What do you think?
Rate this book
Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide
Convergence Culture maps a new territory: where old and new media intersect, where grassroots and corporate media collide, where the power of the media producer and the power of the consumer interact in unpredictable ways.
Henry Jenkins, one of America's most respected media analysts, delves beneath the new media hype to uncover the important cultural transformations that are taking place as media converge. He takes us into the secret world of "Survivor" Spoilers, where avid internet users pool their knowledge to unearth the show's secrets before they are revealed on the air. He introduces us to young "Harry Potter" fans who are writing their own Hogwarts tales while executives at Warner Brothers struggle for control of their franchise. He shows us how "The Matrix" has pushed transmedia storytelling to new levels, creating a fictional world where consumers track down bits of the story across multiple media channels.Jenkins argues that struggles over convergence will redefine the face of American popular culture. Industry leaders see opportunities to direct content across many channels to increase revenue and broaden markets. At the same time, consumers envision a liberated public sphere, free of network controls, in a decentralized media environment. Sometimes corporate and grassroots efforts reinforce each other, creating closer, more rewarding relations between media producers and consumers. Sometimes these two forces are at war.
Jenkins provides a riveting introduction to the world where every story gets told and every brand gets sold across multiple media platforms. He explains the cultural shift that is occurring as consumers fight for control across disparate channels, changing the way we do business, elect our leaders, and educate our children.
Henry Jenkins, one of America's most respected media analysts, delves beneath the new media hype to uncover the important cultural transformations that are taking place as media converge. He takes us into the secret world of "Survivor" Spoilers, where avid internet users pool their knowledge to unearth the show's secrets before they are revealed on the air. He introduces us to young "Harry Potter" fans who are writing their own Hogwarts tales while executives at Warner Brothers struggle for control of their franchise. He shows us how "The Matrix" has pushed transmedia storytelling to new levels, creating a fictional world where consumers track down bits of the story across multiple media channels.Jenkins argues that struggles over convergence will redefine the face of American popular culture. Industry leaders see opportunities to direct content across many channels to increase revenue and broaden markets. At the same time, consumers envision a liberated public sphere, free of network controls, in a decentralized media environment. Sometimes corporate and grassroots efforts reinforce each other, creating closer, more rewarding relations between media producers and consumers. Sometimes these two forces are at war.
Jenkins provides a riveting introduction to the world where every story gets told and every brand gets sold across multiple media platforms. He explains the cultural shift that is occurring as consumers fight for control across disparate channels, changing the way we do business, elect our leaders, and educate our children.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
185 people are currently reading
3635 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 167 reviews
October 15, 2013
INITIAL REVIEW BELOW--
HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO NOW, AND HERE?
I joined Goodreads at the behest of a student in 2007. I teach lit. I get a chance daily to read and comment on reading with a circle of smart, engaged readers; I also am supposed to write about my reading, and connect with other readers and writers professionally. Why, I asked this student, would I want to get on a "social networking site for book geeks"? What on earth would be useful--or fun--when my every day is neck-deep in books and writing about books?
Heck, he said, you might find it interesting.
I rambled about for a few weeks. Star ratings and reviews? Amazon has that, and Amazon is a store. Sort of helpful when scanning products, but not much of a resource for a deeper user investment. When I want reviews, I surf about to various (and ever-expanding) professional outlets. What do I get here--what's the value added?
My first inkling of what GR could be was in a rip-roaring fight about Norman Mailer (or it might have been Philip Roth) between David Kowalski, brian gottlieb, and Manny Ramirez. Knuckledusters out--no punches pulled. Mean, uncivil, smart as hell.
I joined in. I realized (small world) that Manny and brian knew someone I knew in L.A. I met, through them, a bunch of other interesting people. It was never so much about their reviews, although good lord David and brian--like so many others on this site--can produce critical reflections as incisive, expansive, downright funny, boldly provocative as anyone writing about literature anywhere ("professional" or not). It was instead about battling, and joining virtual hands, in a bond about books. It was a perfect intersection of critical engagement and community networking... and I just plain liked the people I ran into, and the chance to read beyond those circles to see how other communities read. (YA -- who knew there were such fascinating and invested readers and critical debates? I don't join in, but I have loved being able to examine and relish how invested fans rigorously engage their aesthetic, ethical, personal values over works they cherish or deride.)
But.
It seemed for a stretch that Goodreads had a bead on something wonderful at the corner where the new paradigms of new media are converging. (And here's the hat-tip to Jenkins.) Newspapers are dying, so whither the book review? Well, damn: maybe here? The intersections of the "professional" and the fan review emerge most forcefully--seem most powerfully to build upon what's best in both--when there's a rich social network with an expansive open-access audience. More critics, more writing, more dialogue about literature, more dialogues about the various open contexts which shape literature (the autobiographical, the debates about authors, the connections readers draw between works and with other readers)... GR had something hot. This isn't a store--see above: Amazon doesn't need a mirror site. But the way this social space could connect to the new marketplace was beyond intriguing -- publishing and selling books are also changing radically, and again GR seemed to be finding a way to anchor in READERS' networks and make a new kind of sense of what to publish and how to market. The production and consumption of literature are always linked; GR signaled a possible new kind of linking.
Notice the past tense there? The links between production and consumption, between publishing/selling and a vibrant (finicky, contentious, or in other words INVESTED) audience are always tense. But tension is often a sign of tremendous vitality and health. What *seems* like "Lord of the Flies" (to steal from a recent article) is really just the red-in-tooth-and-claw ecosystem in which literature always thrives. What I think has begun to happen here is an attempt to tamp down the problems, which throw the ecosystem out of whack -- which put the thumb on the scale for producers, corral the consumers....
