Digital Convergence and its Consequences

Milton L Mueller

1/01/2005
(Original Publish Date: 2000)

Convergence, the digital takeover of communication and information, produces a new kind of interchangeability and interconnectedness among different media forms. The rise of digital media results in: the coming together, in a single application or service, of information content from telephony, sound broadcasting, television, motion pictures, photography, printed text publishing, and electronic money; a growing degree of overlap in the functions that can be performed by different telecommunications networks; and a growth in the interactivity and interoperability and of different networks and information appliances in the home and the office.