Media Convergence

Media convergence has been happeneing for a number of years - in the media industry, convergence means that the various types of media are coming together. This is due to the progress of technology over the past years. eg. computers can show much of what televisions can show due to the internet.
Many different media industries are trying to take advantage of this fact and produce and distribute their products over different media paths.
An example of this are newspapers. Newspapers have been a dying media format due to technology, and so try and use the internet to publish internet articles to keep up with other media industries, and as technology progresses they also offer video services and audio podcasts.

This 'old media' had a force seperating the media industries and the audience as the audience did not understand how to interact with the media except by receiving it. Although the 'new media' allows the audience to do more than just interact with the media, it allows them to be part of it. The audience can provide their own media in one way or another be it a video podcast or an animation made by them.

Independent films like 'Monsters' and 'Paranormal Activity' are usually filmed with low budgets where everything of the film (written, directed edited etc) are done bya small group of people. 'Monsters' was directed, edited and written by the same person (Gareth Edwards) where he edited the film on his home computer in his house. This shows the power and progress of technology.

Many other movies are distributed in ways that they use the web 2.0 to advertise. Websites such as Youtube and Facebook are good examples as they are widely popular. Distributing companies put trailers and other forms of advertisment on these websites to promote their film.
Although Youtube and Web 2.0 also allows the usual audience to create their own material and show it to the world - In todays world the possibilites of what you can do with the media are endless.