... it's what usually happens to vibrant folk cultures when the markets intervene.
Which is probably headier--i.e, pedantic and blowhardier--than is needed. But it seems to me that GR has been tamed, and the taming is a market decision, and I could give a shit about investing in yet another place that is all about me being a *mere* consumer.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
I'm a text guy, a loving diviner of the messy complexities of the formal object--whether a novel, a pop song, a photo, a film. I get kicks from hermeneutics.
And I found my pleasures amplified when, in grad school, I began digging around in what goes into shaping that text (ye olde production questions) and who and how it gets read, viewed, used (ye olde consumption questions).
But even with these new factors added into the interpretive calculus, too often ideas about meaning tended to collapse into rigid schools of thought, banked on rigid foundations in one of those elements. Production trumped all (the text as commodity, the reader a dupe), consumers triumphantly made hay with the stuff of the market (and reworked anew, again and again, great art), and so on. I caricature here--there are obviously a lot of great, contradictory, hotly-debated nuances and parsings. The calculus of interpretation remains more algebraically open-ended than geometrically precise. (And thank god.)
Which is all a longwinded way to introduce how Jenkins--in this as in other works--kind of blows my mind by really, really, *really* thinking with astonishing creative rigor about how the social act of meaning-making occurs out there in the world. His point in this work seems to hammer home a thesis developed through much of his criticism: those old neat boundaries (production, text, consumption) mean little now, maybe never meant as much as we thought but especially not now. He's not merely a new-media cheerleader, and he's far from the gloomy critical pessimist, and he's never less than fascinating about subjects (Survivor message-boards and spoiling, the duelling and divergent attempts to control the fan-fiction readers/writers of Harry Potter) I might not normally give a whit about.
And his last chapter, on the convergence of popular and public culture in the 2004 election, outlines how our theories and understandings of how people engage with(in) these new media/cultural worlds are only just beginning to scratch the surface of what's possible. It's prescient stuff, reading his take on 2004 when we're knee-deep in 2008's election.
Really dug this.
HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO NOW, AND HERE?
I joined Goodreads at the behest of a student in 2007. I teach lit. I get a chance daily to read and comment on reading with a circle of smart, engaged readers; I also am supposed to write about my reading, and connect with other readers and writers professionally. Why, I asked this student, would I want to get on a "social networking site for book geeks"? What on earth would be useful--or fun--when my every day is neck-deep in books and writing about books?
Heck, he said, you might find it interesting.
I rambled about for a few weeks. Star ratings and reviews? Amazon has that, and Amazon is a store. Sort of helpful when scanning products, but not much of a resource for a deeper user investment. When I want reviews, I surf about to various (and ever-expanding) professional outlets. What do I get here--what's the value added?
My first inkling of what GR could be was in a rip-roaring fight about Norman Mailer (or it might have been Philip Roth) between David Kowalski, brian gottlieb, and Manny Ramirez. Knuckledusters out--no punches pulled. Mean, uncivil, smart as hell.
I joined in. I realized (small world) that Manny and brian knew someone I knew in L.A. I met, through them, a bunch of other interesting people. It was never so much about their reviews, although good lord David and brian--like so many others on this site--can produce critical reflections as incisive, expansive, downright funny, boldly provocative as anyone writing about literature anywhere ("professional" or not). It was instead about battling, and joining virtual hands, in a bond about books. It was a perfect intersection of critical engagement and community networking... and I just plain liked the people I ran into, and the chance to read beyond those circles to see how other communities read. (YA -- who knew there were such fascinating and invested readers and critical debates? I don't join in, but I have loved being able to examine and relish how invested fans rigorously engage their aesthetic, ethical, personal values over works they cherish or deride.)
But.
It seemed for a stretch that Goodreads had a bead on something wonderful at the corner where the new paradigms of new media are converging. (And here's the hat-tip to Jenkins.) Newspapers are dying, so whither the book review? Well, damn: maybe here? The intersections of the "professional" and the fan review emerge most forcefully--seem most powerfully to build upon what's best in both--when there's a rich social network with an expansive open-access audience. More critics, more writing, more dialogue about literature, more dialogues about the various open contexts which shape literature (the autobiographical, the debates about authors, the connections readers draw between works and with other readers)... GR had something hot. This isn't a store--see above: Amazon doesn't need a mirror site. But the way this social space could connect to the new marketplace was beyond intriguing -- publishing and selling books are also changing radically, and again GR seemed to be finding a way to anchor in READERS' networks and make a new kind of sense of what to publish and how to market. The production and consumption of literature are always linked; GR signaled a possible new kind of linking.
Notice the past tense there? The links between production and consumption, between publishing/selling and a vibrant (finicky, contentious, or in other words INVESTED) audience are always tense. But tension is often a sign of tremendous vitality and health. What *seems* like "Lord of the Flies" (to steal from a recent article) is really just the red-in-tooth-and-claw ecosystem in which literature always thrives. What I think has begun to happen here is an attempt to tamp down the problems, which throw the ecosystem out of whack -- which put the thumb on the scale for producers, corral the consumers....
... it's what usually happens to vibrant folk cultures when the markets intervene.
Which is probably headier--i.e, pedantic and blowhardier--than is needed. But it seems to me that GR has been tamed, and the taming is a market decision, and I could give a shit about investing in yet another place that is all about me being a *mere* consumer.
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
I'm a text guy, a loving diviner of the messy complexities of the formal object--whether a novel, a pop song, a photo, a film. I get kicks from hermeneutics.
And I found my pleasures amplified when, in grad school, I began digging around in what goes into shaping that text (ye olde production questions) and who and how it gets read, viewed, used (ye olde consumption questions).
