One of the most damaging discourses on television technology has been the “kill your television” bumper sticker displayed since the early 1980 by cultural leftists and environmentalists.
Many suggest:
TV viewers are perceived as passive couch potatoes
Computer users are by comparison seen as active and overworked
TV viewers often watch hours of programming at a time Computer users are imagined to be multitasking in a highly selective fashion
TV is massifying Computer are individualized
Television is slow Computer are fast
Personally, I do not agree with this suggestion, I believe the role of broadcasting is even more important as the overwhelming mass of information available in general increases the need for trustworthy editorial services.
And I believe, the convergence of television and the Internet provides an great platform for television to develop itself by allowing supplementary media forms like interactive websites, mobile phone services attaching to pre-existing television programmes.
In this essay, I want to focus on the media contexts surrounding “reality show”, programmes like ‘Big brother’ and ‘American Idol’ that has been most affected by the use of new interactive technologies by its viewers.
For Big Brother, the show stared in 2000, for the 2004 series of Big Brother, Channel 4 changed its offerings on the internet to give greater priority to interactive services.
The 2004 version of the website carried content that could only be seen there and had to be paid for by users.
The content included:
1.behind the scenes documentaries and extended footage.
2.The free streaming of coverage that marked the first series of Big Brother was no longer available.
3.with its access to the families and friends of the contestants, the official website was able to present web-chats and brief written reports that could extend the information available to user
4.the programme site also diverts its users to other services offered by Channel4 such as its pages on cars and property.
The 2010 version are free to viewer. Allows voting, users comments and embed with other social network.
Form Mobile
See iTunes
Same of AI
I suppose these two shows indicate the changing social position of television in terms of this cross-media phenomenon. It demonstrates how new directions in television may develop in this network society.
Outline
• The historical technical development of personalised television.
• The television’s shifting meanings in the context of its convergence with the in Internet.
• Explore the question of whether or not new media technology transforms a new form of television? If yes, how?
Questions:
• How can we understand the social nature of a media technology?
• Whether or not a media technology has the power to transform the form of culture, if so, who/what determining the transforming direction of media technologies?
