Chris Lederer & Megan Brownlow, ‘’A World of Differences’: Special Report: Global Entertainment & Media Outlook 2016-2020’. Price Waterhouse Cooper

This week’s reading looks at entertainment and media companies and how the will fit in the diverse areas of growth and shifts in cultural and societal norms. It looks at how age and youth can affect the potential expansion of certain platforms, technologies, and companies, as well as the shift other platforms would have to take in order to continue functioning in the changing marketplace. It also looks at the entertainment and media companies use of and creation of content, and how the content is consumed. All of this looking through the lens of geography, and how countries, especially countries with a developing GDP, are dealing with entertainment and media companies in terms of business and spending, consumerism, and a local content production industry.

One of the aspects of the reading I found most informative was an aspect of the reading that dealt with business models and how previously working models are becoming outdated and obsolete. These old, traditional models are having to transform and rebuild in order to maintain relevance in the market, becoming hybrid companies, dealing with a large multitude of differing and variable content and technology being demanded by a more active, more discerning consumer. One of the areas, which I hadn’t even realised, was the very large shift in direction for marketing and advertising. Where once the marketing agency dealt with the “big picture ideas”, ideas that would appeal to a large, inclusive demographic, are now having to deal with the likes of Google and Facebook, and their methods of directed advertising thanks to algorithms processing and learning our wants and needs from the way we communicate with technology and how and what media we individually enjoy. These new methods could seriously undermine marketing and advertising companies that cannot keep up with shifting cultural ideals and societal attitudes.

After an unhealthily long time, I have managed to get back into my dusty and barely used blog from years ago, just in time to post this:

Klaus Schwab, 2016, The Fourth Industrial Revolution (World Economic Forum), pp.14-26, 47-50, 67-73, 91-104

This week’s reading sees a broad overview of the megatrends, major movements and trends in a global sense, and the digital industry and economy that is forming. It looks at the various ways that this “Fourth Industrial Revolution” and the speedy rise of connected technologies and the “internet of things” can and has affected governmental bodies and national economies, through things like the transfer of money and the birth of decentralised payment methods, the transparency of government proceedings and foreign relations and data mining and privacy breeching, to a changed job market brought about by a more on-demand economy. Then there are the ways shifting technologies can affect society, mainly how this new technology and digital lifestyle can affect the distribution and retention of personal and/or private information, how it might affect people’s social skills and ability to empathize through the human connection, and majorly, how it can affect communities, in all senses of the word, and how they can empower and disempower citizens in different ways.

One of the issues I began to debate in my head was brought up early on the reading. The first subsection of the reading dealt with the new innovations and trends in the physical world, from driver-less cars to 3D printing and advanced robotics. During my first read through, I was drawn to this section purely out of amazement of what the technology could do and how exponential the rise of creation had become due to these technologies building and connecting with each other. It wasn’t until the second look, after having read the sections on how new technology could affect both economies and individuals, did I note how these new technologies were not just mere expansions of previous technologies, but could in fact shift the current notions and basics of industry and completely revolutionise, in both positive and negative ways, how the economy and corporations, from factory workers to scientists and engineers and creatives and performers. New jobs in fields no one have yet dreamed of arise, whilst others become obsolete. Practices and teachings completely reworked due to key pieces of new technology, technology that could become obsolete within years of inception. The global marketplace as we currently see it may be unrecognizable in just a few decades’ time.