Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies current issue

Editorial

Knight, J., Weedon, A. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:46:05 PDT

Working Notions of Active Audiences: Further Research on the Active Participant in Convergent Media Industries

Sundet, V. S., Ytreberg, E. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:46:05 PDT

Recent research on the media industries has been centrally concerned with the blurring of boundaries between production and reception in an era of digitalization and convergence. The article argues for a need for research to consider more closely the importance of notions of the ‘active audience’ within today’s media industries. Overall conceptual work has been done on ‘convergence culture’, and much scholarly debate currently centres around the pros and cons of convergence; whether it empowers ‘produsers’ or the industries themselves. Important as they are, these debates run the risk of stagnation if they are not informed by further empirical research on the concrete ways that media institutions put ‘activity’ to strategic use. The article reports from a survey on how notions of activity, sociability and technological novelty function as strategic ‘working notions’ for Norwegian media industry executives.

The De/Stabilization of Identity in Online Fan Communities: Article

Whiteman, N. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:46:05 PDT

This article explores the negotiation of fan identity within two internet-based fan communities (the television fan site City of Angel and videogame fan site Silent Hill Heaven) in responses to two destabilizing events (the ‘Save Angel’ campaign and the release of the Silent Hill film). The article explores three aspects of the posting activity relating to these events: the ways that members, at times, constitute what it is to be a fan through the reification of their own agency; the ways that posters conceptualize external threats to their own interests; and the ways that they respond to internal challenges to the stability of these settings. Developing a relational approach to the study of fan identity, the article examines how these moves are tied into ongoing struggles for legitimacy within these sites.

Convergence Revisited: Toward a Modified Pattern of Communications Governance

Latzer, M. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:46:05 PDT

This article revisits the nature and governance implications of the convergence phenomenon more than a decade after it gained major prominence in politics and research. It analyses the reforms undertaken in reaction to convergence, outlines their common features, and argues that a worldwide trend towards a modified common governance pattern for convergent communications markets is emerging. The major constituent components include integrated strategies, control structures and legal frameworks for the convergent communications sector; a technology-neutral functional taxonomy; a subdivision into transmission and content regulation; and a growing reliance on alternative modes of regulation such as self- and co-regulation.

'Waiting for the Kiss of Life': Mobile Media and Advertising

Wilken, R., Sinclair, J. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:46:05 PDT

Mobile media, especially cellphones, are now seen and heard everywhere, forming an intrinsic part of the daily lives and habits of billions of people worldwide. Curiously, despite this wide diffusion and remarkable rate of adoption, as an advertising platform the cellphone is, in the words of one commentator, still very much ‘a mass medium waiting for the kiss of life’. This article examines why this is the case, by exploring the ‘complex mobile phone ecosystem’ and the factors that contribute to the rather hesitant adoption of mobile advertising, with particular attention to the inherent conflicts amongst the interested parties in the system. It does this through a meta-analysis of themes and issues evinced in mainstream media and the advertising trade press. Study of this data is supplemented by drawing on a number of critical studies within the available research literature on the subject.

Media Crisis Management in Traditional and Digital Newsrooms

Olsson, E.-K. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:46:05 PDT

By comparing two newsrooms’ responses, one with a traditional mode of production and one with a digital, to the terror attacks of 9/11, this article demonstrates that newsrooms, in contrast to what previous research tells us, differ in their ability to cover crisis events. Drawing upon findings from previous research on how news organizations cope with extraordinary — and crisis — events, the study explains news desks’ ability to cope with the disruptions of everyday deadlines caused by ‘disaster marathon modes’ of reporting, based on organizational everyday structures and previous experiences. The study concludes that a digital newsroom designed to handle 24 hour reporting does not necessarily nor automatically have a suitable structure to deal with a crisis event. Rather, in this particular case the structure used for 24/7 coverage, based on journalists’ independence and decentralization, was directly counterproductive when dealing with a crisis event.

New Media for New Organs: A Virtual Community for Pediatric Post-Transplant Patients

Bers, M. U. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:46:05 PDT

This article describes an eight-month pilot study in which 19 pediatric post-transplant patients at Children’s Hospital Boston, ages 11 to 15, used a computer-based psychosocial intervention developed on the Zora 3D multiuser environment. Zora provides tools to create an online virtual city and populate it with houses and personally-meaningful objects. Users can communicate with each other via real-time chat and participate in open-ended guided activities to create a social network of peers. Preliminary results support the idea that innovative technologies can help adolescent patients to create a support network of peers when face-to-face interactions are impossible.

Banal Bohemia: Blogging from the Ivory Tower Hot-Desk

Gregg, M. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:46:05 PDT

While academic blogging has emerged as a distinct genre in the past few years (Walker, 2006), a notable gap exists between those who blog from secure positions within the profession and PhD and junior faculty bloggers whose employment status is more marginal. This article draws on subcultural theory to discuss the unique features of these two latter types and the functions they serve for their authors. The analysis demonstrates that blogs are important sites of support for those who aspire to and currently work in academia at the same time as they are a powerful indictment of the job conditions experienced therein. The article therefore concludes by suggesting that the positive aspects of collegiality and solace taking place online for a new generation of scholars risk remaining disconnected from an effective labour politics — one that could change the very nature of the grievances blogs appear so well designed to express.

Review: Bruce Bennett, Marc Furstenau and Adrian MacKenzie (eds). Cinema and Technology: Cultures, Theories, Practices. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008. 265 pages, ISBN 13--978--0--230--52477--4

Brereton, P. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:46:05 PDT

Book Review: David Buckingham. Beyond Technology: Children's Learning in the Age of Digital Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007. 209 pages, ISBN 13--978--07456--3880--5 (hbk), ISBN 13--978--07456--3881--2 (pbk)

Jacques, K. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:46:05 PDT