A few weeks ago I wrote an obscure post exploring the terms 'property' and 'platform' as they relate to new media. Since then I've been running into people who --oddly enough-- have been asking themselves similar questions.
The sudden relevance of these questions is that as the media game changes we need a stable ontology of the field in order to even talk about developments. Everybody realises that many of the old distinctions (e.g. 'content' and 'delivery') are no longer sufficient; we need new ones that take account of both the old and new games.
What follows is my attempt so far.
Properties:
A media property is
- A consumer proposition that that is owned by someone who controls its
- programming--i.e. the selection of content that is available and promoted at any time
- and often its branding
- A consumer destination, which means that, once found, consumers can always return to them if they want.
- An always-changing list of content, for which the owner takes full credit and responsibility. In the terminlology I used a long time ago, property is an aggregate.
Property owners may or may not own the content they list, and they usually don't.
Examples include websites, TV channels, radio stations, newspapers, etc.
Platforms:
A platform has
- An established user-experience paradigm--i.e. an audience practice that allows users to navigate at will in
- A nagivable space made up of properties with their own owners. In TV this is channel-flicking and the remote; in the web this is web browsers and hyperlinks. This in turn requires
- Hard boundaries between properties: in broadcasting, one station's signal can't interfere with another's; in the web, one site cannot enframe another.
- A consumer cost of entry in terms of equipment and/or fees and/or learning new practices
- A cost of entry for property owners in term of access fees, set-up, product development, distribution infrastructure, etc
- A type of consumer device
- A technical distribution network, which may be private or public
Examples include the web, broadcast TV in a specific area (but not as a whole) and cable operators (individually, but not as an industry)
A platform can be public (e.g. the web, broadcast TV in an area) or private (e.g. an MSO) but regulation can blur the difference (e.g. must-carry rules for cable).
The essence of platforms is the sense of property. Property requires rules and enforcement, which in turn requires an impartial authority. Private platforms that don't respect property rights are not full platforms--they are single-property platforms-- no matter what content they carry. I am aware of no private, unregulated full platforms.
Media:
We usually speak of "the television platform" or "the cable platform." Although the concept in such examples is different from that proposed here, it is nonetheless a useful one. Here I'll call it a medium. Platforms within the same medium:
- Have the same user-experience paradigm, i.e. the same consumer practices. Users can learn the "EPG" practice, or the "cable VOD" practice in one platform (e.g. Comcast) and use it in another (e.g. Time Warner Cable)
- Have similar content and programming requirements--i.e. the same production practices
- Generally (but not always) rely on the same technology, which means that technical products can be reused across platforms
The implication is that setting up a new platform that relies on an existing medium (or set of practices) reduced the costs of entry for both consumers and property owners. Neither needs to learn a new practice, and property owners can repurpose some of their existing products.
Media in turn can be seen as a hierarchy: broadcast and cable TV both belong to the broader medium of television. This implies that launching a new medium that can be seen as part of an existing one again reduces barriers to entry.
At this point it's worth insisting on a point I've made earlier. A medium's consumer practices are not just a matter of knowing how to use a remote control or 'finding' content. they are everthing that happens when audiences face the medium. Content is also practices: that of watching soaps, watching the news, or simply watching TV.
Missing here:
Two more key entities are needed to complete a more or less useful picture of the media industry. I won't discuss them in detail here but briefly they are:
- Content products: what goes inside properties. They are often produced and sold as aggregates and are usually targeted at a specific medium or group of media. Although many content producers see themselves as 'platform independent', the truth is that generally these platforms are all in the same medium; or else there is a specific medium that is privileged during production.
- Aggregators: players who buy content (including aggregates), generally with a medium in mind, and sell it to property owners.
This ontology is useful for exploring some current trends, but that's another post (or several).
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