Book review: Convergence Culture

Bibliographic Data: Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press, 2006.

Main Argument:

This circulation of media content--across different media systems, competing media economies, and national borders--depends heavily on consumers' active participation. I will argue here against the idea that convergence should be understood primarily as a technological process bringing together multiple media functions within the same devices. Instead, convergence represents a cultural shift as consumers are encouraged to seek out new information and make connections among dispersed media content. This book is about the work--and play--spectators perform in the new media system. (3)

( Convergence culture )

Critical assessment: Damn, this book is full of dudes. Also, it's super trippy reading this book now because Jenkins was so right that everything he says in here feels so self-evident as to be axiomatic. There are critiques that could be made--see the entries by Steinberg and by myself in the "Further Reading" section--but by and large Jenkins deserves his position as the prophet of convergence culture, in my opinion. That said, a look at the problems "the Wikipedia" has developed as it has matured shows that new media are not arising in a new environment, but rather are, to some extent, shaped by preexisting structures of oppression and control even as they challenge them. Ah, the post-post-Fordist post-postmodern dilemma.

Further reading: Marc Steinberg, Anime's Media Mix; Alex Leavitt and Andrea Horbinski, "Even a Monkey Can Understand Fan Activism"; Lisa Gitelman, Always Already New; Anne Allison, Millennial Monsters; Andrea Horbinski, "After Henry Jenkins: Transmedia Fandom"

Meta notes: Convergence and divergence are two sides of the same coin.