Content is Screen

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A favorite mantra of digital convergence was: “Content is King.” As digital media and files proliferate and become ubiquitous, content must stand out for people to take notice.

Content, however, is constrained by screen. What can be projected on a jumbotron at Time Square in New York or Shinjuku in Tokyo cannot necessarily fit well on the tiny screen of a mobile phone. The “look and feel” of content, its hedonic properties, depend on the size and fidelity of the screen. For audio content, the screen is in people’s head – whether a musical number is imagined in the cavernous Carnegie Hall or a crowded smoke-filled noisy bar makes a big difference to listeners.

The screen that reaches most humans on the planet is that of the television. For technological, economic, and political reasons, the coming of digital content to the TV screen has been erratic and slow.

Meanwhile, another screen is becoming ubiquitous. This is the small screen of the mobile phone. This screen is very amenable to receiving and displaying digital content.

In just one country – China – the number of mobile phone users crossed 300 million in early 2004. In 2003, Chinese people sent more than 220 billion text messages to each other. This number accounted for more than half of all SMS text messages sent in the world!

Worldwide, the number of mobile users is approaching 2 billion, and is likely to reach 3 billion before it levels off. That means nearly one in every two humans may have access to a mobile phone screen.

With the largest mobile user base in the world, all aspects of mobile communications – including content – would be influenced by China.

Already, Qian Fuchang – a Chinese author – has produced a mobile phone version of his steamy novel “Outside the Fortress Besieged.” To fit the screen space of the typical SMS message, the novel has been written in the form of 60 chapters of 70 characters each. Qian, it seems, wants to dole out his titillation one SMS message at a time.

Content not only depends on screen, the screen type shapes people’s reaction to content. The jumbotron screen and the movie screen are of course public screens, free in the first case and accessible for a fee in the second case. The television screen, initially everywhere and still in the developing world, is a community screen or a family screen. The content is shared. The computer screen is mostly a private screen, but it is large enough for someone to peek over the shoulder and snoop at. The mobile phone screen is essentially a private screen. It is not unusual to see people in trains, buses, or bars of Tokyo or Helsinki staring at their mobile screens and smiling, smirking, or frowning.

These new patterns of behavior – alone yet engaged, in a public space – are barely understood. The social impact of increasingly individualized, private content – doled out in screen-sized bits, bytes, and bites – is not yet known. For now, let me end with the refrain: “Watch that screen!”


Nik Dholakia





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