But even with these new factors added into the interpretive calculus, too often ideas about meaning tended to collapse into rigid schools of thought, banked on rigid foundations in one of those elements. Production trumped all (the text as commodity, the reader a dupe), consumers triumphantly made hay with the stuff of the market (and reworked anew, again and again, great art), and so on. I caricature here--there are obviously a lot of great, contradictory, hotly-debated nuances and parsings. The calculus of interpretation remains more algebraically open-ended than geometrically precise. (And thank god.)
Which is all a longwinded way to introduce how Jenkins--in this as in other works--kind of blows my mind by really, really, *really* thinking with astonishing creative rigor about how the social act of meaning-making occurs out there in the world. His point in this work seems to hammer home a thesis developed through much of his criticism: those old neat boundaries (production, text, consumption) mean little now, maybe never meant as much as we thought but especially not now. He's not merely a new-media cheerleader, and he's far from the gloomy critical pessimist, and he's never less than fascinating about subjects (Survivor message-boards and spoiling, the duelling and divergent attempts to control the fan-fiction readers/writers of Harry Potter) I might not normally give a whit about.
And his last chapter, on the convergence of popular and public culture in the 2004 election, outlines how our theories and understandings of how people engage with(in) these new media/cultural worlds are only just beginning to scratch the surface of what's possible. It's prescient stuff, reading his take on 2004 when we're knee-deep in 2008's election.
Really dug this.
Read
December 22, 2020"Simpatično" nije dobra reč za teorijsku knjigu, ali šta mogu, Henri Dženkins jeste simpatičan. Ovde u relativno nepovezanim esejima o različitim primerima kulture konvergencije opisuje načine na koji se razvijaju novi mediji, a pre svega sudar sila odozgo (korporacije, političari... korporacije) i odozdo (narod ili da kažemo konzumenti). I kod Dženkinsa je najsimpatičnije što insistira na tome da nisu u pitanju puki konzumenti nego učesnici u stvaranju novih medija i ispitivanju njihovih mogućnosti, i što već decenijama uporno pokazuje i dokazuje da su "kulturni potrošači" zapravo ljudi sa samostalnom inteligencijom, voljom, delatnom moći i kreativnošću.
Pošto je ova monografija iz 2006. lepo se vidi šta se sve otada izdešavalo u relativno kratkom roku, ali činjenica da Convergence Culture i dalje nije sasvim zastarela najbolje pokazuje koliko je Dženkins razne stvari dobro procenio. Poglavlje/esej o politici i popularnoj kulturi počinje opisom parodičnog videa iz 2004. u kome Donald Tramp, koji je tad vodio emisiju The Apprentice, daje otkaz Bušu mlađem. Pa kaže Dženkins: "Who would have imagined that Donald Trump could emerge as a populist spokesman?" Ahaha. Ahaha.
Pošto je ova monografija iz 2006. lepo se vidi šta se sve otada izdešavalo u relativno kratkom roku, ali činjenica da Convergence Culture i dalje nije sasvim zastarela najbolje pokazuje koliko je Dženkins razne stvari dobro procenio. Poglavlje/esej o politici i popularnoj kulturi počinje opisom parodičnog videa iz 2004. u kome Donald Tramp, koji je tad vodio emisiju The Apprentice, daje otkaz Bušu mlađem. Pa kaže Dženkins: "Who would have imagined that Donald Trump could emerge as a populist spokesman?" Ahaha. Ahaha.
Want to read
June 14, 2020Is this where it all started, what we have now. A quote from this book:
In the spring of 2004, a short video, edited together out of footage from newscasts and Donald Trump’s hit TV show, The Apprentice (2004), was circulating across the Internet. Framed as a mock preview for The Apprentice, the narrator explains, “George W. Bush is assigned the task of being president. He drives the economy into the ground, uses lies to justify war, spends way over budget, and almost gets away with it until the Donald finds out.” The video cuts to a boardroom, where Trump is demanding to know “who chose this stupid concept” and then firing Dubya. Trump’s disapproving look is crosscut with Bush shaking his head in disbelief and then disappointment. Then came the announcer: “Unfortunately, ‘The Donald’ can’t fire Bush for us. But we can do it ourselves. Join us at True Majority Action. We’ll fire Bush together, and have some fun along the way.”
Who would have imagined that Donald Trump could emerge as a populist spokesman, or that sympathetic images of corporate control could fuel a movement to reclaim democracy? A curious mix of cynicism and optimism, the video made Democrats laugh at the current administration and then rally to transform it.
True Majority was founded by Ben Cohen (of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream). Its goals were to increase voter participation in the 2004 election and to rally support behind a progressive agenda. According to its Web site (www.truemajority.org), the group has attracted more than 300,000 supporters, who receive regular alerts and participate in letterwriting campaigns.
Interviewed a few weeks before the election, Garrett LoPorto, a senior creative consultant for True Majority, said that the core of viral marketing is getting the right idea into the right hands at the right time. This video generated a higher than average response rate, he argues, both because it expressed a widespread desire to end a failed administration and because The Apprentice provided a perfect metaphor to bring that decision closer to home: “We aren’t here talking about this grand cause of appointing someone as the leader of the free world. We’re just trying to get some guy who screwed up fired. It’s that simple.” Their goal was to get these ideas into the broadest possible circulation. To do that, they sought to create images that are vivid, memorable, and evocative. And most important, the content had to be consistent with what people more or less already believed about the world. Locating people who share your beliefs is easy, LoPorto says, because we tend to seek out like-minded communities on the Web. Each person who passed along the video reaffirmed his or her commitment to those beliefs and also moved one step closer toward political action. A certain percentage of the recipients followed the link back to the True Majority site and expanded its core mailing list. Repeat this process enough times with enough people, he argued, and you can build a movement and start to “nudge” the prevailing structure of beliefs in your direction. At least that’s the theory. The real challenge is to get those ideas back into mainstream media, where they will reach people who do not already share your commitments. As LoPorto acknowledged, “All we needed to do is to get NBC to sue us. If they would sue us over this, this thing would go global and everyone will know about it. That was our secondary hope. . . . NBC was too smart for that—they recognize it was a parody and didn’t bite.”
