Blog #5

Intro: “Worship at the Altar of Convergence”

Overview: Our society, both analog and digital, corporate and grassroots, is coming together on an unavoidable collision course. It has the potential to deeply enrich our lives, as well as consume them. Overall, Jenkins talks about exploring participation in new media as well as access to this media, which he calls the “Black Box”: a single device for all things media.


Quotes:

“None of us can know everything; each of us knows something; and we can put the pieces together if we pool our resources and combine our skills. Collective intelligence can be seen as an alternative source of media power. We are learning how to use that power through our day-to-day interactions with convergence culture.” (Jenkins 4)

“Convergence, as we can see, is both a top-down corporate driven process and a bottom-up consumer-driven process. Corporate convergence coexists with grassroots convergence… The promise of this new media environment raise expectations of a freer flow of ideas and content. Inspired by those ideals, consumers are fighting for the right to participate more fully in their culture.” (Jenkins 18)

Real World: Personally, I am like Jenkins in that I only use my cell phone for talking. So when I was home for Christmas and my sister (28) was glued to her iPhone watching YouTube videos, looking at pictures on Facebook, and texting for hours on end, naturally I was curious. Why is having all this in your pocket better than having it accessible from a computer? Both are already similar to the Black Box Jenkins mentions.

Weinberger Connections: Weinberger talked a lot about participation in the third order of order, but the internet was his main concern. Jenkins takes the idea of participation beyond internet interactions, and focuses more on people interacting with media through a variety of technology. Weinberger also focused on the bottom-up organization, whereas Jenkins views the bottom-up and the top-down as merging together to form the new media—giving people what they want.