Convergence Culture

Henry Jenkins is "an old friend of mine" so to speak, as I read quite a lot of his earlier writings back in 2005 when I was working on my BA Thesis. In the first years of the second millennium he was, as much as I remember, an only well-known authority on the field of videogame theory who bull-headedly tried to convince the public that videogames are a new art form, more precisely – an art form of 21th century. Now it seems that the abovementioned issue has lost its relevance; it looks like scholars have reached the consensus that videogames are an intriguing research topic in itself, even if they are something "less" than art (the divisions between the high culture and low culture are never really dead until they stop existing in people's heads).

Jenkins' texts are easily accessible to people whose background is in humanities (on contrary to some other new media theoreticians). It may be that his own background in journalism is partly to blame on that. In my opinion, his overall writing style could often be characterized as journalistic: it is clear that he loves catchy titles, for example. However, being journalistic is not always the good thing. For example, jumping from an analysis to a reportage (he does it in the introduction of a book) is in my opinion extremely annoying. When I am reading a supposedly scholarly book, I do not want to be "entertained" by a long overview of some convention that goes on pages and looks like it is copied from a local paper: I would like a point to be made and then, hopefully some conclusions as well. Fortunately, both points and conclusions can be found from the book later on.

Even if Jenkins says in the beginning of the book that it is hard to say something definite about the current and coming trends in what he calls a "convergence culture" as everything is in such a rapid change, it still seems that Jenkins himself represents a kind of techno-optimist in this debate. For example, Jenkins is enthusiastically describing so called "knowledge communities" in the first chapter of a book that tells us about the fans of the reality-show publishing spoilers about the "Survivor". I would present a question: who can vouch for these "knowledge communities" that they really are to function as "knowledge", not for example "rumor", "blind faith" or "mass hysteria" communities – assuming that all or most of the members of these communities are anonymous and really never need to take real responsibility of the information they're providing? Jenkins speculates over the political power this kind of "spoiling" could theoretically have, if many people would work as motivated on some other issues than reality-show, but does not rise that question, assuming that the grains of truth will be eventually washed out from the groundless speculations. I suspect that this would not always be the case.

Also in the later chapters of the book Jenkins has picked out the success stories of "convergence culture" (the selection of case studies in itself is excellent, of course). Even if he mentions that new kind of media users, (active users on contrary to old passive users) are sometimes cooperating with corporate powers and sometimes seem to be waging a war with them, after finishing Jenkins' book the reader is still left with the impression that the new, participating users will "win the war" and have the future to themselves. As we know for the recent developments (media mogul Rupert Murdoch's wish to remove the indexes of "his articles" from the Google search engine, for example), there is actually no way of predicting which directions the producer/user relations will actually take.

Jenkins also seems to believe that extensive file sharing is something that cannot be stopped or reversed (talking of music industry) but in the practice file sharing sites are sued and closed constantly. Examples of warning are made out of people who have downloaded some music files and then sued and fined with hundreds of thousands dollars. Is it not so impossible to imagine an Internet now, I think, that would be totally controlled by corporations and where everything that has any value (news value, intellectual value etc) would be charged. If this anti-utopia should come to true one day, what would happen to Jenkins' convergence culture, I wonder.

Convergence culture

In his book “Convergence Culture” Henry Jenkins shapes the outlines of what media are today and where the media industry is heading to. He looks at the field from a point of view that emphasises the relationship between content and user. The main idea he proposes is that we should start to look at media differently. Or, in fact realize that the way we look at media today is not entirely compatible with the parameters of modern media.

Instead of seeing the industry as a technologically driven machinery that produces products that are in turn consumed by the consumer it should be looked at as a whole where each part forms an almost autonomous unit thus taking a larger role in shaping the product. In fact, this is to say that contemporary media shouldn’t be looked at “merely” as an industry but a phenomena that is not bound to distinct linear components. Technology has provided the means to allow new meanings and connotations for media, but the field has changed so that relying on one device or a singular medium is no longer the standard. Similarly the role of the consumer has changed into a more active role regarding the end product.