Hoping to make politics more playful, the True Majority home page offered visitors not only the “Trump Fires Bush” video, but also a game where you could spank Dubya’s bare bottom, a video where “Ben the Ice Cream Man” reduces the federal budget to stacks of Oreo cookies and shows how shuffling just a few cookies can allow us to take care of a range of pressing problems, and other examples of what the group calls “serious fun.”
In the spring of 2004, a short video, edited together out of footage from newscasts and Donald Trump’s hit TV show, The Apprentice (2004), was circulating across the Internet. Framed as a mock preview for The Apprentice, the narrator explains, “George W. Bush is assigned the task of being president. He drives the economy into the ground, uses lies to justify war, spends way over budget, and almost gets away with it until the Donald finds out.” The video cuts to a boardroom, where Trump is demanding to know “who chose this stupid concept” and then firing Dubya. Trump’s disapproving look is crosscut with Bush shaking his head in disbelief and then disappointment. Then came the announcer: “Unfortunately, ‘The Donald’ can’t fire Bush for us. But we can do it ourselves. Join us at True Majority Action. We’ll fire Bush together, and have some fun along the way.”
Who would have imagined that Donald Trump could emerge as a populist spokesman, or that sympathetic images of corporate control could fuel a movement to reclaim democracy? A curious mix of cynicism and optimism, the video made Democrats laugh at the current administration and then rally to transform it.
True Majority was founded by Ben Cohen (of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream). Its goals were to increase voter participation in the 2004 election and to rally support behind a progressive agenda. According to its Web site (www.truemajority.org), the group has attracted more than 300,000 supporters, who receive regular alerts and participate in letterwriting campaigns.
Interviewed a few weeks before the election, Garrett LoPorto, a senior creative consultant for True Majority, said that the core of viral marketing is getting the right idea into the right hands at the right time. This video generated a higher than average response rate, he argues, both because it expressed a widespread desire to end a failed administration and because The Apprentice provided a perfect metaphor to bring that decision closer to home: “We aren’t here talking about this grand cause of appointing someone as the leader of the free world. We’re just trying to get some guy who screwed up fired. It’s that simple.” Their goal was to get these ideas into the broadest possible circulation. To do that, they sought to create images that are vivid, memorable, and evocative. And most important, the content had to be consistent with what people more or less already believed about the world. Locating people who share your beliefs is easy, LoPorto says, because we tend to seek out like-minded communities on the Web. Each person who passed along the video reaffirmed his or her commitment to those beliefs and also moved one step closer toward political action. A certain percentage of the recipients followed the link back to the True Majority site and expanded its core mailing list. Repeat this process enough times with enough people, he argued, and you can build a movement and start to “nudge” the prevailing structure of beliefs in your direction. At least that’s the theory. The real challenge is to get those ideas back into mainstream media, where they will reach people who do not already share your commitments. As LoPorto acknowledged, “All we needed to do is to get NBC to sue us. If they would sue us over this, this thing would go global and everyone will know about it. That was our secondary hope. . . . NBC was too smart for that—they recognize it was a parody and didn’t bite.”
Hoping to make politics more playful, the True Majority home page offered visitors not only the “Trump Fires Bush” video, but also a game where you could spank Dubya’s bare bottom, a video where “Ben the Ice Cream Man” reduces the federal budget to stacks of Oreo cookies and shows how shuffling just a few cookies can allow us to take care of a range of pressing problems, and other examples of what the group calls “serious fun.”
October 13, 2016
Henry Jenkins is one of my favourite media scholars. After reading many excerpts from his works over the course of my undergrad, I decided to purchase Convergence Culture with an eye towards potentially using some of its concepts in my graduate work.
I really enjoy Jenkins' writing because it is so clear and accessible. It isn't bogged down with academic jargon or cryptic syntax, and he defines new terms he introduces clearly. I also love that he uses contemporary case studies to illustrate his concepts. My undergraduate degree was essentially in pop culture studies, so I love when cultural texts that are seen as banal and frivolous are studied in a serious academic way. I especially enjoyed the chapters on Survivor, The Matrix,and Harry Potter (perhaps because I was quite familiar with each franchise already), but I found each chapter to be fairly interesting and very effective case studies. Jenkins is an extremely astute and intelligent man, but his writing is enjoyable to read. I've read it for school and now I'm reading it for fun. I like that his work straddles the academic and consumer worlds and can be cited in scholarly journals while remaining compelling to the general public.
Really my biggest issue with the book - and Jenkins' writing in general - is that there isn't always a flair to his style. I realize this is quite nit-picky. I found my attention easily held throughout the chapters on subjects with which I was already familiar and interested in. My attention wandered a bit during some parts of the other chapters because there is nothing that wows me about Jenkins' style. I do like that it's clear and accessible, but when the subject matter didn't interest me hugely the style wasn't always quite enough to make reading truly pleasurable. But overall I think this is an excellent book from a legendary media scholar.
