What is media? According to Oxford Dictionaries, media is defined as a tool for mass communication to communicate information to the public. So in that sense, media from a general understanding is an agent or a middleman, if you will, between content and consumer; the term ‘media’ represents agents such as newspapers, radio, television, magazines and so much more.
Media was formerly categorized into only two formats, which still exist today: print media such as newspapers and magazines and broadcast media such as television and radio. These were back in the earlier decades that saw media publishers as the only source of media content and consumers as a passive user or consumer of media.
Fast forward to the 1990s and the world was introduced to something far better, the emergence of a new kind of media, termed simply as, the Internet.
The Internet does everything the newspaper, television, radio, etc. can do and more. It offers great efficiency and with today’s technologies, we can get media content from almost anywhere and anytime as long as we have a connection to the Internet.
This ‘Internet‘, or some may refer to as ‘new media’, has been grabbing headlines since its introduction and is seen as possibly the future of communication. The idea of ‘new media’ encompasses the development of unique forms of digital media and also the reformatting of traditional media forms to adopt and adapt to new technologies. (Flew, 2005) The content of new media is normally a reformatted recombinant of existing media content – photographs, music, etc. – and is reproduced in a digital format.
Now that we have a clear and simple idea of what the media was and is now, the next questions would be:
How does the public (consumers) consume their media content, taking into account the significant development of modern technologies?
And how does the change in consumption methods affect the media industry i.e. media publishers from different areas such as music, games, television, radio and so forth?
To answer in brief, regarding the first question, print and broadcast media is still well and alive and has seen some sort of a rebirth as both sectors integrate with the rise of the Internet. More importantly though, with the Internet and the availability of cheap and advanced technologies, media consumers are now actively participating in the production of media content i.e. consumers are producers too. This leads to the next question because now media publishers face a new uphill task of maintaining themselves as professional media publishers. The difficulty is evident in most of the industries except for the games industry which has been very receptive consumer produced content, otherwise known as user-generated content.
So with that in mind, the research which our group has done investigates the success of integrating user-generated content in the games industry and also answering whether or not user-generated content can be as successful in other media industries.
The starting point for this research stems from the concept of media convergence, which acclaimed media expert, Henry Jenkins, has done valuable research on and provides a good understanding of the concept. Different people/experts define convergence differently but our research will base mainly on Jenkins’ understanding because his research is sound and widely recognised and referred to; we all agreed that it applies best to our research. Jenkins alone provides numerous definitions of what convergence is but in regards to our research, the crucial one would be the active participation of various parties in producing media content. From this, Jenkins further explains what participatory culture is and also how the end product – user-generated content – affects the media industry.
The research will also provide insightful knowledge on the relationship between games publisher giant, Valve and modders (people who modify content). Despite the receptive nature of the games industry, they are also certain on-going issues between games publishers and users/players that threaten to rip a hole in their relationship. The research looks into the sole cause of the complication, which is the ownership of the generated content and what the motivation is for modders to continue modding despite such complicated legal issues.
Last but certainly not least, this research will provide information on Pool, a media community platform that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) has initiated in light of the age of mass innovation and open source technology, where creative content makers can publish, share and remix other people’s work. Pool would be a good example of whether or not user-generated content can be successful in other media industries.
Do visit all parts of our research by clicking the links at the top the page! Below is an overview of what our research is about:
FROM PACMAN TO POOL 