Week 13: Convergence Culture

Convergence Culture
Its not just content and technology that have changed. Its not just the medium that has changed, or the means of distribution. WE HAVE CHANGED. THE CULTURE OF COMMUNICATION HAS CHANGED.

What do we mean by culture? We mean the way the world is experienced and shared and understood.

Media convergence

What are some of the positive changes?

Media convergence
1) consumers no longer dependent on the cultural products of big media businesses 2) more pluralism, more diversity, more grass roots creative power 3) culture is made both by experts and nonexperts 4) Its all available on demand, in any place, at any time, and on essentially any device

Convergence culture

What is one of the major defining changes brought about by media convergence?

AUDIENCES CREATIVE AUDIENCES

Audiences have changed

Audiences have changed

Audiences can REACT and INTERACT Audiences can write, film, edit and PUBLISH Audiences can DISTRIBUTE

One conclusion about media convergence:

Audiences are no longer captive, they are interactive and active Communication has become democratized

Is media convergence empowering?

Henry Jenkins is a preacher of the positive power of media convergence:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibJaqXVaOaI &feature=player_embedded

Convergence culture = good

For Jenkins, CONVERGENCE CULTURE is empowering, diverse, rich and equal opportunity.

Can there be too much equality?

Does the discussion in the teenagers bedroom = the discussion in the Viacom boardroom?

Can there be too much equality?

The most popular Internet searches on Russian search engines are not for what is democracy? or how to protect human rights but for what is love? and how to lose weight.
Evgeny Morozov in The Net Delusion

Can there bee too much equality?

The Internet is creating an egalitarian antidemocracy in which the strongest inhumanity tramples on the most eloquent rationality and decency.
Lee Siegel, Against the Machine: How the Web Is Reshaping Culture and Commerce and Why It Matters.

Can there be too much freedom? Polygamy may be illegal in Turkey, but that doesnt stop Turkish villagers from using the Internet to find multiple wives.
Source: Evgeny Morozov, The Net Delusion

Can there be too much freedom? Mexican crime gangs use social networking sites to gather information about their victims.

Source: Evgeny Morozov, The Net Delusion

Can there be too much freedom?

Russian neofascists employ the Internet to fix the positions of minorities in order to organize pogroms. President Hugo Chvez of Venezuela wrote to a young critic on Twitter, Hello Mariana, the truth is Im an antidictator.
Source: Evgeny Morozov, The Net Delusion

Can there be too much freedom?

Destructive and repressive forces can use the same tools for their own ends and just as successfully

What are some other dangers within convergence culture?

Other dangers:

MASS SELF-COMMUNICATION

Other dangers: PRIVACY

private data being distributed and exploitable your name, your pictures, your personal information being uploaded, watched, used your location being known and surveilled cyber-bulling: teenagers by peers, dissidents by governments

Other dangers: REPUTATION

Companies and brands fear losing control of the message, being judged without a trial, being lynched on the Internet
Ex: Zara and Greenpeace, the Israeli candy bar, Chanel

An example: Chanel and Brad Pitt

http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=mGs4CjeJiJQ

Chanel, Brad Pitt, the result:

The top two comments on Brad Pitts Chanel N 5 ad are: "Nothing he is saying means anything" and "Go home, Brad Pitt, you're drunk. " http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6sw_ewTNM

And what about RELATIONSHIPS in this convergence culture?

Convergence relationships:
How does this change how we relate to the media in general? How does this change how we communicate with each other? How does this change how we think of ourselves?

An example: teaching

An example: listening to live music

And what about the CONTENT in this convergence culture?

An example: the Journatic scandal

CONCLUSION

The POTENTIAL of the internet and media convergence is not necessarily equal its its PRODUCTS

CONCLUSION
Ultimately we dont know or have any way of controlling what is being done with the information that IS out there about ourselves. But what we CAN control is what information we PUT out there. You have the power of CURATION.

CONCLUSION

SO TAKE THE POWER OF CURATION SERIOUSLY AND MAKE YOUR CHOICES WISELY