S/R 1: Convergence Culture

Henry Jenkins’s Convergence Culture explores the phenomenon of media convergence – a historically unprecedented, highly interactive coalescence of old and new media practices taking shape in the U.S. and abroad as advances in digital technology broaden – and deepen – access to the means of media production and distribution. Jenkins is primarily interested in thinking about convergence as a “paradigm shift.” A phenomenological “move” from “medium-specific content toward content that flows across multiple media channels, toward the increased interdependence of communications systems, toward multiple ways of accessing media content, and toward ever more complex relations between top-down corporate media and bottom-up participatory culture,” convergence is transforming the way ordinary people relate to the media they consume (254). Jenkins’s “goal” is to change the way people conceive of this relationship – “to help ordinary people grasp how convergence is impacting” their culture and, “at the same time, to help industry leaders and policymakers understand consumer perspectives on these changes” (12). By framing the efforts of online fan communities to enrich their experience of certain pop culture properties as efforts toward greater consumer participation and empowerment, Jenkins articulates a vision of convergence in which “the skills we acquire through play” – namely, the pooling of intelligence for tactical purposes – have implications for how we learn, work, participate in the political process, and connect with other people around the world” (23).

Jenkins tries very hard to avoid utopian thinking about the implications of convergence for democracy. I find this to be one of the more appealing aspects of his book – though he dares to imagine a political culture characterized by greater participation and a higher degree of collective decision-making, he never once tries to spin this vision as an inevitable outcome of the convergence process. In so doing, he keeps the focus on our responsibilities as individuals to a.), understand how the accelerating pace of technological change is impacting our cultural and our capabilities, and b.), act in a way that promotes the ideal of a participatory culture driven by collective intelligence. Where I find fault with his book is its failure to address in detail “[the] need to confront the cultural factors […] diminish[ing] the likelihood that […] [certain] groups will participate” (269). The digital participation gap is a real and persistent problem that Jenkins underplays in focusing perhaps too exclusively on the “early adopters.” Schools, NGOs, and nonprofit community organizations will bear the responsibility of “closing” the digital divide – but even within these organizations, knowledge of how to manipulate, share, and interpret media is very unevenly distributed. The open source movement has attempted to address this issue; but still, there remain many highly “computer literate” groups and individuals – hackers, for instance – who’ve a strong vested interest in disempowering the digital underclass. Jenkins never once suggests that the participatory culture of the future will be one devoid of epistemological hierarchies. But if one of our goals in the age of media convergence is more political agency for more people, we as middle-class, college educated individuals – or “early adopters,” if you will – will have to do more than simply “participate” on the level described by Jenkins. Collective intelligence is not an inevitability, but a cause like any other.