By the way - this book was written a decade ago and some of it is pretty funny because the media and cultural landscape has changed considerably since then, and a lot of it seems fairly prescient considering the time it was written. Jenkins effectively predicts the Netflix model in one chapter, for example. Most jarringly, I found this sentence:
"Who would have imagined that Donald Trump would have become a populist spokesman, or that sympathetic images of corporate control could fuel a movement to reclaim democracy?"
Ahh. Who would have imagined indeed...
I really enjoy Jenkins' writing because it is so clear and accessible. It isn't bogged down with academic jargon or cryptic syntax, and he defines new terms he introduces clearly. I also love that he uses contemporary case studies to illustrate his concepts. My undergraduate degree was essentially in pop culture studies, so I love when cultural texts that are seen as banal and frivolous are studied in a serious academic way. I especially enjoyed the chapters on Survivor, The Matrix,and Harry Potter (perhaps because I was quite familiar with each franchise already), but I found each chapter to be fairly interesting and very effective case studies. Jenkins is an extremely astute and intelligent man, but his writing is enjoyable to read. I've read it for school and now I'm reading it for fun. I like that his work straddles the academic and consumer worlds and can be cited in scholarly journals while remaining compelling to the general public.
Really my biggest issue with the book - and Jenkins' writing in general - is that there isn't always a flair to his style. I realize this is quite nit-picky. I found my attention easily held throughout the chapters on subjects with which I was already familiar and interested in. My attention wandered a bit during some parts of the other chapters because there is nothing that wows me about Jenkins' style. I do like that it's clear and accessible, but when the subject matter didn't interest me hugely the style wasn't always quite enough to make reading truly pleasurable. But overall I think this is an excellent book from a legendary media scholar.
By the way - this book was written a decade ago and some of it is pretty funny because the media and cultural landscape has changed considerably since then, and a lot of it seems fairly prescient considering the time it was written. Jenkins effectively predicts the Netflix model in one chapter, for example. Most jarringly, I found this sentence:
"Who would have imagined that Donald Trump would have become a populist spokesman, or that sympathetic images of corporate control could fuel a movement to reclaim democracy?"
Ahh. Who would have imagined indeed...
March 27, 2014
Jenkins discusses the current convergence culture that media is a part of. How the media consumers havs become producers, and consume on their own terms. How fans of popular culture and literature write their own fan fiction and the copywright laws are challenged. How people become editors of online magazines before the age of 14. How people use photoshop to voice their opinions before a government election. These grassroots collide with the corporate media, which has to adjust to the consumers to not loose them.
The book awakes questions about the increasing interactivity, such as how the grassroots begin to challenge professionals, how commercial culture affects the reliability, how the easy accessible information affects people's integrity, and last but not least, the dire situation of professional journalism. It's a frightening culture for educated journalists since everyone can be published, and as frightening for the industry, since no one wants to pay for journalism today. Journalism has to acclimatize to better make use of today's climate and find a way to make news in it, as well as convince people that they want to pay for it.
The book awakes questions about the increasing interactivity, such as how the grassroots begin to challenge professionals, how commercial culture affects the reliability, how the easy accessible information affects people's integrity, and last but not least, the dire situation of professional journalism. It's a frightening culture for educated journalists since everyone can be published, and as frightening for the industry, since no one wants to pay for journalism today. Journalism has to acclimatize to better make use of today's climate and find a way to make news in it, as well as convince people that they want to pay for it.
October 21, 2023
LOVE me an academic analysis of Survivor.
October 26, 2008
I always like Henry Jenkins and this book is no exception. He does a good job of exploding the one-device idea of convergence and paying attention to the social and cultural processes around convergence and participatory culture without getting too frothy. The first few chapters which examine the role of fan communities and corporations' alternate stances on them were pretty good in outlining the punitive/"collaborative" stances that companies (and different entities within one conglomerate) have taken toward fans and fans' responses to and awareness of theses strategies. However, typically, I liked best the last three chapters that talked about fannish practices of remix, appropriation, community-building and participation that pave the way we deal with cultural and moral questions, literacy and education, political participation and how we can apply these skills to an increasingly transmedia world. Of course I like the call not to get wrapped up in the technology, the brand, or the inevitability of convergence and miss out on this "critical utopian" moment.
June 28, 2012
The best book on Transmedia around. In fact, the bible.
February 27, 2018
Some interesting thoughts from the conclusion.
June 14, 2015
I read this book for a class, and yet I still managed to like it! Obviously, any book written about TV/internet/media is going to be outdated almost before it is published, but that didn't diminish many points about where we have been and where we are going. It was kind of like a glimpse back in time, but with enough insight to still have some relevance today.
October 27, 2025
Es un libro ensayístico sumamente interesante para introducirse en el ámbito de lo transmediático, más que nada porque Jenkins es un pionero en los estudios sobre los medios de comunicación y su impacto. Así que todo el que quiera dedicarse a estudiar este campo debe pasar por él.
Lo malo es lo obvio: se publicó en 2006, por lo que muchos ejemplos, avances, tecnologías, etc. están obsoletos a día de hoy. Aun así, respecto a esto, me parece que Jenkins es un visionario, ya que hace pronósticos sobre lo que acontecerá a los medios y a sus receptores en años venideros y... No iba mal desencaminado.
El libro propone un análisis sobre distintos campos de la sociedad y la cultura en relación a los medios de comunicación, por lo que ofrece una visión muy completa del asunto. Sin embargo, por intereses propios me han resultado mucho más curiosos los capítulos dedicados a las narrativas ficcionales (en concreto, los de Matrix y Harry Potter) que los dedicados a programas televisivos o a campañas políticas. Estos últimos se me hicieron un poco pesados, también porque los ejemplos se centran en Estados Unidos.
