convergence culture

In Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, Henry Jenkins explores how businesses are integrating content across different media platform and the growing impact of individuals and grassroots groups in affecting the media landscape

Jenkins notion of cultural convergence extends beyond technological convergence to encompass media convergence and corporate consolidation that is forcing mass media into cultural convergence. Economic changes like the decreasing impact of television commercials are forcing increased collaboration between advertisers and content providers. Jenkins argues that the content of these media depict convergence of a much more subtle kind than the Coca Cola cups seen on the American Idols judges’ table. When fans watch American Idol, they learn about the contestants as individuals rather than as generic artists. There is a greater sense of participation when media consumers create new modes of engagement with media content. This can have two fold implications. First, as Jenkins suggests that greater interaction among fan communities and media content producers may lead to the creation of micro markets. These micro markets would allow content producers to attend to the demands of fans’ virtual communities and incorporate grass roots input into artifacts. Such participation in the manufacture of media artifacts would generate not only profit for content producers and advertisers but also increase diversity in commercial culture.

Second, greater participation and greater engagement can be capitalized upon to kindle people’s participation in democratic processes, perhaps revitalizing America’s moribund democracy. Using the Howard Dean-fueled grassroots online campaigning of the 2004 US Presidential election as backdrop, Jenkins argues that collective intelligence on the blogosphere demonstrates how pop culture consumers repurposed their knowledge of convergence culture for political activism. Jenkins argues this sort of participation gives a sense of empowerment that is woefully lacking in today’s democratic processes. Drawing a corollary with Spoiler community of the Survivors where small numbers of highly devoted viewers are able to discover or predict the outcome of the show by collaborating in online discussion groups, people involved in democratic dialogue may derive the same sense of achievement. Jenkins highlights spoiler hunting as example of participatory culture. Jenkins suggests one of the reasons why Americans do not participate in public debates is that our normal ways of thinking and talking about politics requires us to buy into expert paradigm. To play the game they have to become a policy wonk or let the policy wonk do their thinking which ostensibly is not very attractive or appealing. Jenkins view of increase in political engagement through greater interactions between online communities is a utopian view because engagement in politics or political discourse is not solely a matter of means of engagement but dependent on other factors such as predispositions and disenchantment or disillusionment with the political processes or the candidates per se.

Jenkins uncovers important cultural transformations that are taking place as media converge. Content producers see opportunities to direct content across many channels to increase revenue and broaden markets while at the same time media consumers envision a liberated public sphere. Struggles over convergence will redefine the face of American popular culture. The emergent knowledge culture cannot escape the influence of commodity culture (commodification). Levy suggests that knowledge communities will gradually change the ways later commodity culture operates. They serve as sites of collective discussion, negotiation, and development and prod individual members to seek out new information for the common good. This perspective will become a useful one for analyzing current and future media trends in contemporary American culture.