Media Industry Sectors

The media industry is the group of businesses that create and share media products. It is divided into two groups of sectors: traditional media and new media.

Traditional does not mean old-fashioned, and it does not mean the work is done without computers. A magazine may be designed on a computer, yet print publishing stays traditional because the finished copies are printed on paper. Digital tools are just equipment; they do not change when the sector began.

Computer games, interactive media, the internet and digital publishing are still classed as new media even though they are now everyday parts of life, because none of them could exist without computers.

A media product is something a media organisation creates and shares, such as a film, a game or an eBook. It does not have to be a physical object: a downloaded game or a streamed film is still a media product.

One product across several sectors

An organisation can use more than one sector to reach the same goal. A publisher might release a printed mystery story for 9 to 12 year olds, sell an eBook version through digital publishing, and launch a computer game based on the same characters. The story is adapted for each sector, but it is still the same media product underneath. Combining traditional and new media in this way helps the organisation reach more people and earn more from a single idea.

Film is a traditional media sector usually associated with cinema. It covers the making and showing of films, from short dramas to full-length features.

Film includes small independent productions and large commercial productions. An independent production is often made by a small team outside the biggest studios, such as a three-person crew filming a documentary about a local market. A commercial production is made by a larger company with more money and staff, aiming to sell tickets to a wide audience, such as a big animated adventure.

How film has evolved

Early films were captured on long strips of light-sensitive plastic. The reels were cut and joined by hand, then physically taken to cinemas before audiences saw them. A modern film-maker can edit footage on a laptop and then send the finished film to a cinema as a computer file or deliver it online. Production and delivery have become digital, but the sector still makes films for audiences.

Why film is still traditional

Film is a traditional media sector because it began before computers and the internet. It now depends on digital technology, but editing footage on a laptop or adding computer-generated effects does not make it new media. The sector existed long before those tools, so it stays traditional.

Television and radio are traditional media sectors. They began before computers and the internet, but they now use digital technology too, so traditional does not mean old-fashioned or free of computers.

Both sectors make programmes and broadcast them to a schedule. A schedule is a planned list of programmes with set times, so you know when to tune in. For example, a local station might schedule a breakfast show, a lunchtime request show and an evening music programme.

Television and radio also produce more than entertainment. They make adverts and news bulletins. A channel might show an advert break during a quiz programme, then a news bulletin with the latest headlines. A radio station might play an advert for a nearby swimming pool between songs. These adverts and bulletins are part of what the sectors produce, not separate industries.

How television and radio have evolved

Recording and broadcasting have changed. Television and radio used to record on tape and broadcast analogue signals carried by radio waves. Now they record digitally and broadcast digital signals. The programmes, schedules, adverts and news bulletins are still made, but the technology used to record and send them has changed.

Digital television and radio signals are received by an aerial or a satellite dish. An aerial picks up signals from a transmitter, while a satellite dish receives signals from a satellite. The receiving equipment turns the signal into the sound, and into pictures for television, that you experience.

Print publishing is a traditional media sector. It produces physical published products printed on paper for uses including advertising, entertainment and education. A printed poster for a bakery advertises its new opening hours, a crossword magazine entertains readers, and a science workbook helps students learn.

Print publishing now uses computers for writing, editing and design. You might type an article, crop a photograph and arrange the page in design software before sending it to a printer. The computer is a tool in the process, but the final item that reaches the reader is still printed on paper rather than shown only on a screen.

Printing methods

Long print runs use lithographic printing, while short or customised runs use digital printing. A long run means many identical copies are needed. A short run might be a few dozen copies, and a customised run could have different details on each copy.

Comics and graphic novels

Print publishing also produces comics and graphic novels. Comics are similar to magazines, graphic novels are like illustrated books, and comic strips can appear in newspapers. Graphic novels vary in length, artwork and audience. One might use bright, simple panels to retell a folk tale for younger readers, while another could be aimed at older readers and use detailed artwork to explore a historical event, sometimes including adult themes. Even when the pages are created on a computer, the finished product is printed on paper.

Computer games are a new media sector. They are interactive digital products designed to entertain, and you play them on a device that runs a computer program. They are new media because the sector could not exist before computers: without a processor, memory and software there would be no game to play.

Where games are played

Handheld computers and mobile devices do the same job as a console but in a smaller package, which is why the same game is often released on several platforms.

Ways to play

• Single-player games are played by one person on their own, following a story or beating their own best score.
• Multiplayer games let more than one person take part. Players may share one screen in the same room or each use their own console in the same house.
• Online games are played over the internet, so the players can be anywhere in the world and may never meet in person. A connection is needed, and without one the online mode cannot be used.

