Author of numerous scholarly and professional publications, including articles on new media technology, journalism and health communication, Dr John V Pavlik is the executive director of The Centre for New Media at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. More recently, Dr Pavlik and his students worked with APB News on a collaborative project to use 360 degree video and other new media tools to report via the Internet (www.apbnews.com) on the 1999 slaying of West African immigrant Amadou Diallo. He talked about convergence of media in relation to India in an interview with Kavitha Venkatraman of the Financial Express. Excerpts:Convergence seems to be happening across the globe bringing a transition in the industry.But where does India stand in terms of the level of convergence vis-a-vis other countries?
The rate of adoption of the Internet is often considered to be the level of convergence. Based on that, I would say the level of convergence in India to be around one-tenth of a per cent, whereas in the US it is about 53 per cent. Scandanavian countries including Iceland, Sweden and Norway also enjoy high rate of convergence, which is about 45 per cent. However, India is much ahead of Indonesia and other African countries, where convergence has just begun.
Where do you see India five years from now?
With adequate investments flowing in, year-on-year there should be a growth of at least 10 per cent. But this could probably be accelerated with adoption of newer technologies especially the DTH (direct to home), as it provides high speed Internet connectivity.
What kind of investment is required? And what can the government do to encourage such development?
To achieve at least 10 per cent growth, India would require approximately US $5 billion and the investment should increase over a period of time. As a step towards promoting e-commerce and convergence the government can look at relaxing some of its policies which would improve both the private sector participation and foreign investments. Like in the US, the Indian government can try to bring in tax exemptions for products being bought and sold online.
As convergence is posing a great threat to the print and television media, What kind of model would you prescribe for the country?
Convergence will definitely affect the bottom line of both the print and television media, as on one hand it will affect the circulation revenue and on the other the advertisement revenue. Protecting the digital content and privacy are some of the other problems industry will be facing. So a system that would reflect the tradition of India and at the same time provide connectivity to the rest of the world should be in place.
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