Since this week's readings focus on convergence culture and the critiques directed at the concept, I wanted to share a short clip that provides a brief overview for the framework of discussion. In this clip, the short survey of media transformation in the digital age and its repercussions are discussed in relation to participatory culture and convergence by Henry Jenkins. This transformation is contextualized by users' newfound capabilities to create and circulate content. These users also re-use the copyrighted material without permission, which, according to Jenkins, challenges the hierarchy of power within the pre-existing media system.
When Jenkins starts to define convergence culture (1:45), he refers to content playing “in maximum number of channels.” This “spreadability” aspect is mentioned in Rethinking 'Rethinking Convergence Culture' article along with his book Spreadable Media, in which Jenkins addresses the questions raised about the democratic potential of digitalization. With reference to critiques of convergence culture, Jenkins (2014) offers his own critique of Tim O'Reilly's Web 2.0 model that underlines the model's shift away from participation and collective intelligence in favor of financial gain (p. 278). In other words, Jenkins acknowledges that convergence culture might not fulfill the promise of participation and empowerment for users.
Jenkins also touches upon collective intelligence in the clip (2:18). Collective intelligence, a term discussed by Pierre Lévy in relation to media, emphasizes the importance of the process of communication between individuals that leads to a better result than an individual's output. InCollective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace, Lévy is more concerned with the deliberative practice rather than the economic profit that collective intelligence might produce. Similarly, in the clip, Jenkins gives the example of human rights activists circulating torture photographs (2:26) to pressure governments into action against torture and abuse. The gathering of these photographs, their circulation and the campaigns utilizing these pictures are made possible by cooperation and coordination of many people. The more current example of how crowdsourced projects can challenge traditional power structures would be Wikileaks. Both these examples point out to the ways in which collective intelligence might contribute to participatory politics.
Jenkins mentions transmediality as another aspect of the relationship between convergence and participation (4:16). He gives the example of Obama's first presidential campaign, which helped to introduce the candidate to public via multiple media platforms. This diversification of platforms is parallel to the diversification of producers, who are no longer hindered by the traditional mass media gate-keepers. While other articles in Cultural Studies journal underline how the new system has its own problems of access and representation, in his article in the same issue, Jenkins argues that there might still be a democratic potential in digitalization thanks to users' participation in production despite the aforementioned problems.
This hope is echoed in the clip, which closes with Jenkins saying the change will come “not from the entertainment infrastructure, but from some average citizen whose reality has never been depicted on screen before” (5:36 ). In that context, this week's readings reveal that if there is still some hope for utilizing digital technologies for a better future, it is necessary to consider the exploitation of participation along with participation in discussion of digitalization and convergence.
For Howard Rheingold's interview with Pierre Lévy on collective intelligence:
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