This was my first attempt at finding a theme for my MA thesis. I changed the focus of the thesis later. But since it is already written, maybe I can develop it later ;)
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What is WebTV (in brief)
The term “WebTV” is used to generally describe the distribution of video contents over an IP network, which can be a closed network (like a corporate LAN) or the internet (on a website).
Along with WebTV also IPTV and Internet TV have been used. There is not a very clear distinction between them. However, IPTV is used more often when referring to subscription based broadband services like digital TV, supplied by large telecom providers. Internet TV or WebTV are mostly used to refer to free services such as YouTube.
The WebTV distribution model is open to any rights holder. The distributed contents can be provided by traditional media content producers, by an institution or by any of its individual users. In fact, user generated contents are the most common.
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What is institutional communication (in brief)
Institutional communication is focused on building or reinforcing a strong and positive image of an organization among public opinion. It emphasises the vision, mission, values and philosophy of the organization to capture consumers’ confidence. It increases the organization’s credibility and socio-political influence.
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What is marketing communication (in brief)
Marketing communication is directed to an external audience or market, focused on product positioning or branding, in order to generate demand.
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My motivation
Throughout my professional experience as a communication designer I’ve noticed that corporations, private companies and also public institutions have been moving on from producing only text based communication towards producing their own audiovisual contents and distributing them over closed IP networks or the World Wide Web.
Corporations such as Millenium BCP (1) and Hewlett-Packard (2) have developed own internal TV channels. Universities in USA have also launched publicly available online TV channels, for example the ones from University of Indiana or from University of California. Even traditional print newspapers and magazines have already started producing their own video contents - see Expresso Multimedia (3) or Elle Magazine (4) - hosting them in popular video sites like YouTube and Veoh.
(1) The major private bank in Portugal.
(2) I’m referring to the portuguese branch of HP.
(3) Expresso is the major weekly newspaper in Portugal.
(4) Elle is a major fashion magazine.
So, communication is taking a quick leap into a new media: Web TV and online video.
I believe that in the following years the publication and communication departments of different kinds of organizations will increase their usage of video contents as a means of internal or external communication and self promotion.
Just below I’m posting a link to a creative personal annual report by Cristina Braga, a student of Digital Culture at the Fine Art School of the University of Porto - Portugal (5). The way I see it, this could be a real annual report video made for a company. Maybe... Toys 'R Us?
(5) Information via infosthetics
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Questions I'm posing
- “Why should organizations create their own WebTV channels?”
- “How can organizations use their WebTV channels for their institutional and marketing communication?”
- “Can WebTV channels be an effective media for organizations’ communication needs?”
- “How can the audience interact with information supplied by this media?”
- “What kind of contents can be created by an interacting audience?”
