Information, Telecommunication Technologies and Media Convergence Challenges: Perspectives on the Creative Content Industries

Examples of convergence of the Telecommunications, Media and Information Technology sectors were already apparent 5 years ago although these started occurring over 15 years ago; the Internet, Mobile, smart phone, Google revolutions. It is all about Internet blogging and personalised radio stations and camera-equipped mobile phones that enable video clips of news being broadcasted in almost real-time as well as movies becoming video games and video games turning into movies. This section of the publication is on identifying the implications of convergence on society and on assessing the role that Information Society technologies could play in this respect; it will also raise awareness as to the need to reconsider policies in this area. A description of selected convergence drivers, trends and processes in relation to the Creative Content Industries area will be presented and followed by qualitative and some quantitative examples in relation to the way technologies shape the convergence of ICTs and Media sectors. Finally, a number of issues such as availability and usability of online content, trade-offs between diffusion and control as well as the growing importance of User-generated content will be discussed.JRC.DDG.J.4-Information Societ