The Development Of Digital Communication Technologies And The Evolution Of Media Convergence

Media convergence, a trend in the field of journalism and mass communication, has been a research focus in the academia. The goal of this dissertation is to interpret the evolution process and connotation of media convergence, and to speculate its implications for communication innovation, from a technological perspective. It first reviews the conception of media convergence, and posits that technological advancement is the foremost dynamic that drives media metamorphosis. There are clear correlations between mainstream technological systems and media forms of different times. Media convergence, accordingly, marks a new change in media form brought about by emerging digital technologies. Then, the paper examines the impacts and limitations of pre-digital technologies on traditional mass media, and the link between digital technologies and new media. The new media group phenomenon, supported by digital communication technologies, serves as a foundation for media convergence. The overall media evolution process may be divided into three phases:(1) media coordination in the mechanical and analog age, (2) media convergence in the current digital age, and (3) media integration in the future post-digital age. Next, the author analyzes convergence at diverse levels including content, channel, and device. How such convergence alters the relationship between communicator and audience, and how it changes communication models also are discussed, with an example of three new convergent media. Finally, the dissertation summarizes the historical logic of technological development and media evolution, and proposes a "dual circulation" model.