Convergence culture

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Convergence culture is a theory which recognizes changing relationships and experiences with new media. [1] Henry Jenkins is accepted by media academics to be the father of the term with his book Convergence Culture: where old and new media collide. [2] It explores the flow of content distributed across various intersections of media, industries and audiences, presenting a back and forth power struggle over the distribution and control of content. [3]

Contents

Convergence culture is grouped under the larger term of media convergence, however, it is not mutually exclusive to the other types of convergence such as technological or regulatory aspects. [4] The cultural shift within convergence discourse focuses on how media production and consumption has changed with the relevance of participatory culture, collective intelligence and a converging technological environment. [1] Users can now experience an extended, interactive and even shared engagement with not just entertainment media, but also informational media.

A converging technological environment involves the changes in technology that cause different technological systems to develop and perform similar tasks. [5] Older media such as television and radio provided the single task of broadcasting while new media can perform multiple tasks. [6] Smartphones are an example of new media and a convergent device that can be used for not only making phone calls and sending text messages but also used for surfing the internet, watching videos, paying bills, accessing social media, and so on. [6] Social media platforms are forms of new media that create new models of social convergence. Platforms like Google have managed to expand their services to allow a single sign-on that connects a user's workplace to their entertainment system to create a converging technological environment. [7]

However, as the notion became popular in various media discourses, some scholars see an over-use of the idea of convergence culture, reassessing its broad nature or lack of specificity. [8]

History

Even though convergence culture is grouped under the wider term of "media convergence," this idea emerged within the "convergence" discourse roughly around the 2000s. [2] Some scholars view the progression of media convergence as a four-part historical and narratological model as a way to organize the wide and various uses of "convergence". [2]

Aspects of convergence culture

Collective intelligence

This term "collective intelligence", introduced by Pierre Levy, refers to the ability of virtual communities to collaborate bits of their knowledge or expertise to make it a whole, essentially working together towards a shared goal.Collective intelligence is also distinguished from simply "shared knowledge" across a community, since not one single mind or group can possibly know everything, instead it becomes a sum of many minds half full. [14] In a converged culture, according to Jenkins, "media consumption has become a collective process" where meaning-making is collaborated. [1]

Survivor fans

In his book Convergence Culture, Jenkins uses the example of the Survivor fan culture to reveal this phenomenon at play. Here, fans on Reddit, described as a "knowledge community", work like a hive mind and come together online to put multiple pieces of relatively small bits of information together, thus being able to puzzle together spoilers. If someone was faced with a roadblock, or complication in their investigations, other users part of the Reddit thread would contribute with their own specific expertise by adding more of their findings, or even correcting previous information.These spoilers revealed secrets such as the next season's location, the finalists, eventual winner, and other exciting moments of the seasons. [1]

For example, in the second season The Australian Outback, fans were able to figure out that a contestant was eliminated due to a medical evacuation, as well as who that person was. By finding a contestant's corporate website, they were able to view pictures of the contestant (Mike Skupin) post-season with a business associate and wearing an arm cast, which showed evidence of an arm injury. This prediction was confirmed when after episode 6 aired and Mike Skupin fell into the camp fire. [1]

Other fans in their travels would be able to find where the next season's location is, before it is even revealed (the show would withhold the next season's location until it began its promos). By building on what others have contributed, a couple goes through a detailed process of satellite images, building a network of travel agencies and tourism directors, studying ecology and culture and asking locals for information. [1]

This collective intelligence behind the reality TV show became so ingrained into the show's culture whereby the executive producer Mark Burnett would "play" with his audience, misdirecting their predictions, and switch up his editing style to throw them off from their assumptions. According to Jenkins, this spoiler culture behind Survivor revealed a new power-relationship between production and consumption with more interactive online behaviors because of the show's open recognition of the so-called "collective intelligence" . [1] Watching the show became a shared experience of collaboration which extended their engagement with the media hence, some argue that not taking this into account can be a flaw in the producers, not fully accepting a new commodity. [15]

Transmedia storytelling

This aspect of convergence culture refers more to the production of media, encompassing a change where industries and mediums of media have expanded and overlapped. [1] Rather than simply sending out their media through one medium, whether it be a film or comic, it can extend to different cultural commodities, that individually present a self-sustaining addition to the story and therefore add depth to a consumer's experience.Jenkins describes transmedia storytelling to require consumers of media to actively participate, both being encouraged and encouraging media creators to create fiction that is no longer consumed in one manner, but through multiple mediums and platforms. [1] [16]

