At a time when new technologies, promising ideas, concepts, and emerging online projects seem to pop up from every direction, a time when it seems that you cannot possibly be too networked or informed, Henry Jenkins’ Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide seems like an appropriate read for understanding the new space we’ve each come to occupy in producing and consuming media. In a way, Jenkins’ book is a time capsule of sorts, managing to encompass the advantages, issues, and overall essence of the transitional state in which media currently exists. Emphasizing the two-sided nature of the Internet—particularly social media—and advanced cell phone technologies, which opened the opportunity for virtually unlimited and immediate self-expression, Jenkins points out that when people take media into their own hands, the results can be wonderfully creative, but they can also be bad for all involved. The new challenges presented to television advertisers, the issues surrounding the element of interactive television, and shifting new modes of storytelling are just some of the fascinating topics that Jenkins brings up in his book.
Convergence Culture serves as an excellent toolbox of notions that can help early technology adopters tap into the still hidden potentials of the media outlets that are available, be it for monetary gains generated through effective marketing or to increase the audience for one’s own creative work. Jenkins’ book provides relevant real world examples of how cross-media strategies can be implemented to promote a product effectively without resorting to old marketing schemes that are no longer realistic. When it comes to television, the American viewing public is becoming increasingly harder to impress, creating a challenge for the television industry and advertisers, who are anxiously working to readjust their focus in order to retain audiences. Jenkins explains how Coca-Cola found a new niche to market its brand alongside the very successful reality show American Idol by branding key series elements:
Contestants wait in the “red room” before going on stage; judges sip from Coca-Cola cups; highlights get featured on the official program Web site surrounded by a Coca-Cola logo; soft drink promotions reward tickets to the finales; Coca-Cola sends Idol performers to NASCAR races and other sporting events that it sponsors; and Coca-Cola’s sponsorship figures prominently at the American Idol finalist’s national concert tour. (71).
In his detailed discussion of the American Idol phenomenon, Jenkins also explains how the show’s interactive aspect, which encourages users to use SMS messaging to vote for their favourite contestants each week, helped popularize SMS messaging in America. And while one could argue that the media and communication corporations, in this case, continues to shape its audiences and consumers by pushing them towards adopting a new means of expression, as we come to see, the reverse is also true. In other words, individuals, in turn, can also control the medium with noticeable effects. Once the collective audience fully grasps the consequences and rewards of this new interactivity factor—the ability to control the outcome of a show and significantly affect their viewer experience—they may begin to experiment with the technology and, in the case of American Idol, their votes, too. Jenkins illustrates this idea in his discussion of the fan backlash that began to grow after several seasons of American Idol, giving rise to the Vote for the Worst group. The Vote for the Worst was a web campaign launched to encourage participating audiences to vote for the worst contestants to keep them on the show for as long as possible. It shows how audiences can grasp control of their viewer experience by attempting to mould the show into a humorous production of bad performances instead of one that supposedly attempts to discover and promote true talent. Such actions on the part of the collective audience, be they well-intended or a form of trolling, can pose a threat to show producers and television broadcast companies, but that is the essence of convergence culture that Jenkins is talking about.
The book also poses a very interesting discussion of the appropriation of texts into new media and shifting forms of creative expression and storytelling that now have an easy outlet thanks to the Internet. Jenkins writes that ‘storytellers now think about storytelling in terms of creating openings for consumer participation. At the same time, consumers are using new media technologies to engage with old media content, seeing the Internet as a vehicle for collective problem solving, public deliberation, and grassroots activity.’ Because of these trends, texts that were previously consumed in a single or only a few mediums, such as books and movies, are now also taking on other forms of media, such as games, fan fiction, virtual realities, and communities of fans on Web forums, just to name a few. Jenkins illustrates how this puts into question the way corporations, such as entertainment production studios, claim ownership over texts and try to stifle harmless fan participation.
While Jenkins’ discussion precedes the age of Twitter by a couple of years, the notions are remarkably applicable here, too, since Twitter attracts such a wide array to contributors and observers. More than just a way to keep your friends or fans up to date, giving them a play by play of your activities, Twitter is an environment that fosters an astonishing amount of creative self-expression that virtually anyone with access to Internet can take part in. Justin Halpern’s Sh*t My Dad Says Twitter-account-turned-book is an example of a cross-media text that originated as a Twitter account, gained 1,557,075 followers (and counting), and recently got published as a book, currently ranking eighth on the Chapters Indigo bestselling top 50 list. CBS has recently picked up the script and will begin airing a sitcom inspired by the Twitter-based profane-yet-funny utterings of Justin Halpern’s 73-year-old dad.
With such a wide variety of individuals to follow and a true opportunity of unlimited interactivity, it’s not surprising how Twitter became so popular. Encompassing the element of reality television shows, it allows individuals to become active participants in storylines and discussions. Another great example of storytelling to originate on Twitter is shhdontellsteve, a one young man’s reporting of what his roommate, Steve, does at all times. Combining the elements of relatable and humorous reality in an interactive 140-character form is an appealing mode of storytelling, and it would not be surprising to see a television broadcasting company try to pick it up sometime soon as well.
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