En conclusión: sirve de base esencial para los estudios sobre transmedia, pero está un poco anticuado a estas alturas.
Lo malo es lo obvio: se publicó en 2006, por lo que muchos ejemplos, avances, tecnologías, etc. están obsoletos a día de hoy. Aun así, respecto a esto, me parece que Jenkins es un visionario, ya que hace pronósticos sobre lo que acontecerá a los medios y a sus receptores en años venideros y... No iba mal desencaminado.
El libro propone un análisis sobre distintos campos de la sociedad y la cultura en relación a los medios de comunicación, por lo que ofrece una visión muy completa del asunto. Sin embargo, por intereses propios me han resultado mucho más curiosos los capítulos dedicados a las narrativas ficcionales (en concreto, los de Matrix y Harry Potter) que los dedicados a programas televisivos o a campañas políticas. Estos últimos se me hicieron un poco pesados, también porque los ejemplos se centran en Estados Unidos.
En conclusión: sirve de base esencial para los estudios sobre transmedia, pero está un poco anticuado a estas alturas.
April 5, 2020
I used to really hate this book, but a re-read has softened some of the edges of my dislike. I still think that Jenkins is too optimistic in his vision for a democratic mediascape built around viewer/audience participation, but I appreciate more now his knowing defiance of dystopian stereotypes. The theories that he uses to guide us through the various situations that he examines in each chapter are still remarkably useful, even if the exact content maybe hasn't aged particularly well. I was surprised, though, that some chapters--notably the one on The Matrix and transmedia storytelling--hold up quite nicely. All in all this is an interesting, important read, even if it ultimately ends up being less than realistic about the possibilities and future of media. Related to that, I must say that I don't think my snark here is just a benefit of hindsight; we've come into much of the media landscape that Jenkins predicts in this book, but the concepts themselves are still useful enough that I feel justified in critiquing him as too hopeful from this point on, not just in retrospect.
June 21, 2020
Sadece medya çalışmalarıyla ilgilenen insanlar için değil, popüler kültüre ucundan kıyısından bulaşmış herkes için faydalı olabilecek bir eser. Eski olmasına rağmen hala okunabiliyor ve yıllar içinde doğrulanmış bazı güzel tespitler barındırıyor (her ne kadar Jenkins'in bazı tahminleri naif ve geçersiz görünse de).
December 8, 2021
Leituras do TCC. Apesar de ser um livro publicado há um tempo (tudo que fala sobre comportamento na internet pode ficar defasado muito rapidamente), possui apontamentos muito interessantes sobre o comportamento social na internet.
April 2, 2009
If you like pop culture and want to learn from media trends and changes you will find this book interesting. Most interesting is the concept of knowledge communitites. A knowledge community is any group of people who through a commom interest want to gather their knowledge to socialize, learn, investigate. Of importance to a knowledge group is the process of learning, gahtering data, decyphering intelligence, and drawing conclusions from this process. The author uses the example of Surivior Spoiler internet groups. The shared experience of gathering intelligence from many sources, of learning not from folks who leak information but from pure found evidence spur the members on. When they are presented with infomration from somone form the inside of the Survivor production team the thrill of the investigation fades away. Its all in the process for this knowledge community.
How can I use this information in my job? does this effect the way educators should be approaching teaching plans and lessons. Maybe so. However, I question the premise that this type of community is what is needed for essential education that our client's market. The idea of setting up a knowledge community and knowledge community experiences sould have online applications but I question how an educator might control this environment.
How can I use this information in my job? does this effect the way educators should be approaching teaching plans and lessons. Maybe so. However, I question the premise that this type of community is what is needed for essential education that our client's market. The idea of setting up a knowledge community and knowledge community experiences sould have online applications but I question how an educator might control this environment.
November 3, 2017
Great book - Jenkins stuff on narrative is always a wild ride - just a shame the cover sucks so bad. It looks like a f*cking XMBC overlay.
August 25, 2009
This book is strong in media theory but I did not enjoy the author's choice of case studies.
Jenkins defines the convergence culture as a place "where old and new media collide, where grassroots and corporate media intersect, where the power of the media producer and the power of the media consumer interact in unpredictable ways." He uses fan culture to demonstrate the emerging power of the media consumer, specifically fan culture around Survivor, American Idol, The Matrix, Star Wars, and Harry Potter. Obviously, I enjoyed the chapter on Harry Potter but I didn't care at all about Survivor or American Idol. I had to force myself through those chapters. I do, however, concede that the fan culture aruond these shows demonstrates increasing agency and decreasing passivity in media consumption.
If you can force yourself to care about the case studies long enough, this book is a useful study of media and society and surprisingly clairvoyent about the ways in which the digital revolution has and will continue to change the shifting equilibrium between media and consumer.
Jenkins defines the convergence culture as a place "where old and new media collide, where grassroots and corporate media intersect, where the power of the media producer and the power of the media consumer interact in unpredictable ways." He uses fan culture to demonstrate the emerging power of the media consumer, specifically fan culture around Survivor, American Idol, The Matrix, Star Wars, and Harry Potter. Obviously, I enjoyed the chapter on Harry Potter but I didn't care at all about Survivor or American Idol. I had to force myself through those chapters. I do, however, concede that the fan culture aruond these shows demonstrates increasing agency and decreasing passivity in media consumption.
If you can force yourself to care about the case studies long enough, this book is a useful study of media and society and surprisingly clairvoyent about the ways in which the digital revolution has and will continue to change the shifting equilibrium between media and consumer.
