Content (media)

In publishing, art, and communication, content is the information and experiences that are directed towards an end-user or audience.^[1] Content is "something that is to be expressed through some medium, as speech, writing or any of various arts".^[2] Content can be delivered via many different media including the Internet, television, audio CDs, books, magazines, and live events, such as conferences and stage performances.

Content value

Content itself is what the end-user derives value from. Thus, "content" can refer to the information provided through the medium, the way in which the information was presented, as well as the added features included in the medium in which that information was delivered. The medium, however, provides little to no value to the end-user without the information and experiences that make up the content. Communication theory philosopher Marshall McLuhan famously coined the phrase, "The medium is the message."^[3] In the case of content, the channel through which information is delivered, the "medium", affects how the end user perceives content, the "message".

The author, producer, or publisher of an original source of information or experiences may or may not be directly responsible for the entire value that they attain as content in a specific context. For example, part of an original article (such as a headline from a news story) may be rendered on another web page displaying the results of a user's search engine query grouped with headlines from other news publications and related advertisements. The value that the original headline has in this group of query results from the search engine as a medium may be very different from the value that it had as message content in its original article.

Content also leads to influencing other people in creating their own content, sometimes in a way that the original author did not or could not plan or imagine. This feature, adding the option of user innovation in a medium, means that users can develop their own content from existing content.

Technological effects on content

Traditionally, content was edited and tailored for the public through news editors, authors, and other kinds of content creators. However, not all information content requires creative authoring or editing. Through recent technological developments, truth is found in philosopher Marshall McLuhan's idea of a global village; new technologies allow for instantaneous movement of information from every corner to every point at the same time^[4] has caused the globe to be contracted into a village by electric technology,^[5] such as mobile phones and automated sensors. These new technologies can record events anywhere for publishing and converting in order to potentially reach a global audience on channels such as YouTube. Such recorded or transmitted information and visuals can be referred to as content. Content is no longer a product of only reputable sources; new technology has made primary sources of content more readily available to all. For example, a video of a politician giving a speech compared to an article written by a reporter who witnessed the speech.

Media production and delivery technology may potentially enhance the value of content by formatting, filtering, and combining original sources of content for new audiences with new contexts. The greatest value for a given source of content for a specific audience is often found through such electronic reworking of content as dynamic and real-time as the trends that fuel its interest. Less emphasis on value from content stored for possible use in its original form, and more emphasis on rapid re-purposing, reuse, and redeployment has led many publishers and media producers to view their primary function less as originators and more as transformers of content. Thus, one finds out that institutions, that used to focus on publishing printed materials, are now publishing both databases and software to combine content from various sources for a wider variety of audiences.

Criticism

While marketing and media interests have broadly adopted the term "content", some writers complain about the term's inherent ambiguity.^[6] Others assert that the term devalues the work of authors or sets up a false analogy of information as material objects which biases any discussion using the word,^[7][8] and still others argue that it overemphasizes the work of authors.^[9]

See also

• Advertising
• Authoring
• Content farm
• Content management
• Content management system
• Content writing services
• Enterprise content management
• Geotargeting
• Media transparency
• Web content
• Web content management system
• Open content
• Free content
• User-generated content
• Content format
• Content adaptation
• Content designer
• Marshall McLuhan
  • The medium is the message
  • Global village

References