Convergence May 2011 [antikvár]

Editorial [convergence! Convergence: The International Notions of Value "'"" Nev»' Media Technologies 17(2) 111-112 The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permtssion: sagepub.co.uk/joumalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1354856511401550 con.sagepub.com Following on the heels of our last issue, the special issue on 'Adaptations, Cross-Media Practices and Branded Entertainments', we have seen an e-book price war between rivals in the e-book market, Apple ipad, Barnes and Noble's Nook, Sony e-reader and Amazon kindle.co.uk. This was stopped by publishers (led by Hachette) withdrawing their distribution agreements with e-book retailers and issuing an agency agreement with the retail price fixed by them. A fixed retail price preserves profit margins, but can only be sustained by a highly instimtionalized trade and where competition laws allow it. At the moment of writing, the verdict on whether it is legal is still awaited. In another case coming under British competition law, 1990s concerns about the concentration of media ownership and its effect on cultural diversity were cited in the News Intemational and BSkyB dispute. For despite the opportunities available through internet narrowcasting, the major companies still dominate the marketplace. The question then arises of whether the content providers - publishers and broadcasters - or the distributors are limiting our freedom? Apple, Amazon, Bames & Noble are the retail windows for e-books while Apple, Amazon and Sony own the distribution technologies. So as booksellers, do they have the right to discount? Or do Hachette and HarperCollins which produce the books? Our problem is that we are looking at the individual elements rather than the system. The book is not an object or an aesthetic form but a dynamic system for commodifying ideas and cultural expressions within a multimedia marketplace. Similarly news is not a form or an object as in the news bulletin or newspaper, it is a dynamic system for locating, verifying, packaging and delivering news to a mobile and demanding audience. Nowadays few news organizations deliver to one platform. In this issue Montse Bonet and ^ ¦ co-authors David Fernández-Quijada and Xavier Ribes discuss, for instance, the case of Catalan public broadcaster iCat fm and its use of diverse technological distribution platforms to achieve its public service remit successfully. Writing for broadcast is of course different from writing for newsprint, even if the origination of the story is similar or even the same. Do the differing organizations form the digital news flow into the style of news reporting for that company? As Ivar John Erdal points out, convergent journalism has to be analysed in terms of its organizational strategies, distinguishing between cross-media communication and cross-media production processes which shape its final form. We are seeing the redefinition of the newspaper as an immaterial object and an electronic format. And today the media trade is not dealing with the death of the newspaper, but the commodification of the digital news. Yet as we have seen with the news stories coming from wikileaks, getting access to and verifying stories can be a very public business and, as a former British Prime Minister and a Royal Prince have found out this year, off-the-record comments can become embarrassing items of news. From wikis to Facebook and Twitter, social media technologies let people connect by creating and