Convergence Culture

Jenkins book Convergence Culture ­­– where old and new media collide is about American media today, which has over taken the media across the western world. The book is about media producers and media consumers, it takes a closer look at the power of media consumer participation with the media products. Jenkins writes about the changes in communication and storytelling with clear voice. Because he demonstrates through examples, the book is easy to read, even thought you would not be a fan of reality television shows or other media segments he proposes in his book. I am familiar with most of the examples in the book, but I must mention not to be a great fan with none of them. The book challenges the reader to think further about the changing media and I would say it was a catching book in my point of view.

I will concentrate closer how new media programmes, such as American Idol and Survivor are changing our media reality. Reality television shows are stealing time from quality programmes, such as documentary. Contemporary television culture in Finland is taken over by reality television shows, which I would like to call rubbish television programmes. The producers have created a brilliant idea how to get people addicted to these programmes and I must admit having followed for some of them, such as Idols, too. Comparing the quality of television programmes in the 80´s and 90´s with the offer today, the culture of the programmes is getting really poor now days. Spoiling survivors is an example how these programmes are affecting in part of the audience so strongly, that they can be called hardcore fans. They try to get information about the next episode before it is officially revealed. The producers and consumers, or spoilers how they call themselves, are playing sort of a catch me if you can game, where producers release hints (true or false) of the next episode and the spoilers are trying to solve the problem.

I was a fan of Star Wars trilogy in the 80´s, when the movie was hot stuff in Finland. I was just a small child then, but got a change to watch the trilogy with my older brother. I have seen the trilogy a dozen of times. It was a great disappointment for me to see the trilogy filmed all over again. Reshaping the mythology by fan gamers and filmmakers is absolutely awful, they are all spoiling the original movie! When it comes to Matrix I found the first movie magnificent, in my opinion it can be called a classic, but the following sequels were too much for me. Jenkins calls The Matrix franchise transmedia storytelling, ´the art of world making´. He also demonstrates that some might argue the Matrix has gone too far from most of the audience members. It must be true to say that just a small part of the audience is willing to track down bits of the story across the media channels. I think this kind of fan culture goes far away from real life to be understood.

Convergence Culture - How to predict the future?

In his book Convergence Culture- where old and new media collide, Henry Jenkins tries to explain the impact of convergence on the media we consume and produce.

The book is written in a very attractive style and Jenkins uses many examples to make his argumentation even clearer. The chapters in the book use a specific example of the changing relation between producer and consumer in media.

In my opinion, the liveliness of style is often underrated. A book like this really helps the reader to understand the ‘convergence culture’. The crisp style even convinced me to buy the book. Unfortunately, the use of examples often seems to imply more small mistakes in references. When Jenkins talks about the fan fiction, made by the filmmaker Evan Mather, he refers to “gets medieval” as a quotation from Samuel L. Jackson instead of Ving Rhames in Pulp Fiction. Of course, these mistakes are not important to the line of argumentation in the book and therefore cannot be regarded as flaws. If we look at Jenkins’ arguments closely, we could argue that there are some flaws though. In the beginning of the book, Jenkins points out that he is not a neutral observer of media convergence. This results in a preoccupied position towards an optimistic view of convergence of media, participatory culture and collective intelligence. It does not have to be a bad thing on itself but in Convergence Culture, Jenkins decides to keep his distance towards technology. We have seen in several reviews that this position is, to say the least, problematic because technology plays an integral part of the concept of convergence. Jenkins preoccupied position also leads to an optimistic view of collective intelligence:

“Collective intelligence can be seen as an alternative source of media power (...). At present we use this collective power principally for having fun, but soon we will use these skills for more ‘serious’ purposes”(Jenkins, 2006, p.4).

You can never be sure when speaking about the future and personally, I consider this way of arguing very trivial. It would have been better if Jenkins gave an account of those ‘serious purposes’ that already exist. For example, when the book was published in 2006, Wikipedia was already gaining popularity.

Henry Jenkins’ Convergence Culture adds a lively contribution to the field of media studies in which media is restated but not replaced.

Media Diary, the way I use Media

My Media Diary time was based on between 4th to 8th of December.

Friday 4th

I used Ipod Touch for music and for fun about 20 minutes on this day to way school and away school.
I used laptop at my home 3h to 4h.
I watched TV movies so it took about 3 to 4h TV watching too at home.
Cell phone use was few minutes only.


Saturday 5th

I used Ipod Touch for music and for fun about 15 minutes on this day
I used laptop about at my home 2h. I was working this day so maybe I could count also using till as media devise too. I was working full day so that must be using till like 5h. And also I use company phone there too so that must be about 30 minutes of talking to customers by using phone.
Cell phone use for personal use about 30 min.


Sunday 6th

I watched TV today more than normally now it was about 5h. Maybe it was because it's Finland's inde-pendence day. That they you can see President celebrating with other celebrities in TV most discussed issue most be this day that what celebrities ARE wearing which is funny idea in Finland.

I used laptop about 5h at my home, making thesis and using internet and listening music.
Cell phone use is more in text messages so it did not take more than few minutes overall.
I also played Nintendo Wii because I usually get bored during Independence Day TV programs easily after all. Wii playing about 2h.

