week3 db

Chapter 10 Links and Info 

What would happen if print books became foreign to us? This video shows us what might have to happen if people were to encounter books for the first time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ So something to think about here is how different media become useful for a time and then they seem to disappear. This is a process called media fragmentation. As more and more different media become available, they compete for our attention. Some new media will gain traction and remain in popular use for a long. Remember that, at one time, each medium was new. Radio was new in the 1920s. Television was new in the 1950s. Desktop computers were new in the late 1980s. All of these technologies are still with us and still quite popular. Other new media will enjoy some popularity and then fade into obscurity. Media that held music for popular purchase are a good example here. In the 1950s, you could buy songs on records and listen to them on a record player. In the 1970s, you could buy songs on 8-track tapes, and you could play them back on players in your home or in your car. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, you could buy cassette tapes, which were smaller and lighter. In the 1980s CDs replaced cassette tapes. While cassettes and 8-tracks have faded into obscurity, CDs and records are still with us. We can still purchase new CDs at Best Buy, Wal-mart, and other places, and some cars still some with CD players. Records, believe it or not, also are still available, but they are made now more for audiophiles (people who love quality sound) who prefer the sound that comes from a record over the sound that comes from a CD. For audiophiles, records sound “warmer” or “richer,” while a CD sounds “colder” or “flatter.” While records are available for purchase, that does not mean portable record players will become popular again. You wonʼt find one standard on a car any time soon. Notice how these different media compare to media convergence. Convergence allows content from all different kinds of media -- radio, television, film -- to be accessed through multiple devices such as cell phone, tablets, and computers. Media fragmentation refers to the content connected to a specific device and how those devices come and ago. Why devices fade into obscurity depends on several factors, including costs, newer devices (as you saw with music, above), audience loss, and lack of content choices, just to name a few.