In media production and publishing, content is information

Information

Information in its most restricted technical sense is a message or collection of messages that consists of an ordered sequence of symbols, or it is the meaning that can be interpreted from such a message or collection of messages. Information can be recorded or transmitted. It can be recorded as...

 and experiences that may provide value for an end-user

End-user

Economics and commerce define an end user as the person who uses a product. The end user or consumer may differ from the person who purchases the product...

/audience

Audience

An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature , theatre, music or academics in any medium...

 in specific contexts. Content may be delivered via any medium such as the internet, television, and audio CDs, as well as live events such as conferences and stage performances. The word is used to identify and quantify various formats and genres of information as manageable value-adding components of media.

Terminology

The word "content" is often used colloquially to refer to media

Media (communication)

In communications, media are the storage and transmission channels or tools used to store and deliver information or data...

. However, content is more accurately used as a specific term in that it means the content of the medium rather than the medium itself. Likewise, the single word "media" and some compound words that include "media" (e.g. multimedia

Multimedia

Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...

, hypermedia

Hypermedia

Hypermedia is a computer-based information retrieval system that enables a user to gain or provide access to texts, audio and video recordings, photographs and computer graphics related to a particular subject.Hypermedia is a term created by Ted Nelson....

) are instead referring to a type of content. An example of a type of content commonly referred to as a type of media is a "motion picture" referred to as "a film

Film stock

Film stock is photographic film on which filmmaking of motion pictures are shot and reproduced. The equivalent in television production is video tape.-1889–1899:...

." The distinction between medium and content is less clear when referring to interactive elements that contain information and are then contained in interactive media

Interactive media

Interactive media normally refers to products and services on digital computer-based systems which respond to the user’s actions by presenting content such as text, graphics, animation, video, audio, etc.-Terminology:...

, such as dice

Dice

A die is a small throwable object with multiple resting positions, used for generating random numbers...

 contained in board game

Board game

A board game is a game which involves counters or pieces being moved on a pre-marked surface or "board", according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mixture of the two, and usually have a goal which a player aims to achieve...

s or GUI widgets contained in software.

Content value

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 may be very different from the value that it had in its original article.

It is possible for a person to derive their own value from content in ways that the author didn't plan or imagine. User innovation

User innovation

User innovation refers to innovation by intermediate users or consumer users , rather than by suppliers ....

 makes it possible for users to develop their own content from existing content.

Not all information content requires creative authoring or editing. Through recent technological developments such as mobile phones and automated sensors that can record events anywhere for publishing and converting to potentially reach a global audience on channels such as YouTube

YouTube

YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....

, most recorded or transmitted information and experiences, can be deemed content.

Technological effects on content

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 repurposing, 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, now publishing both databases and software to combine content from various sources for a wider-variety of audiences.

See also

Content farm Content farm In the context of the World Wide Web, the term content farm is used to describe a company that employs large numbers of often freelance writers to generate large amounts of textual content which is specifically designed to satisfy algorithms for maximal retrieval by automated search engines... Content management Content management Content management, or CM, is the set of processes and technologies that support the collection, managing, and publishing of information in any form or medium. In recent times this information is typically referred to as content or, to be precise, digital content... Content management system Content management system A content management system is a system providing a collection of procedures used to manage work flow in a collaborative environment. These procedures can be manual or computer-based... Enterprise content management Enterprise content management Enterprise Content Management is a formalized means of organizing and storing an organization's documents, and other content, that relate to the organization's processes... Geo targeting Geo targeting Geo targeting in geomarketing and internet marketing is the method of determining the geolocation of a website visitor and delivering different content to that visitor based on his or her location, such as country, region/state, city, metro code/zip code, organization, IP address, ISP or other...

Media transparency Media transparency Media transparency is the concept of determining how and why information is conveyed through various means.As used in the humanities,the topic of media transparency implies openness and accountability... Web content Web content Web content is the textual, visual or aural content that is encountered as part of the user experience on websites. It may include, among other things: text, images, sounds, videos and animations.... Web content management system Web content management system A web content management system is a software system that provides website authoring, collaboration, and administration tools designed to allow users with little knowledge of web programming languages or markup languages to create and manage website content with relative ease... Open content Open content Open content or OpenContent is a neologism coined by David Wiley in 1998 which describes a creative work that others can copy or modify. The term evokes open source, which is a related concept in software.... Free content Free content Free content, or free information, is any kind of functional work, artwork, or other creative content that meets the definition of a free cultural work...

Content format Content format A content format is an encoded format for converting a specific type of data to displayable information. Content formats are used in recording and transmission to prepare data for observation or interpretation. This includes both analog and digitized content... Content adaptation Content Adaptation Content adaptation is the action of transforming content to adapt to device capabilities. Content adaptation is usually related to mobile devices that require special handling because of their limited computational power, small screen size and constrained keyboard functionality.Content adaptation... Content designer Content development Content development Web content development is the process of researching, writing, gathering, organizing, and editing information for publication on web sites. Web site content may consist of prose, graphics, pictures, recordings, movies or other digital assets that could be distributed by a hypertext transfer... Content engineering Content Engineering Content Engineering is a term applied to an engineering speciality dealing with the issues around the use of content in computer-facilitated environments. Content production, content management, content modelling, content conversion, and content use and repurposing are all areas involving this... Content delivery Content delivery Content delivery describes the delivery of media content such as audio, video, computer software and video games over a delivery medium such as broadcasting or the Internet.Content delivery has two parts:...