Jenkins uses well known examples from the fields of film, television, gaming and internet to portray the flow of media today. The cases discussed are from popular culture and therefore the reader is most likely to be familiar with each subject if not a fan of the particular subculture represented as an individual case. Jenkins' text is pleasant to read and the way each chapter is constructed is easy to comprehend even for someone not familiar with the subject. However, I must say that I found the text to be unnecessarily repetitive at times.

Personally I was well acquainted with most of the examples but found the chapter discussing The Matrix most interesting. In this chapter Jenkins talks about transmedia storytelling and how narrative can be created using multiple platforms. I’dd seen the Matrix movies including the animations and found them interesting but had not thought about the consept beyond the surface, untill having read Jenkins. With the fact that the plot is told through various media and so that each medium gives something extra in to shaping the fictional universe, the case all in all does seem more appealing.

Another interesting fact to me is that most of the individual products were given average or below the average reviews. This is particularly true when looking at the games for instance “Enter the Matrix”. In this review by 1UP.com the game is described as being “...a better movie than it is a game.”. Here the rewiever also refers to the film “ The Matrix Reloaded” as bearing more similarities to a video game than to a film. On a side note, it should also be said that the issue here is with game reviews emphasizing namely the game and often not how it relates to its context.

The pruducers obviously wanted to create a vast fictional universe and to achieve this they used various different platforms, with each unit building on what the others had achieved. In doing this they might have created a whole that functions well, but individually the parts may have ended up lacking in some respects. Looking at this in the context of Jenkins’ book and particularly the title with emphasis on convergence, I began to think about how these issues relating to transmedia in the context of The Matrix would be solved today. Eleven years after the first release in the saga, how would The Matrix look and feel if it were released in 2010?

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

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.

Convergence Cultue (Where me and old me collide:)

In my opinion, as media scholar, Henry Jenkins fills a big emptiness on media subject in the 21^st Century with his book called “Convergence Culture”. When all media continue to grow day by day, there is a need to analyse the differences between past, today and future. At this point, I think, Jenkins' book tries to show all possible changes during developments on our daily life and on media such as TV, Internet and other technological subjects and devices. He also compares and examines the relationship between people, media and technology. The main thing which effects me on Jenkins' book is the organizing and content of the book. To reach combination of new and old media, he chooses good materials to support his ideas and also he brings new ideas to simple and usual examples from daily life such as: The Matrix, Harry Potter, American Idol and Star Wars. When he calls new terms as “convergence” culture, he uses definitions of folk, mass and popular culture, and he says; “popular culture is what happens as mass culture gets pulled back into folk culture”(p. 140) and I think, here, he completely has good explanation for all scheme of culture and media in the past and today. When Jenkins points out his ideas about trans-new-media and participation and collaboration of people, the question that I ask is who are the users of this new “thing”? This is the most important point which Jenkins argues and also for me, this part is the best part of the book to get new opinion about popular new media. Another feature that I like on Jenkins' book is doubled layer. When he critics the consumers, he does not forget producers. He analyse both side of the white screen as people (consumers-producers) who are in front of the screen and companies (producers) which are behind the screen. Literary, Jenkins' style is very understandable and he has obvious points to determine and explain. In addition, it is a good thing to feel as in the movie The Matrix when I look the cover of the book, because it makes me ready to enter “mess”and “mass” areas of new media and new collide culture.

