Divergent Messages in a Converging World

The mid 1990s was a period when the development of the household market for new information and communication technologies (ICTs) was of paramount importance for producers and suppliers. The Household Information Systems project was devised to investigate whether or not discourses of convergence accompanying the development of new ICT services and products had any resonance in the lives of "ordinary" consumers. This article presents an overview of the research and a more general series of observations about research into the domestic consumption of new media technology. The article advocates an approach to studying new media technology that analyzes the "full life cycle" of technology. In practice, this means utilizing theories from a range of disciplines focusing on a number of different points in the "cultural circuit" within which all technology is located.