Key Terms

Covergence of Technology - Previously separate technologies that now share resources and interact with each other synergistically. A more basic way of putting it would be the coming together of new media technologies. For example, the recent rise of digital communication has made it possible for media organizations (or individuals) to deliver text, audio, and video material over the same wired, wireless, or fiber-optic connections. When in the past, the functions of a telephone were very basic (voice only)

Synergy - the coming together of two seperate media texts in such a way as to benefit both. For example, the simultaneous release of a film and a film soundtrack will stimulate a greater consumer interest. This is proved by The film Titanic included the song 'My Heart Will Go On' by Celine Dion, released as a single from her album Let's Talk About Love had stimulated a greater concumer interest in the song, as the album sold approximately 23 million copies, globally.

Conglomerate - An international company with a wide and varied range of commercial interests. For example, News Corporation, with its transcntinental interest in tyhe publishing of books, magazines and newspapers, film and television production and satellite broadcasting.

Globalisation - The growing tendency of industrial and commercial companies to merge and operate on an international rather than a national or regional basis.

Analogue Music - A method of recording visual and sound images.

Digitalisation - the representation of an object, image, sound, document or a signal (usually an analog signal) by a discrete set of its points or samples. The term digitization is often used when diverse forms of information, such as text, sound, image or voice, are converted into a single binary code.

Vertical Integration - The merger or takeover of companies operating at different stages of the production/distribution process. Total vertical integration gives a company control of a product from raw materials to distribution. For example, in media industries, the takeover by a newspaper owner of a distribution service and retail outkets such as newsagents would be vertical integration.

Horizontal Integration - The merger of competing companies from the same line of business and involved at the same level of activity. Mergers or take-overs that would allow particular companies to dominate a market and create a monopoly are subject to laws restricting ownership and government regulation. For example, the merger of Carlton and Granada to form ITV plc.

Niche audience – Targeting a small but significant group of people.

Mainstream audience – the uncontroversial generally accepted attitudes, beliefs and values of the majority of the population.

Fan – A person who has a strong interest in or admiration for a particular sport, art form, or famous person.

Active audience - any of various theories of audience behaviour that see the audience as active participants in the process of decoding and making sense of media text.

Audiophiles - An audiophile is a person who has a great interest in high-fidelity sound reproduction

Early adopters - A person who starts using a product or technology as soon as it becomes available

Consumption – The purchase and use of goods and services by the public

Web 2.0 – social media are media for social interaction, using highly accessable and scalable publishing techniques

Meta tags / personalisation - HTML coding embedded in the site in order to provide search engine spiders with keyword information.

Download – the act or process of copying data in such a way

Streaming – A method of relaying data (esp. video and audio material) over a computer network as a steady continuous stream, allowing playback to proceed while subsequent data is being received

Peer to peer – Peer-to-peer (P2P) is a term that originated from the popular concept of peer-to-peer computer application design, popularized by the large distributed file sharing systems, such as Napster.

Piracy - The unauthorized use or reproduction of another's work

Multi track - An audio tape which holds more than one track of audio information.

Sampling – The technique of digitally encoding music or sound and reusing it as part of a composition or recording.

Digital audio workstation - Originated in the early 1980s, the term digital audio workstation (DAW) originally referred to a tape-less, computer-based system such as New England Digital's Synclavier and Fairlight that used hard drives for media storage
Artists and repertoire – this is the division of a record label that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists. It also acts as a liaison between artists and the record label.


Record deal –Contract – A recording contract (commonly called a record deal) is a legal agreement between a record label and a recording artist (or group), where the artist makes a record (or series of records) for the label to sell and promote.
Royalties – Sums of money paid to a patentee for the use of a patent or to an author or composer for each copy of a book sold or for each public performance of a work or in the music business, songs played.

Distribution – the company or organisation responsible for buying a film from the producers and distributing it.

Plugging / marketing – The transmission of information about a media text to a target audience in such a way as to maximise the appeal to that audience.