Many games offer all three, so you could play a level alone, race a friend sitting next to you, then join strangers online. The players change, but the game itself is still a computer game: a single-player game with no internet connection belongs to this new media sector just as much as an online one.

Interactive media is media that the user takes part in by interacting with it. The user does something — taps, clicks, swipes, types or moves a controller — and the media responds. It is one of the new media sectors, because it depends on computers to respond to what the user does.

Interactive media usually combines several types of content: audio, video, graphics, animation and text. You find it in apps, websites, games and social media. For example, a museum touchscreen may let you tap a dinosaur to hear its roar and see a fact file; a revision app may ask you a question and show whether your answer is right; a racing game lets you steer a car around a track. In each case the media changes because of what the user does.

Not all media is interactive. A recorded message that tells you the school is closed when you ring in is passive: it plays audio but does not respond to the caller. A printed poster is also passive. Interactive media requires user action, so a screen that only plays content without responding is not interactive media.

To describe an interactive media product fully, say what it is or does and how the user controls it. 'It is a drum kit app where you tap the pads to play different sounds' explains what the product is and what the user does; 'it is a drum kit app with realistic sounds' does not.

The internet is a large network of connected devices and the infrastructure that hosts online services. The infrastructure includes the servers, data centres, cables, routers and mobile masts that carry data between devices.

Online services such as streaming, social media and websites run on this network. When you stream a programme, scroll through posts or open a web page, your device sends data across the internet to a server. The server sends the media back. The internet makes that delivery possible, but it is not the programme, post or page itself.

Internet or media product?

A media product is the finished item people use, such as a video, a music track, a website or a game. The internet is the network and infrastructure behind many of those products. For example, a youth club might upload a highlights video to a video-sharing service. The video is the media product; the internet is the connection and hosting system that lets people watch it. The internet is not itself a media product, even though it is often the way media products reach you.

The internet is grouped with new media when media sectors are listed, but that does not make the network itself a media product. Describe it as a network and infrastructure that hosts online services, such as streaming, social media and websites. It is not a single product like one video, one post or one website.

Digital publishing is a new media sector, and it means reading on computers and devices instead of on paper. It includes news websites, online magazines and newspapers, academic journals and eBooks, all of which you read on a screen.

Print publishing and digital publishing both rely on digital systems while a product is being made: text is typed in word processors, pages are laid out in design software and photographs are edited on computers. The difference comes at the end. Digital publishing publishes and distributes the finished material digitally, so it reaches you as a file or a web page rather than as paper. That keeps it in the new media sector, even when it carries exactly the same stories as a printed product.

eBooks and e-readers

An eBook is an electronic book that you read on a device, so it is a product of digital publishing. You download it from an eBook store and read it in an app on a phone or tablet, or on a dedicated e-reader — a device built mainly for reading.

A dedicated e-reader usually has an e-ink screen. This kind of display reflects light rather than shining it into your eyes, much like paper, so it stays clear in bright sunlight. Most e-ink panels show only greyscale, and full-colour e-ink is still uncommon.

Because e-ink updates slowly, fast-moving content looks poor on these screens. eBooks therefore suit text-heavy books, such as a dictionary, a play script or a book of poems, but not a magazine, a picture-led book, or anything that plays video or runs a game.

Video, also called motion picture, is a media product made of moving images, usually with sound. It is used in television, film, streaming and websites. Audio is the sound in a media product. It includes soundtracks (the sound that runs with video), sound effects and audiobooks. Music includes recorded music by bands and solo artists, and instrumental music. Video, audio and music are common media products that can be used across different sectors and combined with other products.

One product, different sectors

The same product can be used by more than one sector. A cookery demonstration video could appear on a recipe website and inside a supermarket's app. A thunderclap sound effect could be used in a computer game and in an audiobook. A band's song could be used in a television drama and in a mobile game. The product itself stays the same, wherever it is used.

Combined into finished products

Video, audio and music are often combined with other media products to make one finished product. A short advert might use video footage, a voiceover (audio), background music and on-screen graphics. The finished advert is one product, but it relies on several media types. This is why a video clip, sound effect or piece of music can be reused in different products instead of being made for only one.

Animation creates the appearance of movement by showing drawings or graphics in quick succession. Each image changes slightly, and your eye blends them into smooth movement.

Animation techniques

• Hand-drawn (cel) animation: an artist draws every frame, often on clear sheets called cels over a painted background. A short cartoon about a mountain rescue can need thousands of drawings.
• Computer-generated animation: software builds and moves the frames, so a character is set once and adjusted for each frame quicker than redrawing it by hand.
• Stop-motion animation: a physical model is photographed, moved a little, then photographed again. A cardboard rocket whose nose cone rises one millimetre per photo seems to launch when played back quickly.

