Unit 1A.4 Multimedia Technolgy and Consumption

Convergence: Give a definition of this.  What form did early convergence take? And give some examples of present day technological convergence.

Convergence is the merging of mass communication outlets – print, television, radio, the Internet along with portable and interactive technologies through various digital media platforms.

2.       Interactivity: In what ways is digital technology interactive? Can you give some examples? How has this changed the way we consume the media?

Digital technology is interactive by 2 communication with media.

3.       Personalisation: How do we personalise our technology and what is the reason for this? 

Personalising our technology personalises digital products for your consumption e.g. on demand TV.

4.       Fill in the table:

	Definition	Advantages	Disadvantages
Immediacy	The quality that makes something seem important or interesting because it may be happening now (present).	Would draw the attention of the people because of what is happening.	It depends on the circumstances.
Access	Someone who has access to the media through smartphones, laptops or even the radio.	Everything you need is in one place.	Some websites may be blocked so there won’t be any access.
convenience	Something that you do to make things easier for yourself or that is intended to make things easier for you.	It is simple and easy.	If we do things the easy way when we have to do it the more difficult way we will mostly unable to do it.
portability	Something that is easily kept on a person and is able to move from one place to another with ease e.g. mobile phone.	Everything you need is in one place which is a small device that can be kept on you easily.	A portable device can get lost or stolen easily and when it’s gone it is expensive to replace.
connectivity	Constantly being connected to the media through the internet.	You have the opportunity to socialise even more with friends or family that you may not have really good connections with.

Explain what a public broadcast company is?

Explain what a public broadcast company is?

·        Public broadcasting includes radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. This means that everyone has the opportunity to see it, watch it or listen to it. Whether its radio programmes such as BBC radio 1, BBC radio2 or television channels such as ITV1, 2 or even film 4 as it’s in the favour of their choice. Furthermore, it’s paid by the government.

2) Explain what a private broadcast company is?

·        Commercial broadcasting: for-profit, usually privately owned stations, channels, networks, or services providing programming to the public, supported by the sale of time to advertisers for radio or television advertisements during or in breaks between programs, often in combination with cable or pay cable subscription fees.

3) Who is OFCOM and what they do?

·         Ofcom is the communications regulator (control) in the UK. What Ofcom is regulate the TV and radio sectors, fixed line telecoms, mobiles, postal services, plus the airwaves over which wireless devices operate.

Unit 8 Media Industies

Unit 8 Media Industries- Scott Goldsmith

Structure of media organisation

• Horizontal integration is a business strategy.  This means two companies which have similar operations and fairly any differences combing together to form a strong bond company. An example of this is Disney's acquisition of Pixar and the merger of Exxon and Mobil. The benefits of this strategic business move is that market power increases and other synergies increases as well. There are also lower reduction costs and a decrease of competition. This leads to the company being able to diverse its products or services meaning selling to a larger market and the decrease of external competition.  Although of these positives there are consequences that may occur while this procedure examples like legalities, antirust issues. This could lead to damage for the company as they will be in threat of reduction in overall value.
   
• Vertical integration is also a business strategy. This means one company operating at more than one level in the distribution channel. The advantages are it increases its potential over competition and to block competitors from gaining access to scarce resources or important markets. A manufacturing company may enter distribution or retailing to gain direct access to customer in a highly competitive market before its manufacturing competitors do.  The disadvantages is that there are capacity balancing problems, flexibility decreases and barriers are made to market entry
   
• Co-operatives is an organisation controlled and used by individuals or groups of individuals that use it services. The advantages is that individual members can take a profit out of and they also have greater buying power. Co-operatives can obtain discounts on supplies and services for their members by using the large size as leverage. Also takes advantage of government grants. There are also some disadvantages for example is that it depends on members and if members do not participate the power of cooperative suffers.  Also, the one member one vote structure also may discourage large investors, who don’t get a bigger say in decisions even though they make a larger investment.
   
• Codes of practice

Shots- Establishing shot, CU, XCU, MS, POV, OTS

Angles- Low, High, Aerial, Canteed

Movement- Panning, Tracking, Zoom reverse, Slow motion, Hand held

Colour- Contrast, Brightness, B and W, Filters, Use of symbolic colour

Composition- Rule of thirds, Layout, Text to image ratio,

Mise en scene- Dress, Costume, Hair, Make-up, Props, Setting, Body language

Lighting- Directional, Natural, Shadows, Low key, High key

Editing- Cuts (Cutaway , Jump, match) Transitions, fade to black pace

Sounding- Diegetic, Non- diegetic, Voiceover, Sound effects, dialogue, Music

• Unlawful practice 

 People do this to access money much quicker than they would and this is mostly done by small media industries.

Its saves an awful lot of time going through documents

They can recruit family members meaning they need no documentary work

Hiring illegal people meaning they pay lower wages to them meaning they save and gain a lot of money.

• Censorship

This is the block of speech said in public communication which could be considered harmful or sensitive for example swearing.