Monday 7th

I used Ipod Touch for music 20 minutes.
I used laptop at my home 4h for Internet: social media and school stuff.
Cell phone use about 20 minutes.

Tuesday 8th

I used laptop at my home 4h making this diary summary, using Internet as social media like facebook, trying to find new part time job and listening music. TV use was about 3h to 4h hours.
I used Ipod Touch for music 30 minutes.

My conclusion:

1. I use mostly my Mac laptop as media devise and Internet during the day as for media purpose.

2. Is TV and
3. Then cell phone and
4. Are Ipod Touch and Nintendo Wii. Since I got Internet have used it very steadily through this time. I usually look everyday e-mails from 4 different inbox and reason for this is because I got 2 school e-mails and 2 personal once. As for media device laptop is most used just because I do my schoolwork with, while I listen music and sometimes I use it for playing games. Internet use is almost obsessive behaviour now days=). I use it to keep contact, for information, for news and for fun. I am still making my thesis to my bachelor so it takes also nicely me to sit next to laptop every day. I prefer to work at home than school or library if I have to use computer.

A Fan of Jackie Chan

I am indeed a fan of actor Jackie Chan.

Since I was little kid I enjoyed Jackie Chan's action movies because he made his own stunts and he is amazing action choreographer. Thing that I like most is that he uses everyday items in his action scenes so easily and clever way. Funny thing usually is that he don't want to fight with "the bad guys", but he usually end up fighting anyway.

I don't consider myself as "hyper fan", I just enjoy Jackie Chan style in the movies. Even he is old guy for action star he can still "kick seriously bum". His movies aren't so called "Oscar winners", but they are indeed entertaining to me. One reason must be that I enjoy martial arts so much myself that it is nice to see this kind on action and clever moves on film.


Here are some samples and details of his movies:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Chan

http://www.jackiechan.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdnCwym0uPs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_kD8Q0gVPc&feature=related

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000329/

Convergence Culture

I will start mentioning the fact that I did not read literature of specialty in the field of media before but Jenkins’ book was a very good start. The content of the book is clear, easy to follow and besides, informative. Even for a beginner in the field or somebody interested to read the book but has no previous background it is easy to follow the content and the explanations given are of great help. I have noticed too that media today is not something that we act passively towards it but instead, as consumers, we have became active, involving in the media content and changing it. However, as stated in the book sometimes the consumers have the impression of exerting influence over the media when the companies and producers are shaping everything but giving the impression we are the ones making the change. In some cases, I agree with this but until some extent. The examples provided in the book show clearly that at one point the audience has a big influence on the media although sometimes this influence is controlled (consciously or unconsciously) by the producers. But the main point is that what today has become an icon of popular culture was certainly brought up to the status of icon by the fans. Without fans there would be no idols.
Besides, convergence culture means much more than influencing the media but also the fact that fans are able to express themselves and most of the times the results can be astonishing like in the case of Star Wars or Harry Potter and the main point is social interaction. The fan networks in my view act pretty similar to social networks, even better, one gets to know people all over the world with the same interests. The case of American Idol or Survivor can be regarded as a safe subject (like weather) among family, friends but when it comes to spoiling the show I think participatory culture has gone too far. Keeping the mystery it is all what this kind of entertainment is about. But, of course trying to spoil the show is also an entertainment for some given the fact that the resources used in doing that are exhausting and sometimes with disappointing results. Here also intervenes the producers who like to play “catch me if you can” kind of game with the curious audiences (spoilers) deliberately, mainly for the popularity of the show.
Participatory culture is beneficial for companies as fan interaction help promoting their products and in this way they make sure that fans will become loyal and attract more people to their side, establishing a direct relation which ensures that fans will stick to a certain media product. “In the end, media producers need fans just as much as fans need them.”
I would like to focus my comments especially on Harry Potter case as it is the only media product that interested me directly from the ones mentioned in the book. I know the others like American Idol, Survivor, Star Wars or Matrix but besides knowing their main idea I have never watched them. First, I am not interested in entertainment shows of the kind and the two movies never appealed to me. But Harry Potter I find quite interesting even though I have not read the books but just watched the movies, followed the event closely and interacted with fans directly. There have been quite a lot of debates around Harry Potter books, some of which I find ridiculous, for example the religious issues that sprung up around this phenomenon. The accusations brought by church officials that Harry Potter is an initiation into dark arts and an occult book are made with no solid basis given the century we live in and the fact that the books are a product of entertainment and consumerism rather than manuals for the occult. In my opinion, Harry Potter is a fantasy book that stirs the imagination of children and help them create further stories and worlds that develop their writing and creative skills. Role-playing game and fan fiction are developing skills that children need so they can be full participants in their culture. Besides, the issues discussed in Harry Potter are not just pure fantasy but fantasy is more like an allegory to real world problems. In addition, I do not agree with studio restrictions of fan sites as it is discussed in chapter 5 because the fans created the celebrity of the book and they did not like to see all their efforts spoiled. By creating this fandom network they increase the popularity of the book and come up with new and improving ideas at the same time.