowed for the instant gratification of media content at the tips of our fingers. As a kid, I would wake up early on Saturday mornings in order to watch my favorite cartoon show, Tom & Jerry on a TV set. If I missed the show, I would need to wait until Sunday morning to catch a rerun of Saturday’s show. Fast forward to today, media convergence has allowed for easy access to entertainment, a phenomenon attributed to rapid technological advancements and increased Internet access. Mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets (i.e. iPad, Windows Surface, Samsung), laptops and cable recording boxes, are a few of the technological advancements which have allowed for innovation in the accessibility of TV content

Convergence within the television industry has allowed for a personalized TV experience coupled with convenient entertainment; which is available to consumers through their mobile devices.

Although the television industry has been around since the late 1800s, it has had to adapt over the years to the changing technological world of its audience. Many advancements had been made within the TV industry which ranges from images of black and white to color, the need for convergence as new technology are invented and the improvement of programing contents like the shift of radio talk shows to the showing of movies on TV (Turow, 2013). The idea of convergence is the ability to be able to have access to different types of media on multiple digital platforms (Turow 2013), has essentially enabled easy access to one’s instant media gratification. As the internet became easily accessible to almost every American household it simultaneously led to an

The creation of Netflix, Hulu, HBO GO and other online platform are yet another examples of convergence and how mobile devices has influenced the forms in which we have our entertainment delivered (Fang Liu, 2003). Hulu and HBO GO are online streaming services because the programs in these sits are only allowed for viewing by just clicking on the show with short commercials which the viewer cannot skip (Turow, 2013). Netflix, an online entertainment provider, allows individuals to subscribe to its network for a monthly fee of just $7, an amount that varies depending on how many people are using it simultaneously. It accommodates viewers who want an uninterrupted viewing experience without the presence of commercials. Netflix allows for viewers the ability to watch from any mobile devices, access by multiple people to enjoy their network on same account with different devices, and a movie delivery system where you can have any Netflix movie or show on a DVD via mail. It also has recently added a new feature that allows for viewers to download shows onto their laptops and other electronic devices with access to their downloaded content without internet