 

• Working Independently

 

Game Industry

Game industry

Characteristics of mainstream productions/Independent and Niche  

Production

• The way game are manufactured is certainly very complex and similar to how a Hollywood film would be made. The first thing is coming up of a storyline and the best planned way to get that is creating a storyboard.  You would need to know the type of game for example the platform is going to be on like PlayStation or Xbox and whether it is a sport or shooter.
• You will need to be aware of the budget (costs) and the variety of the game meaning whether it is long or short and also of the plot meaning what is going to happen in the game and also the level of skill required e.g. rookie-world class

Distribution

• Games can be accessed from, Game, HMV, Xbox Marketplace, Play.com, Amazon, games station, PlayStation Store, ITunes, Stream, IPhone apps store, Miniclips.com and EBay
• Distribution method have changed over a period of time. Before you could only access game in local stores with a limited amount of stock. Today you can now access games online on platforms like PlayStation network, Xbox store and App store IPhone/Android.
   

Audience

• Statistics- 82% of 8-65 year olds play games
• Over 27.6 million adults play games
• Over 5 million8-15 year old play games
• Games are appealing to all sorts of audiences and it is not just male dominant as 49% of gamers are Female and 51% of gamers are male, fairly even.
   

Exhibition

• The art of video games is one of the first exhibitions to be part of the phenomenal 40 year evolution of gaming.
• This involves the interplay of graphics, technology and storytelling.

Marketing

• There is a variety of different ways of video marketing, print advertisements, merchandise, large posters/bill boards, and trailers.
• When gaming was at its starting points, it was not really eye catching in the market as its graphics wasn’t really looked at.
• Today gaming is very eye catching in its trailers as it graphics are looked at more now in this day and age. Games are usually distributed through viral marketing and guerrilla marketing.

 

 

Media sector background

Sector- Game

 

Images- 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FIFA 16

 FIFA 16 is the latest Football game In the FIFA series released by Electronic arts under the name of EA Sports. It is the newest, most unique football, “beautiful game”, there is which just got released 24^th September 2015. The FIFA series started in 1993 which has every year for 22 years, has been constantly developing its game for people that love playing one of the greatest games in history and to give those people more things to enjoy about the game each and every year. This includes adding new features to the game every year to make it more fun and excitable to play. For example the difference between FIFA 15 and this year’s FIFA 16 is that they have added…

• Defensive swing steps

            (More confidence whilst defending, bound to make fewer mistakes)  

• Slide tackles
  (Different variations and more realistic tackling in game)
   
• No touch dribbling

            (The unique way of dribbling without having to touch the ball for five star skilled    players E.G Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo)

• Angled Crosses

            (A new way to cross from different areas in the final third of the pitch)

 

• Moments of Magic

(Producing special goals in the final third of the pitch just like in real life) 

They do this every year to excite and make the game more of a fun and enjoyable session to play. They also allow a few fans to get an insight of the game, meaning being able to play the demo and allowing the fans to give there positive and negatives to improve their game. I feel this is very good because it means they respect their fans and they honestly and truly want to make it the best experience for their fans.

The game includes modes such as:  

• Ultimate Team/(Draft Mode)
• Kick Off
• Skill Games
• Pro Clubs
• Career Mode
• Season/Co-op Seasons
• Women National Tournament/Tournament
  The key new modes that FIFA have added to the game that are going to go down In history are, FIFA Ultimate Team Draft Mode and Women’s Teams.
  The positives of them adding Draft mode to Ultimate Team is that in last year FIFA they were in a crucial position nearly losing fans to Pro Evolution Soccer who they are they are competing with and really winning it right now. After take coin trading off, this really angered many fans in FIFAs most played mode causing a lot of problems. By them adding draft mode giving you a brilliant opportunity to win many prizes, they won their fans back over. This showed that they really want people that play their game to have the best experience playing there game.   
   
  They also added Women’s national teams into the game which is a great achievement not only for their game, but for gaming as a whole and to the people that have a passion for football that women are part of our football world in real life so they deserve to be in the game. 
   
  FIFA 16 can be played by anybody over the age of 3 so whether you are tall or short, strong or weak, you can still play FIFA 16. It is a game about Sport (association football).
   
  FIFA 16 have made many advertisements to get the game global. They smartly included the greatest ever footballer in one of their adverts, “Pele”, to also attract some of his fans to make them one to tune in and also play the game as well.
  They have also have located the game in some of the world top shops were people would shop and buy. In the UK there are shops like
• Game
• Tesco
• Argos
• Cex
• Sainsbury’s
   
  I think that all the FIFA fans will be happy with the new FIFA 16 as they will know that EA SPORTS have really try to improve on everything they possibly could into FIFA 16 because there was a lot of negatives in FIFA15. They will be extremely positive with the new addition of Women to the game and draft mode in ultimate team. They will be content with career mode as they would see that FIFA actually tried to improve that area and overall the fans would surely be more than happy with the game.
   
  The regularity body are responsible for what goes in and out of the game and all the actions that are made to make the game better for fans.