The introduction of Jenkins introduces us to the concept of "convergence culture" and what this means to us in terms of "the new media system." He says there is a relationship between three concepts - media convergence, participatory culture, and collective intelligence. Jenkins uses a variety of examples throughout the introduction to show us how older technologies like the typewriter have converged to become today's Microsoft Word.
"Convergence is taking place within the same appliances, within the same franchise, within the same company, within the brain of the consumer, and within the same fandom. Convergence involves both a change in the way media is produced and a change in the way media is consumed." (16)
"Convergence, as we can see, is both a top-down corporate-driven process and a bottom-up consumer-driven process." (18)
"Yet, right now, our best window into convergence culture comes from looking at the experience of these early settlers and first inhabitants. These elite consumers exert a disproportionate influence on media culture in part because advertisers and media producers are so eager to attract and hold their attention." (23)
When Jenkins discussed cell phones being able to stream the first Bollywood movie, it reminded me of the first time I ever got a cell phone at age 15. One of the temporary free features was T-Mobile's video player, where you could stream videos, movie clips, or trailers on your phone. At the time, this technology was so exciting, but nowadays its no big deal to be able to surf the web and watch full length movies.
So far I see a similarity in Weinberger's use of examples (photo archives, Delicious, iTunes, etc) in Jenkins writing (Bollywood movie, Bert is Evil, students making cell phone porn, etc). I think it helps to drive the point of the text home, however I feel like both texts have been outdated in terms of being able to "teach" the generation in which we have grown up. Jenkins says that in the 1990s access to the public in terms of Internet was the main question, but now its more of skill. I think both Weinberger and Jenkins agree on this idea that skill is what differentiates the American public's use of the internet with someone like me, a DTC student at WSU.
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Work a bit more in the summaries of moving from telling ("he talks about cats") to showing ("he describes how 50% of people are allergic to cats and he argues that this allergy is causing democracy to fail"). As for skill, that's an interesting point. I'd be wary of thinking though that being a DTC major makes one skilled in using the internet, or perhaps "knowledgeable" is a better word. Think, for eg, how many people in our class had never used Twitter and didn't know what the RT, @, and # were for. Are we skilled? Or are we just skilled at certain types of things?
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