August
2008
Convergence0
“I am so busy.” “I don’t know if I’ll have time to do that.” “There are just not enough hours in a day.” These are sayings that are just all too familiar in society and something that is heard and said a little too often. Why are we always in a rush and for what reasons? A rush to live life, yet we’re not living if we are always too aware and too worried about time constraints.
Society has changed and will continue changing whether that is for better or worse. The busy, hectic, modern 21st century lifestyle is the reason why convergence is happening in the newsroom. With the latest technology so readily accessible and busy lifestyles, society is demanding convenience. The convenience to access unfolding news stories 24 hours a day 7 days a week on demand, accessing television programs when we want with Foxtel IQ and controlling what we want to read and see not what we are told to see and do. This has caused a culture shift in society as we begin controlling companies and news content, and filtering through what we want, when we want compared to 10 years ago where television station believed if they could get a family to watch the evening news that they would stay tuned to that channel for the entire night.
The culture shift in society “with time more scarce than money,” (Steven Quinn) and a push by the audience as we become the generation of information overload has seen companies adopting convergence in order to keep up to speed with their audience and not fall behind.
Society looks for change and innovation and isn’t merely threatened by it in fact embraces it. Unlike the older generation whom are wary and some what threatened by change. We are a generation accustomed to change, a generation who continues to look for change and better ways of doing things. Are we a generation naïve to the facts that change may not be the answer to progressing our future but instead it can be seen as eliminating the social structures built around human interaction? Should we be wary of too much change in too little time?
