Convergence Culture

The provided articles are an excerpt from the book Convergence Culture: Where

Old and New Media Collide by Henry Jenkins, and a couple of book review discussing the content of the book. Convergence, Jenkins says, “describes technological, industrial, cultural, and social changes in the ways media circulates within our culture.” Jenkins understands that the circulation of media content to create a convergence culture must have the active participation of consumers. He describes a story in which a relatively unknown person (Dino Ignacio) was able to inadvertently create a countrywide uproar from a collage he made of the sesame street character Bert and Osama Bin Laden after it made its way onto the news in coverage of the Middle East. From my understanding this discussion of convergence culture is a relatively new one. Current technology such as the Internet provides the means necessary for the wide involvement of fans that is available today. Before the advent of technology this participation was very limited and for the most part average people had little say in the products presented to them. Now that more people are provided an outlet in which to participate (in a wide variety of ways such as video, blog, ect.) it is creating a participatory culture that corporations have had to adapt to and even seek out participation from their audiences. If we are able to follow this pattern of media history then it is very likely that this convergence will continue to take place and become even more integrated into everyday life.