World Famous Comics: Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide
Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide
By: Henry Jenkins Publisher: NYU Press Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: NYU Press Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 336 Publication Date: October 01, 2008 Release Date: September 01, 2008
Winner of the 2007 Society for Cinema and Media Studies Katherine Singer Kovacs Book Award
Convergence Culture maps a new territory: where old and new media intersect, where grassroots and corporate media collide, where the power of the media producer and the power of the consumer interact in unpredictable ways.
Henry Jenkins, one of America s most respected media analysts, delves beneath the new media hype to uncover the important cultural transformations that are taking place as media converge. He takes us into the secret world of Survivor Spoilers, where avid internet users pool their knowledge to unearth the show s secrets before they are revealed on the air. He introduces us to young Harry Potter fans who are writing their own Hogwart's tales while executives at Warner Brothers struggle for control of their franchise. He shows us how The Matrix has pushed transmedia storytelling to new levels, creating a fictional world where consumers track down bits of the story across multiple media channels. Jenkins argues that struggles over convergence will redefine the face of American popular culture. Industry leaders see opportunities to direct content across many channels to increase revenue and broaden markets. At the same time, consumers envision a liberated public sphere, free of network controls, in a decentralized media environment. Sometimes corporate and grassroots efforts reinforce each other, creating closer, more rewarding relations between media producers and consumers. Sometimes these two forces are at war.
Jenkins provides a riveting introduction to the world where every story gets told and every brand gets sold across multiple media platforms. He explains the cultural shift that is occurring as consumers fight for control across disparate channels, changing the way we do business, elect our leaders, and educate our children.
bringing convergence home Convergence Culture dives into the union of old and new media. Using the in-depth, detailed case studies of Survivor, American Idol, Matrix, Star Wars and Harry Potter, Jenkins clears up the muddy waters of where old and new media are converging, and shaping our culture in the process.
Convergence Culture looks at both producer and consumer perspectives, making a case for the diminishing line in between. Discourse on rights management and user generated content explores emerging issues that dot the landscape of the new paradigm of entertainment, education and politics. Jenkins understands that the new is not replacing the old, but transforming it.
Convergence Culture is an organized account of this transformation and current state of the shift from old to new old to new new to don't even know what's next. There are many examples of the mixes and communities of fans and geeks that are creating their own content, using the new media tool set and a passion for the original, making their own or enhancing the old. This book does not pretend to know what the future brings in our quickly morphing cultural communication. Jenkins holds commercial producers accountable for their fear of fan generated content and cites issues of copyright infringement by those same fans in some cases, but he balances the need for a new model with copyright protection, understanding that the cultural communication is shifting, and the law needs to follow.
Jenkins is a fan of popular culture. With his inside knowledge of fanfic and desire to keep the story going, he understands that pop culture is pushing convergence forward. He uses pop culture to demystify convergence and relate the complex nature of a society changing major models of mass communication to all readers. These changes are happening on the political and educational fronts as well, but with less participation - due the nature of pop culture as low-risk and more enjoyable. Jenkins uses what he knows about pop culture to bring convergence home.
Focused on Media, Art, Culture, Less So on Social Networks I come late to this book, published in 2006. I do not regret it. It is a bit too focused on media, art, and "culture" for me, but I cannot penalize the author for being a master of arcane tid-bits. This book is a collection of previously published articles reworked into a book--for me, that is a good thing, as I do not cover the sources that originally carried the pieces.
The book comes recommended by Howard Rheingold and Bruce Sterling, two of the originals, so that alone should encourage anyone interested in this area to take this book very seriously.
Although the author focuses on "participatory culture" the emphasis is this book is on the CULTURE part, not the social networks, integral consciousness, appreciative inquiry, co-intelligence, and so on as I have learned from my Eco-Topia colleauges.
The author himself speaks early on about the book speaking to three concepts:
+ Media convergence + Participatory culture + Collective intelligence
He gets an A for the first, a B for the second, and a C for the third.
I don't consider myself qualified to be critical of this book, so here are the tid-bits that grabbed me:
+ Paradigm shift is not about communications among individuals but rather about their *being* in *being* with one another (from one to many and one to one to many to many)
+ Author credits Ithiel de Sola Pool (1983) with seeing the transitions that were coming
+ Convergence changes relationships and logics
+ The biggest convergence may be the sharp total confrontation between top down attempts to keep control, and bottom up demands to wrest control
+ Media right now is being excessively influenced by the wealthy that can afford the trinkets (look for my 1993 rant to INTERVAL on "God, Man, and Informaiton: Comments to Interval" for the other side of the story)
+ Public getting harder to "impress" (see my review of The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business
+ Emotions and feelings of connection matter more--the author writes of an "affective economy"
+ Producers are finding they must agree to co-creation (this media or cultural trend has a counterpart in the business world, see the Business Week cover story of 20 June 2005 on "The Power of Us")
+ Media industry is split between the prohibitionists and the collaborationists, and I am most fascinated to see mobile telephone companies in the latter category. If I had to place a bet on Nokia versus Google, I would go with Nokia.
+ In discussing the presidency, the author observes that what is changing is not the political parties, which we all know are Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It, but rather the communications and cultural norms. The author cites Joe Trippi's excellent The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything.
+ Other authors prominently cited several times include Pierre Levy, Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace (Helix Books) and Cass Sunstein, Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge.
+ Citing another author (always with credit) I am engaged by the concept of "adhocracies" as the opposite of bureaucracies.
+ Digital enclaves are becoming counter-productive, allowing nesting rather than engagement (at least among the one billion rich), need to get out and cross those cultural divides.
Four books within my ten book limit that cover material this book does not: The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
A book just published that includes Yochai Benkler and 54 other Collective Intelligence gurus, none of them less Howard Rheingold in this book: Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace
I am glad I got and read this book. It is clearly very learned in the media convergence and media-mind aspect, but it is not at all as versed as I was expecting in the nuts and bolts of participatory networking, appreciative inquiry, deliberative democracy, integral consciousness, world brain, etcetera, nor is it all oriented toward large scale problem solving with collective intelligence.
pretty useful book Well... Maybe I was expecting something more detailed and technic. It still remain a good book, but it could have been more specific on the subject of convergence and old media, re-positioning and economic consequences.
Blank Pages in Book There are at least 8 blank pages in the book. I have no time to return and exchange for another book as the class is currently in session.
Not Impressed Henry Jenkins says, in the Introduction to Convergence Culture, "This book is about the relationship between three concepts -- media convergence, participatory culture, and collective intelligence." He then defines the terms and, a few pages later, still in the Intro, writes, "My aim is...modest. I want to describe some of the ways that convergence thinking is reshaping American popular culture and, in particular, the ways it is impacting the relationship between media audiences, producers, and content."
In contrast to McLuhan who is bold to a fault in Understanding Media (read just before Convergence), but bold and not afraid to be wrong, and that's important. Jenkins aims low, way too low. "Modest" here translates to not trying very hard. His few pages on Wikipedia are very good indeed (he's a proponent, so am I). But otherwise, from Convergence Culture one learns:
1) people get information and entertainment from a variety of media, 2) people can get the same information from a variety of media, 3) fans are passionate about their TV shows and classic popular movies and books and some like and utilize spoilers, and, repeatedly, 4) the program he directs at MIT studies these phenomena.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Trevor
