SR 1: "Convergence Culture" by Henry Jenkins

Henry Jenkin’s Convergence Culture Where Old and New Media Collide documented the cultural transition where old and new media interlock, as prosumers are urged to seek new knowledge, and make connections across an array of media platforms. Jenkins designates us as part of a convergence and participatory culture. Convergence is “the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they want” (2). Participatory culture “contrasts with older notions of passive media spectatorship…who interact with each other according to a new set of rules that none of us fully understand” (3). Jenkins described the potential for our convergence culture through Pierre Lévy’s “achievable utopia,” where “people from fundamentally different perspectives see a value in talking and listening to one another, and such deliberations form the basis for mutual respect and trust” (246). Ultimately, Lévy suggests that when everyone has greater access to information and new media platforms, companies alter the way companies market their products. Jenkins expresses this evolving nature and changing roles of communication through the Survivor case study where an emotional relationship was fostered between the brand and the consumer. Jenkins explained how this evolvement in communication spills into politics when he stated, “As we saw in looking at Campaign 2004, what we learn through spoiling Survivor…may quickly get applied to political activism or education in the workplace” (257). Jenkins shows that through each project of transmedia storytelling, a “distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole” is offered in return. Through this evolvement in communication which stimulates new ideas and new knowledge, Jenkins is hopeful that these new social structures will further create more “democratic citizenship

Henry Jenkins introduced Pierre Lévy’s idea of an “achievable utopia.” Everyday we strive to reach Lévy’s “achievable utopia” by communicating more freely and becoming more democratic. Although Jenkins and Lévy do not state if we will reach this utopia, I think that we specifically aim for this utopia through politics. For instance, the knowledge communities of Survivor Sucks, could be paralleled to the political knowledge communities of Wikileaks. WikiLeaks, like “Survivor Sucks,” has their own knowledge community, but instead of Survivor fans, WikiLeak’s knowledge community consists of 800 worldwide anonymous news sources and high-powered people. Wikileaks also stated that that their goal is to “break down the divisions and suspicions that currently shape international relations” (29). Thus, the goal of Wikileaks can be seen as a tactic to reach the utopia by allowing for free communication and being more “democratic” (in their eyes). In another instance, we are using Facebook videos instead of traditional media platforms (CNN, Fox, etc.) to get our news about the revolt in Egypt from young revolutionaries in “Cairo’s Facebook Flat” (http://video.nytimes.com/video/2011/02/08/world/middleeast/1248069622796/cairos-facebook-flat.html). This is yet another example of how our convergence culture is using the skills acquired in entertainment environments such as Survivor Sucks, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, among others, for political purposes. Ultimately, we have not reached Lévy’s utopia, but we are in an “apprenticeship phase” where “we are learning what it is like to operate within a knowledge culture…[and] we are still debating and resolving core principles that will define our interactions with each other” (249). Our active knowledge communities will continue to play a role through media platforms to reach the utopia by exposing all knowledge and democratizing.