In the words of Jenkins, "Transmedia storytelling is the art of world making." [1] A single story can now stretch across TV, film, video games and even social media. However what separates this from a franchise is that each medium ideally makes its own unique contribution to the progression of the story, it should be more than just a reiteration onto a new medium. [15]

Matrix

A film such as the Matrix , is an example of a franchised cinema project, where auxiliary information extended outwards, outside of the film industry and into other means of cultural production. In the case of Matrix, its audience was expected to go out of their way into different media channels, such as online fan-community forums, to fully understand the mythology of the film and continue on the storytelling journey throughout the sequel franchise Matrix: Reloaded and Revolutions. Taking one of its multiple video games, such as Enter the Matrix , exemplifies these extensions as not just adaptations, but instead add to the story by almost "upstaging" a main character in the films (Morpheus) with a minor character who you play as in the game (Niobe) thus creating a new narrative perspective for fans who participated within the "world" more. [1]

[17]

Participatory culture

Terms such as produsage and prosumption that describe the audience of participatory culture, refer to a shift from passive consumers to a more active audience within a new media environment. [18] These terms recognize the ability of users on web 2.0 to generate their own amateur content which can span from personal social media content to fan fiction and to even forming a new genre of citizen journalism. Barriers to production are low, as technologies facilitate the ability to easily produce, share and consume content. [19] For example, missing out on the current week's episode of one's favorite TV show would be a common problem, but internet technologies have enabled the practice of downloading and streaming an episode on demand. Also, creating fan videos are a more accessible type of fan engagement with the download of scenes, and using free pre-installed video editing software. [20] Jenkins integrates this active audience participation as a notable element of convergence culture, whereby fans as consumers can directly interact with content and appropriate or remix it into their own consumption process.

Because of the more emerging participatory content, it represents the media industries to not simply be a top-down corporate driven process, but just as much a bottom down, consumer driven process too. While companies are looking to extend their content across platforms and enter new realms, consumers in this converged ecology have also gained control in aspects of the process such as where, how and when they want to consume. [21] For example, the creation of fan fiction, while it can sometimes be managed and facilitated by the corporate leaders, fans can take worlds and remix and collaborate it into something new and their own. It has reached a point where consumption now can entails some fragment of collaboration, creation etc.

Half-Life Counter Strike logo Half-Life Counter-Strike.svg
Half-Life Counter Strike logo

An example of this flattened hierarchical structure between the production and consumption of content or media is Counter-Strike the computer game. This game originated as an extension of Half Life,a modification ("mod") and therefore not its own game. Creators Minh Lee and Jeff Cliff, developed and released this "mod" for free but the game required a Half-Life copy to work. Using the Software Developer's Kit of Half Life to access the game's -building tools, the creators coded and modeled the game, but its maps and character options, which would traditionally be assigned a team of developers by the company, were essentially decided by its gamers, through prepublications and discussions on its websites. In this way, converged culture reveals a challenging of who is in charge, collaborating with outside developers, fans and producers to develop the game. [22]

The challenge of convergence culture

As the idea of convergence culture became more apparent in media and cultural studies writings, other scholars such as Nick Couldry and James Hay, saw the notion to be over-used catch all term. [8] They began to question convergence culture as a buzzword that has yet to be fully mapped, and demands specificity. [8] Scholars Anders Fagerjord and Tanja Storsul believe that while it may be an appropriate term to describe the changing technologies, convergence should not be applied as a "catch-all term." Instead, they propose the use of adjectives when using the term in order to highlight the type of convergence, whether it be media, regulatory, network and so on. [13] This is because convergence has come to mean many things in different contexts and if not specified, can result in unwanted complexity and meaninglessness. [13] Critics like Ginette Verstraete, have also mentioned a need to acknowledge and discuss the converged culture discourse within the context of other social spaces such as politics and economics. Jenkins in response also agreed to this need for further discussion, proposing to explore it in a more nuanced framework. [23]

Other challenges that may concern a converged culture, are the political aspect of politics involved, regarding issues of media concentration and regulation of social networking sites and the use of "free labour". As various media and technological industries begin to merge, traditional media policies regarding each platform are beginning to overlap and become irrelevant. Furthermore, there is the additional challenge of user-generated content that goes under the radar, not having "gatekeepers" manage everything. Therefore, it has become a global challenge to embrace this change and implement policies and control accordingly. [24]