SFX and VFX

Film and television use special effects often, and they are split into two types. SFX (special effects) are real-world effects made during filming, on set or in a studio. They include props such as a wooden sword, stunts such as a controlled fall, live-action weather made with a snow machine, animatronics that use robotics to move a fairground dragon, prosthetics applied in make-up to add pointed ears, and pyrotechnics that create controlled sparks or fire.

VFX (visual effects) are computer-created and added after filming. They can add a new background, put a dragon on a castle roof, remove a TV aerial from a Victorian street, or turn a cloudy sky into a sunset. Good VFX often go unnoticed because they look like part of the real scene.

CGI (computer-generated imagery) is usually added during post-production, the editing stage after filming, so the actors' filmed footage is combined with computer-made elements later.

Digital imaging and graphics means making and working with pictures — photographs, illustrations and graphics — using digital technology. These images are media products in their own right, and they also appear inside almost every other product, from adverts to apps.

Where the images come from

A digital camera captures a scene on a light sensor and saves it straight away as a digital file, so a photo of a school sports day is ready to use with no film to develop. A scanner does the opposite: it shines a light across a printed photo or a hand-drawn sketch and turns it into a digital image you can edit.

Not every image starts in the real world. Computer-generated images are built from scratch on a computer, such as a logo drawn from shapes, a cartoon character, or the texture wrapped around a 3D object in a game.

Software for working with images

• Image editing software changes an existing photo: cropping it, brightening a dull sky or removing a scratch.
• Illustration software draws new images from shapes and lines, which suits logos and icons because they stay sharp at any size.
• Desktop publishing software arranges images and text together on a page, such as a poster or leaflet layout.

Used right across the media industry

Because an image file is easy to copy and adapt, the same graphic turns up in several sectors at once. Print publishing uses graphics on posters and adverts, websites use them for banners and product shots, social media platforms are built almost entirely from photos and graphics, and digital games use them for character art and icons.

For example, a youth theatre group runs a competition to design a logo. A member sketches an idea, scans the sketch, redraws it neatly in illustration software, then puts the logo and a brightened photo of last year's show into a desktop publishing layout for a printed poster. The same logo file then becomes the banner on the group's website and the picture on its social media profile: one image used in three sectors.

A website is a set of linked pages stored on a web server and delivered over the internet to a browser. A typical web page can include hypertext links to other pages, text or copy, images such as photos and illustrations, graphics for buttons and layout, and icons. Each asset does a different job: copy gives the written information, images show what something looks like, and buttons, icons and layout graphics help you move around the page and find things quickly.

Multimedia products bring together the same kinds of asset — text, images, graphics, sound and video — but they are installed and run as programs or apps on a device rather than opened in a browser. A multimedia encyclopaedia on a museum's gallery computers might combine narration, a short video of a fossil dig, an animation of a skeleton rebuilding itself and clickable diagrams, all held inside one program, so it still works when the connection drops.

Assets shared by websites and multimedia products include photographs, video, sound and audio, music, podcasts and radio clips, plus graphics for buttons, menus and layout.

Social media platforms

A social media platform lets users post their own user-generated content — photos, text and videos — and message other users directly. Users pay nothing, so the platform is usually funded by advertising. This shapes what you see: platforms often rely heavily on photos and graphics because a strong image can catch your attention as you scroll.

Apps

Apps are programs you install on a smartphone, tablet or smart TV. They cover many jobs, including games, shopping, navigation, work or office, email and social media apps. An app holds the same mix of text, images, graphics, sound and video as a website, but once installed it runs straight from the device with no browser needed.

Augmented reality (AR) lays digitally created graphics, information or 3D models over live video of the real world. Virtual reality (VR) creates a completely computer-generated world for you to explore.

In AR, the device's camera films what is in front of you. As the camera moves, the software uses what it can see to work out where the virtual object should sit, how big it should look and which way it should face. This is why a 3D model of a heart can seem to hover above a textbook page and stay in place as you move your phone around it.

AR in use

• Museum: an app could show the name and diet of each dinosaur skeleton as you point your phone at it.
• Car repair: a mechanic's app could highlight the dipstick and draw an arrow to show which way to pull it.
• Music practice: a guitar app could place coloured dots on the fretboard to show where your fingers go for a chord.

AR is also used for navigation, retail try-on (seeing how a product looks before you buy it), sport broadcasts and entertainment. AR adds to the real world, so you can still see everything around you.

VR and how it differs from AR

VR usually needs a special headset. The headset shows a world made entirely by a computer and blocks out the room around you, so the real world is replaced rather than added to. A geography lesson, for example, could let you look around a computer-generated rainforest.

The key difference is that AR adds digital content to the real world, while VR replaces the real world with a computer-generated one.