Discuss Technology (U24: P2, M1)

(Source: Google Images)

Discuss Technology (U24: P2, M1)

Learning Outcome 1 (U24): Understand the products that are produced within and across media industries





P2 (U24): Explain the use of converging technologies within an identified sector


Convergence is a media term to define the blending fo multiple media forms into one platform for purposes of delivering a dynamic experience. For example, a smartphone is a form of convergence as it has features of a camera, internet, texting, calling, social media and an App Store with endless applications available. Convergence is used when discussing technology and the different stages of production as all the medias used today are merged and blended to allow production to be easier and more effective through better quality and successful softwares.

Advertising and marketing technologies have had a huge impact on the advertising industry as there has been a big development in different technologies such as new softwares, social media and high quality devices. This means products have become better quality and spread to a much wider audience. Due to the growth of social media in today's society it has allowed products to be advertised and marketed on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat whereby millions of people can view it and share it, thus allowing much more recognition and revenue for the brands in order to reach a wide range of target audiences.



(U24:M1) Discuss how the advertising industry has utilised developments in technologies including production technologies, marketing, distribution and ways in which audience can now access products

The development in technologies in recent years have rapidly enhanced, allowing the advertising industry to have a wider surface to work with. This is due to convergence on smartphones, tablets, computers and more.

(Source: Google Images)

With Apple products, there are apps such as iMovie and Final Cut Pro which allows the production to occur. This can not only be done on a computer or laptop, but also by iPhones and iPads which is easy, cheap and time efficient, especially when the production is finished and you can simply share it via airdrop, meal, messages or social media. For electronics that aren't an Apple product, the same can be done with simple editing apps and Adobe softwares.

Furthermore, for marketing, the growth of social media has sufficiently allowed the audiences to access their products through Instagram, Twitter and other social media account. Unlike in the past where the only form of marketing was print ads or radio advertising, when aiming to market a product today social media is a big hit as many people can view it and share the account with their followers and gain more awareness of the product. Social media is something that so many people are attached to, hence why hashtags (#) is a successful way to market your product. Popular on Twitter, people find it interesting to view the latest hashtag trends and share it around which creates more awareness and audience members for your product. The hashtags could also be used by influencers which create more recognition for the product.

(Source: Google Images)

(Source: Google Images)

Another way that the advertising industry has utilised developments in technologies is QR codes. QR codes where introduced in 1994 for quick responses and this has definitely been enhanced today for the advertising industry. It allows the audience to be interactive and enjoy a different and unique style of advertisement. The QR code can be scanned from an audience member's phone and shared amongst more people, which is great for marketing purposes. We can see the use of QR codes within the 'Avengers Endgame' advertising campaign where you would scan the QR code to lead to you to a page with the trailer and a place to book your tickets to view the movie. This not only a form of convergence, but it is a way that the advertising industry has utilised developments in technology to market and distribute their productions.



Within the new technology of smartphones the camera quality has enhanced massively, especially for smartphones such as the Google Pixel 4, Samsung Galaxy S20 and iPhone 11 Max where the cameras may even be better then professional cameras like Sony. With this use of convergence within smartphones, the camera and video system can be used for your production which is not only cheaper, but also time efficient. The production can easily be edited on an app or when linked up to a computer in the post-production stage. There has been a few movies that were successfully filmed solely by a smartphone like 'Tangerine' (iPhone 5s) and 'Unsane' (iPhone 7).

(Source: Google Images)

(Source: Google Images)