Another challenge faced by the media industry is how to deal with digital communication and information technologies. [25] With the rapid development of convergence culture, media professionals, like reporters, are frightened or confused whether their current skills are needed in the future. It’s common for them to have fear and resistance to change. [26] Meanwhile, in this converged environment, the competition between different media becomes fiercer. [27] The news media has adopted a 24-hour news cycle over time to provide a constant flood of information. Reporters are expected to process more stories and add more work to keep up with the industry demand, which are overloaded without appropriate financial compensation. [28]

Related Research Articles

Technological convergence is the tendency for technologies that were originally unrelated to become more closely integrated and even unified as they develop and advance. For example, watches, telephones, television, computers, and social media platforms began as separate and mostly unrelated technologies, but have converged in many ways into an interrelated telecommunication, media, and technology industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Jenkins</span> American media scholar

Henry Guy Jenkins III is an American media scholar and Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts, a joint professorship at the University of Southern California (USC) Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and the USC School of Cinematic Arts. He also has a joint faculty appointment with the USC Rossier School of Education. Previously, Jenkins was the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities as well as co-founder and co-director of the Comparative Media Studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He has also served on the technical advisory board at ZeniMax Media, parent company of video game publisher Bethesda Softworks. In 2013, he was appointed to the board that selects the prestigious Peabody Award winners.

A media franchise, also known as a multimedia franchise, is a collection of related media in which several derivative works have been produced from an original creative work of fiction, such as a film, a work of literature, a television program or a video game. Bob Iger, chief executive of the Walt Disney Company, defined the word franchise as "something that creates value across multiple businesses and across multiple territories over a long period of time".

Transmedia storytelling is the technique of telling a single story or story experience across multiple platforms and formats using current digital technologies.

In the context of transmedia storytelling, hypersociability is the encouraged involvement of media consumers in a story through ordinary social interaction. A story may be shared through discourse within a fan group. Hypersociability lessens the need for a publisher to offer fixed media. Instead, storytellers hope that fans will build on the story themselves either over the Internet or through direct conversation. The principle of hypersociability is most widely used in Japanese pop culture, examples of which include Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokémon, which used multiplayer games separate from the original media. The Wachowskis deliberately incorporated elements of hypersociability for The Animatrix by seeking the help of Japanese animators.

Participatory culture, an opposing concept to consumer culture, is a culture in which private individuals do not act as consumers only, but also as contributors or producers (prosumers). The term is most often applied to the production or creation of some type of published media.

Fan translation refers to the unofficial translation of various forms of written or multimedia products made by fans, often into a language in which an official translated version is not yet available. Generally, fans do not have formal training as translators but they volunteer to participate in translation projects based on interest in a specific audiovisual genre, TV series, movie, etc.

Terry Flew is an Australian media and communications scholar, and Professor of Digital Communication and Culture in the Department of Media and Communication at the University of Sydney, Australia. He was formerly the Professor and Assistant Dean (Research) in the Creative Industries Faculty at the Queensland University of Technology. He has produced award-winning research in creative industries, media and communications, and online journalism. He is primarily known for his publication, New Media: An Introduction, which is currently in its fourth edition. His research interests include digital media, global media, media policy, creative industries, media economics, and the future of journalism.

Multi-platform television is "a mode of storytelling that plays itself out across multiple entertainment channels". Each medium that the story unfolds across makes a distinctive contribution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean Burgess</span> Australian academic

Jean Burgess is a Distinguished Professor of Digital Media at the QUT Digital Media Research Centre, and in the QUT School of Communication. She is currently Associate Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society. She was the Deputy Director of the former ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI) at the Queensland University of Technology. From 2010-2013 Jean was an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow (APD), working with Axel Bruns on the ARC Discovery Project 'New Media and Public Communication'. She researches and publishes on issues of cultural participation in new media contexts, with a particular focus on user-created content, online social networks, and co-creative media including digital storytelling.

The post-network era, also known as the post-broadcast era, is a concept in U.S. television that was popularized by Amanda D. Lotz. It denotes the period that followed an earlier network era, the nation's first institutional phase that started in the 1950s and ran through to the mid-1980s, and television's later multi-channel transition. It describes a period that saw the deterioration of the dominance of the Big Three television networks: ABC, CBS and NBC in the United States, and follows the creation of a wide variety of cable television channels that catered specifically to niche groups. The post-network era saw the development of networks that deliver a wider diversity of programming choice, less constraints on a consumers choice of medium, decentralization of the location of viewing, and freedom of choice over time of viewing. It is concurrent with the Second Golden Age of Television.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Produsage</span> User-led content creation that takes place in a variety of online environments