July 30, 2007
It covers a lot of pop culture stuff, which keeps it a fun read, but the concepts he uses them to illustrate are really fascinating- How does writing fan fiction connect writers from different backgrounds and encourage a communal approach to editing and fair use copyright laws? How do fan forums devoted to figuring out a TV show build group-based knowledge instead of individual-based knowledge? How should companies try to control or feed off of the interest people have in their content? How will the internet change the world? etc. etc.
February 7, 2017
Jenkins expertly pulls together an interesting range of media and media communities in his analysis of convergence culture--the processes through which media producers and media consumers intersect to both revise old and create new relationships among media types. Though this book would primarily appeal to an academic audience, I appreciated Jenkins' efforts to make the text accessible and engaging to a more general audience.
August 16, 2011
I'm not convinced that the incidents of consumer involvement cited by Jenkins have become mainstream, but it's fascinating to see that the growth of Internet-based, crowdsourced art forms--which I'm convinced will became a major force--are not done in isolation from mainstream media but are echoed in those media.
January 7, 2011
Interesting examination of the crazy cultural transition we're living through, focussing on the internet, multi-media story telling and fan fiction - includes a quote from Damon Wellner of Probot Productions!
February 7, 2017
The book that first defined the concept of "Transmedia Storytelling", but that's it, nothing else here to invest your time.
January 25, 2026
Não lembro exatamente por que coloquei esse livro em minha lista de leitura. Nas primeiras páginas, logo percebi que é bastante desatualizado, como se imagina que seria um livro sobre tecnologia escrito em 2008 e sendo lido em 2026. Contudo, não deixa de ser interessante ver como era a percepção da época em relação à rede cada vez maior de elos que estava se criando entre os diferentes tipos de mídias.
De qualquer forma, é possível traçar paralelos. Recentemente, acabei me inserindo, mais involuntária do que voluntariamente, no redemoinho de teorias envolvendo a última temporada da série Stranger Things. Lendo o primeiro capítulo do livro, no qual o autor descreve as comunidades de discussão em torno de séries que foram surgindo na internet, é possível ter insights notáveis sobre o comportamento dos fãs durante o processo de desvelamento dos últimos capítulos de uma trama tão amada. Os diversos exemplos apresentados pela autor servem a um propósito: trazem luz a processos de consumo midiático que vemos acontecendo o tempo todo ao nosso redor e com nós mesmos, mas que não percebemos conscientemente.
Analisando as testes do autor e suas projeções para o futuro, não se pode dizer que nada do que ele escreveu ali se provou efetivamente falso com o passar do tempo, o que confirma que foi uma boa leitura da realidade por parte dele. A ideia de que mídias não morrem, mas apenas trocam para dispositivos mais atualizados, e a necessidade de consumir diferentes tipos de mídias por parte da população para se integrar a um "mundo" construído pelas produtoras de conteúdo, tudo isso foi levantado no livro.
Pode-se dizer que algumas teses foram otimistas demais, isso sim. O autor frequentemente fala sobre a democratização da informação que seria promovida pelas redes, e, claro, não havia como imaginar naquela época o poder que o algoritmo teria, o poder que as Big Techs teriam de comandar quase de forma exata o tipo de informação que chega em cada um. Nem é preciso comentar que não era possível imaginar a revolução que ocorreria a partir da evolução da inteligência artificial (embora o autor aborde manipulações feitas pelo Photoshop, que era o auge em edição de imagem da época).
Não sei se há alguma obra parecida com essa que tenha sido escrita em tempos mais recentes. A tecnologia é uma área que se modifica extremamente rápido, então o livro sofre com essas defasagens, e uma abordagem mais atualizada certamente valeria a pena para complementar esse conteúdo. Entretanto, historicamente, a obra é muito válida e entra em especificidades sobre o cenário midiático que dificilmente outros autores conseguiriam tratar com tantos detalhes.
De qualquer forma, é possível traçar paralelos. Recentemente, acabei me inserindo, mais involuntária do que voluntariamente, no redemoinho de teorias envolvendo a última temporada da série Stranger Things. Lendo o primeiro capítulo do livro, no qual o autor descreve as comunidades de discussão em torno de séries que foram surgindo na internet, é possível ter insights notáveis sobre o comportamento dos fãs durante o processo de desvelamento dos últimos capítulos de uma trama tão amada. Os diversos exemplos apresentados pela autor servem a um propósito: trazem luz a processos de consumo midiático que vemos acontecendo o tempo todo ao nosso redor e com nós mesmos, mas que não percebemos conscientemente.
Analisando as testes do autor e suas projeções para o futuro, não se pode dizer que nada do que ele escreveu ali se provou efetivamente falso com o passar do tempo, o que confirma que foi uma boa leitura da realidade por parte dele. A ideia de que mídias não morrem, mas apenas trocam para dispositivos mais atualizados, e a necessidade de consumir diferentes tipos de mídias por parte da população para se integrar a um "mundo" construído pelas produtoras de conteúdo, tudo isso foi levantado no livro.
Pode-se dizer que algumas teses foram otimistas demais, isso sim. O autor frequentemente fala sobre a democratização da informação que seria promovida pelas redes, e, claro, não havia como imaginar naquela época o poder que o algoritmo teria, o poder que as Big Techs teriam de comandar quase de forma exata o tipo de informação que chega em cada um. Nem é preciso comentar que não era possível imaginar a revolução que ocorreria a partir da evolução da inteligência artificial (embora o autor aborde manipulações feitas pelo Photoshop, que era o auge em edição de imagem da época).
Não sei se há alguma obra parecida com essa que tenha sido escrita em tempos mais recentes. A tecnologia é uma área que se modifica extremamente rápido, então o livro sofre com essas defasagens, e uma abordagem mais atualizada certamente valeria a pena para complementar esse conteúdo. Entretanto, historicamente, a obra é muito válida e entra em especificidades sobre o cenário midiático que dificilmente outros autores conseguiriam tratar com tantos detalhes.
