Convergence Culture

Convergence Culture. Where Old and New Media Collide

I'm indeed really sorry for posting this piece late; I got the book so late.

I like how Henry Jenkins is presenting all these media related issues in his book. Jen-kins is telling about “the black box” that is making as multitasking and getting more deeply into media world. But who is actually deciding, what kind of “black box” is in our living room and are we the people that decide what we will see and use from “the black box”? Is it always money that makes us move?

Where the old and new media collide is just not the technology, but the people that are using new and old media. It is more about adapting new media instead of old one to survive in modern media world. We are indeed living in the middle of media storm, but the question is that can we use our media for good? Even when people are using social media as facebook or twitter or what ever, do we use it for good? Or are we just making ourselves lonelier than ever. As we are taking more distance to “real” people, we are learning new ways to keep contact. So actually we are making choice, how we use our “black box”, but still it is always depends cultural influence. Like facebook or blogging is not open for everyone, so this way “the black box” rules are with the government.

As Jenkins points out the change we are living, we do not feel the change because we are living the moment now. Everything will be different in less than 10 years and then we will study again, what we did not know then. And the one researcher that makes best guess, what will happen in future will be celebrated as a innovating genius in that time.

Jenkins, Henry (2008) Convergence Culture. Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: NYU Press.

The Convergence Culture

Henry Jenkins's "Convergence Culture" speaks of a shifting canon, changes of a border-line and an achievable utopia. Once upon a time, the information producers were a concentrated, almost monopolistic and mystified power; and one day, the devil came into the story with an increasing light of collective intelligence and this mystified shadow became visible. Now, we are in the middle of this fairy tale, old producers are fighting to wear their old clothes in a new fashion and the devil is increasing the light more collectively and more participatory to keep the power naked. Also, once the boundary between producers and the consumers were a border line, the devil occupied a territory between the producers and consumers and now both of them are migrating to this in-between land. And once there was an impossible utopia, there was a wish for an achievable utopia, something light as air as democracy, and the devil showed a way. Henry Jenkins is the story-teller of this fairy tale in his "Convergence Culture". He narrates that how the devil of new media makes this fairy tale to be real, to be possible to live in.
Although, the western producer-heroes tried to wear fascinating Sunday clothes, the saint-producers of my country had sword and a mystifies mask of smile and anger. The convergence culture was growing in my land from a luxury culture of high-class families to the plastic product of an ordinary daily tool. There was a collective attempts of the ignored people in using the plastic tools of new media. They could see each other and they were replacing the ignorant eyes of the government to the interactive none-neglecting and collective looks of each other. It showed its power in these months, in the protests against the mask of the violent saint, the government, in order to touch an achievable utopia of democracy. Youtube played an important role; armature film-makers of the streets, all the young people of 16 to 60 were making their own films, the adventure of Harry Potter in Tehran streets, and the young ladies were participating in reading Lolita in Tehran. They were posting their films; the kind devil of new media could occupy the territory and in this land the violent saint were naked. He was not saint anymore, He was killing the innocents in the streets in front of the millions eyes of a convergence culture. The saint is fighting now, he tries to make its own Photoshop, yes, He is using Photoshop to show he is many, the tricks of photoshoped images are obvious, therefore this many faces became one face, a minority of armed people who can not stop lying and the convergence culture can not stop revealing.
But, as Jenkins asserts, it is just the beginning; "we must continue to ask hard questions about the practice and institutions which are taking place. we need to be more attentive to the ethical dimensions by which we are generating knowledge, producing culture and engaging in politics together." (Convergence Culture, p. 295)
I wrote in my mini-research of the internet research course about a protest that took place last month; the protest of men who wear scarf to defend of an Iranian activist. Iranian government arrested Majid Tavakoli a student activist in Dec. 7 2009. The day after at 2 PM, a news agency website belongs to fundamental party and a supporter of the current coup published a photo of him with scarf that obviously has been taken in jail to humiliate him as a male in Patriarchy culture of Iranian government. Few hours later, about 6 PM, a female Iranian young journalist who lives in London posted a note in her weblog and suggested to Iranian men to wear scarves in response. She posted a sample photo of one of her male friend in her post. In response to her idea the protest began in Facebook. I myself posted my own picture in my profile, just after looking at a photo shared by a friend of mine in Facebook, it was two hours after the journalist posted her idea. During the night, the action of posting men-pictures with scarves was completely funny and the females were commenting, liking and encouraging the males. The day after some non-Iranian supporters joined the protest and an Iranian Rapper posted his portrait in scarf and in few hour Iranian academics in USA started to join and post their pictures. VOA talked about this protest in 9 Dec and CNN wrote about it in 14 of Dec. I assert that "“Men wear scarves” protest is a grassroots protest. Participants are varying in ages, nationalities, socioeconomic status and ideologies from Islamic-left to Marxists and liberals. There is no leading party who manage the strategies of this protest, in other word this a distributed expert system of citizens who use social media to express their believes and accompany within a wider protest called Green movement that defines its strategies in media field by “each citizen a media” slogan which is a mixture of face to face propaganda systems in oral culture and online social media as ‘do-it-yourself’ media systems.
"This protest is anti-patriarchy and shows the canon shifts of values in a culture. Before the coup it was not acceptable for men to wear as women but this protest expresses itself in an anti-patriarchy quality reversing the hegemonic values dictated by the power. A man has been arrested and the power used women clothes to humiliate him and a woman suggested a simple reverse action and men accepted."
Yes, this is collective intelligence. This is the power of my kind devil, the Convergence Culture where old and new media collide.