Blog 6: Convergence & Control

In the beginning of the article, Jenkins discusses the spread of the Bert/Bin Laden image and says "This circulation of media content —across different media systems, competing media economies, and national borders—depends heavily on consumers’ active participation." I think that quote epitomizes the similarities between our previous readings because Jenkins is essentially saying that media depends so much upon the use of its users. Weinberger talked about this as well. If a website cannot engage its users then it cannot succeed on the web today.


Another point Jenkins brought up repeatedly is the idea of convergence. Converging the new and old media together to create a sort of super media. In the section "The Prophet of Convergence" Jenkins explains that it used to be that companies only did one thing because they were each regulated under different rules and such. But now, with the spread of media, the lines between separate types of media are being blurred. You can read your newspaper stories on your phone, computer or in the copy you pick up in the CUB. There is no longer separate mediums for everything - you can get your news on TV, in print, on the web, on the go, at home, at work, at school, at the doctor's office - virtually anywhere. However, Jenkins doesn't believe that convergence is necessarily going to lead to some sort of "world peace" of media. 


He quotes Ithiel de Sola Pool several times, and one quote that particularly stood out to me was this: "we are in an age of media transition, one marked by tactical decisions and unintended consequences, mixed signals and competing interests, and most of all, unclear directions and unpredictable outcomes." I connected with this quote because it's so incredibly true. Everything we interact with today, from e-mail to Facebook, to our class website, to playing Angry Birds on our cell phones while waiting to go into the dentist was completely unexpected at one point. Today, things happen so quickly that it's practically impossible to predict what will happen as a result. I think this idea also connects to Weinberger because Weinberger discussed the idea of metadata over and over and metadata is really what controls the web and that is ALWAYS changing. The web is constantly converging new ideas to create something new and those new ideas come directly from the ever changing metadata provided by the users.