Convergence Culture

One of Jenkins’s core claims, a change of the relationships between media and us as a consumer of media indicates our use of technology, might be a good way to start thinking about the future of digital culture. According to Jenkins, a convergence culture represents a shift in the way as we think about our relations to media, that we are making that shift first through our relations with popular culture but that the skills we acquire through play may have implications for how we learn, work, participate in the political process, and connect with other people around the world (p 23). In this regard, a convergence of cultural activities seem to appear as we expand popular culture through the use of information technology (mobile phone or internet as a platform, for instance). And we learn to apply such skills (skills to use information technology whatever the way possible) to get involved politically as an individual, to acquire knowledge and to build a relationship. It might not be overstating that such a new notion of media, which described here as convergence culture, is growing. And it is mirroring changes in our lives how we purse a more convenient and fulfilling life by expanding the use of technology. It is overwhelming how we always find a way to use new media technology and how much we relay on information technology in a daily life. Needless to say that there is only a fuzzy boundary between who creates and controls media and people who consume them at the moment. And I believe we keep pushing the boundary as the use of technology seep in our lives.

Convergence Culture

Ok, seems like I am the first to have read the book. I actually started reading Convergence Culture before we started with the course because Jenkins book contains this whole new field of studies that I am interested in but knew only little about. I can say that at least for me the book presented a very good introduction to the topic of not only transmedia but also digital culture. The topics described in Jenkins book are not unfamiliar after all because many are participating already in this transmedia space almost on a daily basis. I think he provides a very good outline about the convergence of new media and culture and the modern subjects represented as a participatory culture. His fluent and comprehensive style of writing make the book digestible for laypersons and experts but also for the same reason it seems that he is merely touching the tip of the iceberg in his argumentation. Thus in my opinion it presents the perfect introduction to the topic examining how boundaries between production and consumption are breaking down. He starts his argumentation from the point of view of the audience giving examples from reality TV, literature and political campaigns and their representation on the internet, analyzing how the audience participates while simultaneously recreates the given structures.

The increase of mass media and both, mass and popular culture changed daily interaction as well as people’s life. “Once upon a time” audiences have been claimed to be passive receivers of media with little power. But, as mentioned by Thompson in Ideology and Modern Culture, mass communication which generally involved a “one-way flow of messages from the producer to the receiver” nonetheless instituted “a fundamental break between the producer and the receiver”. However, back in the early 1990s recipients had rather little capacity to intervene in this communicative (dis)course. Only little recipient response could be found hence presenting an obviously existing “fundamental asymmetry” regarding the communication between producer and consumer.

Nowadays this perception has changed 360 degrees and as Jenkins shows, the audience presents an active participant in the current media discourses developing its own opinions of what the companies/media/producers should or might do. By choosing this point of view Jenkins exemplifies how the perception of a once seemingly “subordinate” audience has changed and which, if taken from his point of view, can be ascribed with a rather equal or perhaps even superior role.

In the last three chapters, which I think are the most interesting ones, Jenkins talks about the building of new communities, their participation, the remixing and appropriation of former groups and how we/they deal with moral and cultural questions applying them to literature, media and politics and how they can be applied in the increasing sphere of a transmedia world.

Jenkins also challenges the question of control. Those who had it once have to adjust and even give some of it up. At first powerless, the audience, gains more possibilities to participate and “how-to-interfere” while constantly learning about its increasing opportunities.  While challenging power structures are the norm on the internet (eg political parodies, media criticism, etc) Jenkins also emphasizes the spread and growing practice of adhocracy (a principle well adapted by Wikipedia) while opposing it to the “old” patterns of bureaucracy. On the one hand Jenkins ascribes greater power to participatory culture but on the other he also admits that “concentrated power is apt to remain concentrated” (267). I think I can agree with Jenkins in the point that within this fast changing environment of online cultures and the collaboration and collision between old and new media it is difficult to say what kind of effects it will have on producers/contributors and receivers/consumers. I think this fast changing technical environment presents one of the main problems because the possibilities of participation are endless, difficult and can also contain dangers that no one is aware of yet. It is hard to keep track with all the new developments in this technical environment and many participants (and also media producers) are learning by doing hence the outcome is rather unpredictable.

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Thompson, John B. Ideology and Modern Culture. Cambridge and Oxford: Polity Press, 1990.