Produsage is a portmanteau of the words production and usage, coined by German-Australian media scholar Axel Bruns and popularized in his book Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond: From Production to Produsage. Produsage is the type of user-led content creation that takes place in a variety of online environments, open source software, and the blogosphere. The concept blurs the boundaries between passive consumption and active production. The distinction between producers and consumers or users of content has faded, as users play the role of producers whether they are aware of this role or not. The hybrid term produser refers to an individual who is engaged in the activity of produsage. This concept is similar and related to commons-based peer production, a term coined by Yochai Benkler.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mirko Tobias Schäfer</span>

Mirko Tobias Schäfer is a media scholar at Utrecht University. He is an Associate Professor at the Department for Information & Computing Sciences and Science Lead of the Utrecht Data School.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Radical media</span> Journalistic media that disperse action-oriented political agendas

Radical media are communication outlets that disperse action-oriented political agendas utilizing existing communication infrastructures and its supportive users. These types of media are differentiated from conventional mass communications through its progressive content, reformist culture, and democratic process of production and distribution. Advocates support its alternative and oppositional view of mass media, arguing that conventional outlets are politically biased through their production and distribution. However, there are some critics that exist in terms of validating the authenticity of the content, its political ideology, long-term perishability, and the social actions led by the media.

Transmediality is a term used in intermediality studies, narratology, and new media studies (in particular in the phrase ‘transmedia storytelling’ derived from Henry Jenkins, to describe phenomena which are non-media specific, meaning not connected to a specific medium, and can therefore be realized in a large number of different media, such as literature, art, film, or music. The medium from which a given phenomenon originated is either irrelevant or impossible to determine; it is not an adaptation of a phenomenon from one medium to another.

In media studies and marketing, spreadability is the wide distribution and circulation of information on media platforms.

Snack culture (Korean: 스낵컬쳐) is the South Korean trend of consuming entertainment or other media in brief periods, typically of 15 minutes or less. It is a practice which emerged due to the popularization of smartphones and the desire of content-providers to reach an increasingly busy and mobile population. The Korean Times wrote in 2014 that "'snack culture' is becoming representative of the Korean cultural scene." It has been called "a hot topic" in the media-content industry in 2014. Due to its significance, several scholars paid attention to snack culture, and in particular in tandem with webtoons. Snack culture—the habit of consuming information and cultural resources like webtoons quickly rather than engaging at a deeper level—is becoming representative of the Korean cultural scene in the 21st century as discussed in Dal Yong Jin's book on Transmedia Storytelling.

Media deconvergence is an original term coined to describe the breaking apart of companies through spin-offs, split-offs and demergers, which grew in numbers as a consequence of the failure of many mergers and consolidations realized in the late 1990s and in the first decade of the 21st century in the media and communications sectors. AOL-Time Warner, whose merger took place in 2000 and ended in 2009, and Viacom, which split into the CBS Corporation and the current incarnation of Viacom in 2005, are good examples of media (market) deconvergence.

Fan studies is an academic discipline that analyses fans, fandoms, fan cultures and fan activities, including fanworks. It is an interdisciplinary field located at the intersection of the humanities and social sciences, which emerged in the early 1990s as a separate discipline, and draws particularly on audience studies and cultural studies.

