On 8 June 2006, the Hans
Bredow Institute cooperated with the Alcatel-Lucent Foundation in organising a
conference on the topic „Divergent Order in Convergence?“ at the University of
Hamburg. The conference’s point of departure was the circumstance that
digitalisation of the media has come a long way and that provides in principle
the opportunity to distribute content by almost all channels and platforms.
Concepts like Triple-Play, which were not much more than phantoms at
conferences over the last few years have become products for purchase or, as
with mobile television, at least technically realisable options. Already in
1997, the EU Commission had posed the question in its Green Paper on „Convergence”
as to what the merging of previously separate media and telecommunications
markets means for the policy frameworks in the member states. The conference
made an interim assessment of the German situation: following an overview of
law, economy and technology „after the convergence” came talks and panels with
researchers and practitioners on the changes to content production and
distribution. Finally, experts described the consequences for the affected
areas in the law. As the management of convergence also represents a regulatory
task, a panel on the topic of coordinating commerce and the regulatory
authorities formed the last part of the event.
