Digital media, nation-states and local cultures: the case of multimedia `content' production

Abstract

This article explores how, in an era of increased globalization with respect to investment, trade and `flows' of certain goods and services, nation-states and cultural factors still play an important, if somewhat changing, role in relation to the development of content for new multimedia platforms. This article critically engages with the `global march of technology' thesis as it applies to the field of multimedia `content' applications. We define this multimedia applications field as both an emerging new media industry and a new cultural form which (like the mature media) offers a potential public space for the negotiation of cultural values and forms of identity. We are mainly concerned with the application of multimedia technologies for the production of cultural products aimed at final users in the home and the implications of current globalization trends for diversity of content and local cultures. The article also addresses aspects of national and EU public policies related to the support of the digital `content' industry. To explore these concerns, this article draws upon a detailed case study conducted over a period of two years in the Irish branch of a multinational software company. One team in this branch was involved in the localization of different forms of on-line information developed for the American market but reedited for different European markets.

Where the Art is: Defining and Managing Creativity in New Media SMEs

“…The diverse and fastgrowing sub-sector of 'new media' 1 is chosen as a case through which to analyse the issue of creativity. While new media production is only one of many activities routinely categorised as a 'creative industry', given the rapid growth of this sub-sector and its increasing convergence and integration with other sub-sectors (Preston & Kerr, 2001;Pratt, 2000;Scott, 2000), we suggest an analysis of creativity in new media firms may offer some pertinent insights that could be tested more broadly across the creative industries.…”

Transnational organization and symbolic production: Creating and managing a global brand

“…Indeed, the global-local logics of the market point to the transnational production of localized spaces, identities, and experiences that facilitate the "continuity of flow" (Harvey 1985, 145) between global production and local consumption. In this regard, and despite the global cosmopolitanizing efforts of many involved in multinational corporatism, 'geography still matters' in a very real sense as local and national specificities continue to shape production and consumption processes in many sectors in different ways (Preston & Kerr 2001; see also Caves 1998).…”

Multiple Media, Convergent Processes, and Divergent Products: Organizational Innovation in Digital Media Production at a European Firm

“…Some studies have begun to shed light on the limitations of looking at convergence as an end state of media homogenization (Benkler 1998;Deuze 2004;Gordon 2003;Higgins 2000;Jenkins 2001;Preston and Kerr 2001;Zavoina and Reichert 2000). In his study of online newspapers, Boczkowski (2004, 17) has argued that these newspapers have unfolded "in an ongoing process in which different combinations of initial conditions and local contingencies have led to divergent trajectories."…”