CCT300+Lab2

CCT300 Second Assignment

The reason why the definition of genre in the digital field becomes increasingly blurred and controversial is because of digital convergence. Take iPhone as an example; it is not only a phone, but also an MP3 player, a camera, a web browser, a hardware that can run applications like a computer, a voting device to support Obama of his political campaign. It is virtually anything of what it can be used for.

The ability to converge multiple functions onto a single device challenges the traditional concept of genre: how we classify certain objects based on their functionality, property or appearance. What if one thing entails certain elements/characteristics of another? Is it still what it is? Is it transforming to another entity? Or can it be both? However, when you dig down into the digital world, there are no boundaries between images, audio or videos, because all forms of media exist in the simplest form of binary code. In other words, the definitions which we assign to different digital medium according to their tangible properties we perceived in reality, might be completely unnecessary because it all boils down to the computations of zeros and ones.

I personally believe that digital convergence contributes to the gradual shift from identifying products by their functions to that through brands. We are already giving abstract names to digital devices (ex: Mac, iPad …) that describe vaguely what they do. In the future, the companies likely will create their own type of “genre” of digital commodity by creating a unique mix of functionalities that are catered to the user’s experience or the company’s image.