Television in the era of digital media convergence: a reflection about community communication

Author(s)

Deisy Fernanda Feitosa

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Escola de Comunicações e Artes (ECA/SBD)
• Defense date: 2015-07-02

Examining board members

Sérgio Bairon Blanco Sant'Anna; Willians Cerozzi Balan; Vicente Gosciola; Artur Matuck; Almir Antonio Rosa

• Advisor: Sérgio Bairon Blanco Sant'Anna

Abstract

With the emergence of the binary system and the convergence of digital media, communication devices such as cellular phones, computers and even television receivers have now taken on more than just the main functions for which each was developed. They are now part of, due to the interoperability between systems and the Internet, systems of which services and languages are now integrated to as well. If one was to focus entirely on television, it can be observed that television watching has now received new forms. The device itself is separate from the content. The TV signal moves away from its physical form and begins to navigate on the binary field. Thus, it is emancipated of its material form - the television device - and can now be seen on other platforms and devices, hence raising the signal\'s distribution and the possibilities of return channels to transmitters and receivers. This research has closely followed the digital television implementation scenario in Brazil and in the world, and observes the influences and transformations in introduced to society\'s daily routine and to the public arena by the digital system and the Internet. The thesis is structured in five parts that run through the different aspects related to television: its timeline and history, the technological principles that command its operation, the languages that distinguish it, its placement in the converging scenario, and is influence in society\'s daily routine. This project presents the result of a case study performed in 2014, during my Research Internship at the University of Sapienza, in Rome. It also includes data gathered during technical visits to the universities in Brighton and Portsmouth. This stage of the research allowed me to observe the current panorama of these countries in loco, two years after the switch off. It also gave me the opportunity to analyze the relationship of the Italians and the English with television media, as well as with other digital communications media and the relationship/opening of the television transmitters of each country to new transmission modalities of content on digital platforms. In order to perform this leg of the research, in addition to searching in bibliographical sources, I interviewed researchers and professionals of the radio broadcasting and telecommunications fields, who had directly participated in the analogue-digital TV transition process. In this thesis, I also present a report of a field study done in the East Side of São Paulo city. This study was developed with the help of educators and pupils of Intermídia Cidadã, a collaboration that belongs to the Community Communication Nucleus of the Tide Setubal Foundation. The experience, based on the Shared Production of Information, was helpful to showcase the arrival of digital television and the analogue blackout. It was also useful to consider the content of public TV in Brazil and to analyze the possibilities now available through digital TV for community communication. This research, of qualitative and quantitative intent, applied comparative and experimental methods and collected data through surveys, audio and video interviews, workshops, debates and bibliographic research. Among the authors mentioned, I would like to make special reference to the following: Mikhail Bakhtin, Lúcia Santaella, Sérgio Bairon, Arlindo Machado, Jesús Martín-Barbero, Gérman Rey, Nicholas Negroponte, Arlindo Machado, Eugênio Bucci, Manuel Castells, Clay Shriky, Henry Jenkins, Alberto Marinelli, Néstor García Canclini, Almir Almas, Jay David Bolter, Richard Grusin, Walter Benjamin, Rafael Ruiz and Márcia Tiburi. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 12/20856-4 - Digital TV and Hypermedia: A New Language, A New Community
• Grantee: Deisy Fernanda Feitosa Roman
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate