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Media
First it was the nosy neighbor next door, then the town crier, Guttenberg came along and we starting killing millions of trees for books, newspapers, and other media that helped us understand our place in the world. Hundreds of years later, television made that world a much smaller place and the nightly news told us "and that's the way it is...". Vietnam brought war into our living rooms, a man walked on the moon, and the media documented the social restructuring that has repeatedly occurred over successive generations. CNN replaced the world's intelligence agencies and we became bombarded with a million pieces of information 24/7 that confused us more than ever. The Internet made it a million times worse and handheld cameras and billions of cell phones now do much of the reporting for us. Along the way, progress is dismantling all the old institutions that killed all those trees and we have seemingly come full circle... back to the nosy neighbor... and she is us. Now what?
Technology
We live in a world where anyone from anywhere using any device can communicate with anyone in any format instantly. Music, cinema, news, broadcast journalism – there are no sacred cows any more - or so my learned colleagues would have you believe. While other departments take you to the brave new world each month, here we will ask fundamental questions about making the rubber meet the road. Sometimes fun, sometimes painfully mundane, sometimes provocatively off the wall, we will explore the teleology of technology – the art and science of the purpose behind technological advances that keep this industry’s wheels turning, and the bytes flowing through the proverbial pipes.
Content is Everything
What is Digital Content... exactly? A product, a service, a combination, or something else entirely? Should the market be regulated or should it just be allowed to evolve in one big free for all? There are millions of questions and every answer creates ten more to think about. Here we will give you a 360-degree point of view of the issues surrounding Digital Content and explore them from every angle: content creators, service providers, aggregators, distributors, and consumer alike.
Pump Up the Volume: Music as Digital Media
Music is an essential and fundamental part of the human experience. Historically, new technology and music have always intersected, creating new art forms and artistic explorations. In recent years, the explosion of digital media will fundamentally reshape music as an art, as a business, and as entertainment. Each month, we’ll look at the technology, the people, and the art form to see what changes are here and just over the horizon.