The term hype culture refers to a cultural trend within contemporary consumer culture, that corresponds to the constant search of the last "big thing". This phenomenon circulates around the concept of expectation, more precisely it is characterized by an attitude of excessive and positive expectations that consumers attach to products, services or technological advancements which have yet to be released.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Jenkins, Henry (August 2006). Convergence Culture:where old and new media collide . New York: New York University Press. ISBN   978-0-8147-4281-5.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Balbi, G. (2017). Deconstructing “Media Convergence”: A Cultural History of the Buzzword, 1980s–2010s. In S. Sparviero, C. Peil, & G. Balbi, Media Convergence and Deconvergence (pp. 31-51). Palgrave MacMillan.
  3. ↑ Jenkins, Henry; Deuze, Mark (2008). "Editorial: Convergence Culture". The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. Sage Publications. 14: 5–12. doi: 10.1177/1354856507084415 .
  4. ↑ Mikos, Lothar (2017). "Transmedia Storytelling and Mega-Narration: Audiovisual Production in Converged Media Environments". In Sparviero, Sergio; Peil, Corinna; Balbi, Gabriele (eds.). Media Convergence and Deconvergence. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. pp. 159–175. ISBN   978-3-319-51289-1.
  5. ↑ James Hay & Nick Couldry (2011) RETHINKING CONVERGENCE/CULTURE, Cultural Studies, 25:4-5, 473-486, DOI: 10.1080/09502386.2011.600527
  6. 1 2 Wikipedia, By. "Technological Divergence".
  7. ↑ Ouellette, Laurie (2017). Keywords for Media Studies. New York University Press. ISBN   9781479859610.
  8. 1 2 3 Hay, James; Couldry, Nick (2011). "Rethinking Convergence/Culture". Cultural Studies. 25 (4–5): 473–486. doi:10.1080/09502386.2011.600527. S2CID   142908522.
  9. ↑ Keun-Hwan Kim*, Yeong-Ho Moon**
  10. ↑ Cinque, Toija (2012). "What exactly is media and what is 'new' in new media?". Communication, New Media and Everyday Life. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. pp. 7–20.
  11. ↑ Lind, Jonas (2004). "Convergence: history of term usage and lessons for firm strategists".{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  12. ↑ Szczepaniak, Renata (2013). "Editorial". Media Convergence—Approaches and Experiences. Peter Land Edition. p. 7.
  13. 1 2 3 Ford, Kevin M. (2009). "Ambivalence Towards Convergence: Digitalization and Media Change". Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. Wiley Online Library. 60 (2): 427. doi:10.1002/asi.20966. ISSN   1532-2890.
  14. ↑ Levy, Pierre (1997). "Introduction". Collective Intelligence: Mankind's emerging world in cyberspace. Cambridge: Perseus Books. pp. 1–10.
  15. 1 2 Dowd, Tom; Niederman, Michael; Fry, Joseph; Steiff, Josef (2013). Storytelling Across Worlds: transmedia for creatives and producers. Focal Press. pp. 1–5.
  16. ↑ Jenkins, Henry. "Transmedia Storytelling". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 16 May 2019.
  17. ↑ Perryman, Neil (2008). "Doctor Who and the Convergence of Media". Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. Sage Publications. 14 (1): 21–39. doi:10.1177/1354856507084417. S2CID   143017991.
  18. ↑ Bruns, Axel (2016). Jensen, Klaus Brunh; Craig, Robert T. (eds.). "Prosumption, Produsage". The International Encyclopedia of Communication Theory and Philosophy. John Wiley & Sons: 1–4. doi:10.1002/9781118766804.wbiect086. ISBN   9781118290736.
  19. ↑ Jenkins, Henry (2012). Textual poachers : television fans and participatory culture (Updated 20th anniversary ed.). New York: Routledge. p. 158. ISBN   9780203114339.
  20. ↑ Busse, Kristina; Gray, Jonathan (2011). "Fan cultures and fan communities". The Handbook of Media Audiences. Blackwell Publishing: 425–443. doi:10.1002/9781444340525.ch21. ISBN   9781444340525.
  21. ↑ Jenkins, Henry (19 June 2006). "Welcome to Convergence Culture". Henry Jenkins.
  22. ↑ Deuze, Mark (25 July 2016). "Convergence culture in the creative industries". International Journal of Cultural Studies. SAGE. 10 (2): 243–263. doi:10.1177/1367877907076793. S2CID   145773968.
  23. ↑ Jenkins, Henry (28 May 2013). "Rethinking 'Rethinking Convergence/Culture'". Cultural Studies. 28 (2): 267–297. doi:10.1080/09502386.2013.801579. S2CID   144101343.
  24. ↑ Flew, Terry (2014). "Classification and Regulation". The Media and Communications in Australia. Allen & Unwin: 333–335.
  25. ↑ I, Indrati; R, Fiati; Mani, La; Aras, Muhammad (2018-06-20). "Challenges to Mass Media Posed by Convergence in the Indonesian Context". Global Media Journal. 16 (31): 1–13. ISSN   1550-7521.
  26. ↑ Huang, Edgar; Davison, Karen; Shreve, Stephanie; Davis, Twila; Bettendorf, Elizabeth; Nair, Anita (2006-02-01). "Facing the Challenges of Convergence: Media Professionals' Concerns of Working Across Media Platforms". Convergence. 12 (1): 83–98. doi: 10.1177/1354856506061557 . ISSN   1354-8565. S2CID   145741350.
  27. ↑ "The Truth About Convergence". Poynter. 2002-11-14. Retrieved 2021-10-29.
  28. ↑ Bhuiyan, Serajul I. "Teaching Media Convergence and Its Challenges". Asia Pacific Media Educator (20): 115–122.
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