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spotlight: is it prime time for tv? an MIT professor and student essay a guess | |||||||||||||||||||||||
I want my geek tv: what happens when television becomes available on-demand |
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In two new online essays, Professor Henry Jenkins, director of MIT's Comparative Media Studies Program, and Ivan Askwith, a graduate student and media analyst discuss the future of television.
Henry Jenkins, director of MIT's Comparative Media Studies Program Fans now generate more publicity for new TV shows than big corporate campaigns, and their growing influence promises to create new alliances between citizen-viewers and producers -- but networks are not necessarily embracing these changes, according to Henry Jenkins, director of MIT's Comparative Media Studies Program and the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities. In an essay titled "I Want My Geek TV," Jenkins outlines how fans, producers and television networks currently tug at the global entertainment fabric when new shows are introduced, extended or canceled. Jenkins describes a world of subscription TV, in which "viewers commit to pay a monthly fee to watch a season of episodes delivered into their homes via broadband," bonding producers' interests to theirs. But, Jenkins points out, "Social, cultural, economic and legal factors also help determine what kinds of media change actually occur." See Professor sees static in future from the MIT News Office or read the full text of Jenkins' essay online at Flow. Ivan Askwith, a graduate student in literature and a media analyst with MIT's Convergence Culture Consortium Network TV is dead! Long live network TV! Since Apple announced on Oct. 12 that certain TV programs would be sold through iTunes, the same source that fills iPods with music, iTunes customers have purchased more than 1 million videos of their favorite ABC-Disney shows. With Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! set to dance to the iTunes tune -- selling television content online, on demand -- it seems the era of recliners, remote controls and ratings is coming to an end. In an essay appearing online in Slate on Nov. 1, Askwith suggests that what is coming is a "new age of television in which fans have the power to keep their favorite series in production, and producers have the opportunity to create more elaborate, controversial and innovative programs." Fans are gaining power from their wallets. Purchasing episodes of favorite shows provides production funds. This, in turns, fuels more creativity, he says. "The iTunes distribution model gives the networks a huge opportunity to reinvent themselves," he writes in his essay for Slate, titled, "TV You'll Want to Pay For." See Technology will save TV, student says from the MIT News Office or read the full text of Askwith's essay online at Slate. |
 Henry Jenkins, director of CMS: I want my geek tv!
 Ivan Askwith, grad student and media analyst: TV You'll Want to Pay For |
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