September 18, 2023
The most interesting part of reading this book in 2023 is realizing how the phenomena that Henry Jenkins and his research team identified unfolded over the more than 15 years that separate my reading from the first publication of the work.
Much of what he identified has intensified - convergence has become our standard. We live in online communities, but more than in the forums at the time the book was written, today it happens on social networks, with Facebook friends, groups, Twitter and Instagram followers, and in some other smaller scale networks. Fiction universes are transmedia. The internet has given millions of people a voice - for good and for bad.
It's interesting how Jenkins wonders, for example, the future of fanfiction - which today we know is a lost battle for corporations in favor of fans, even though with certain limitations. It's also sad to read about all the good things about the Harry Potter community that he exposes in the book and think about what the franchise has become today, revisited with the rralizing of how the author's prejudices leave horrible marks on the construction of a universe that has so many examples of important fights that inspired so many people.
If we place chapter 6 on the uses of the internet in discussions about the 2004 elections in the USA side by side with the country's elections in 2016 and also here in Brazil in 2018 (from the perspective of fake news, Cambridge Analytica and polarization) , we can have a clear vision, for example, of the idea that more and more people would be in political bubbles and how algorithms (although he still doesn't use that term) influence people's choices.
Even though this is a dated book from the perspective of immediate current affairs, it is still a book that teaches a lot about how we got to where we are today and makes us reflect a lot about it in a very accessible language. For anyone interested in learning the dynamics of social networks, internet communities, our current entertainment standards, it is essential reading.
Much of what he identified has intensified - convergence has become our standard. We live in online communities, but more than in the forums at the time the book was written, today it happens on social networks, with Facebook friends, groups, Twitter and Instagram followers, and in some other smaller scale networks. Fiction universes are transmedia. The internet has given millions of people a voice - for good and for bad.
It's interesting how Jenkins wonders, for example, the future of fanfiction - which today we know is a lost battle for corporations in favor of fans, even though with certain limitations. It's also sad to read about all the good things about the Harry Potter community that he exposes in the book and think about what the franchise has become today, revisited with the rralizing of how the author's prejudices leave horrible marks on the construction of a universe that has so many examples of important fights that inspired so many people.
If we place chapter 6 on the uses of the internet in discussions about the 2004 elections in the USA side by side with the country's elections in 2016 and also here in Brazil in 2018 (from the perspective of fake news, Cambridge Analytica and polarization) , we can have a clear vision, for example, of the idea that more and more people would be in political bubbles and how algorithms (although he still doesn't use that term) influence people's choices.
Even though this is a dated book from the perspective of immediate current affairs, it is still a book that teaches a lot about how we got to where we are today and makes us reflect a lot about it in a very accessible language. For anyone interested in learning the dynamics of social networks, internet communities, our current entertainment standards, it is essential reading.
August 15, 2021
Everything I want from a media theory book, well structured, illustrative (each chapter comes with a story or two exemplifying what it's talking about, and it takes you on a little journey as you see media convergence in action), eerily predictive (on many things, from our current political climate to netflix, there's even an anecdote about a viral 2004 video wherein trump fires bush that just feels surreal to read now), and it succeeds in both diagnosing the president and pitching a vision for the future. I want an adhocracy so bad.
In hindsight, Jenkins nailed the power of online knowledge communities / affinity spaces, but probably overestimated its tendency to self-correct against misinformation and work together with people sharing opposing viewpoints. Then again, he was extrapolating from an online setting of blogs and message boards, not twitter, not the influencer business model. Things are bad right now, but this book reminded me that the sheer power of online decentralized organization can transform things for the better. The same cyber-dynamics that radicalize alt-right terrorists can be used to coordinate positive - local and global - activism, with just a little bit more education on how to navigate online spaces.
I'm gonna actively seek more material like what he calls "critical utopianism" now. Books that inspire and show what we can do instead of only what's being done to us. I needed that.
In hindsight, Jenkins nailed the power of online knowledge communities / affinity spaces, but probably overestimated its tendency to self-correct against misinformation and work together with people sharing opposing viewpoints. Then again, he was extrapolating from an online setting of blogs and message boards, not twitter, not the influencer business model. Things are bad right now, but this book reminded me that the sheer power of online decentralized organization can transform things for the better. The same cyber-dynamics that radicalize alt-right terrorists can be used to coordinate positive - local and global - activism, with just a little bit more education on how to navigate online spaces.
I'm gonna actively seek more material like what he calls "critical utopianism" now. Books that inspire and show what we can do instead of only what's being done to us. I needed that.
August 8, 2019
Fui ler este livro inteiro somente 10 anos depois que ele foi publicado no Brasil, mas Henry Jenkins já o trouxe ao mundo há 13 anos. Jenkins, neste livro Cultura da Convergência, se mostra um profeta das mídias. isso porque lá em 2006 ele já previa que iriamos ser governados por serviços de streaming como o Netflix, que o spoiler ia tomar um papel central no entretenimento, que os youtubers fariam um movimento para se tornarem os novos gatekeepers, de que a cultura de fã teria um papel essencial para definir uma nova cultura de entretenimento, e que a cultura iria acabar sendo guiada pelos interesses dos fãs ao lado dos interesses das grandes corporações, e que para isso teria de convergir, usar a transmídia, atuar em diversos campos e nichos para atrair um consumidor cada vez mais leal. Ufa! São bastante tendências da mídia, que hoje convergiram e estão na ordem do dia na realidade de diversos lares e outros estabelecimentos ao redor do mundo. Mesmo que o livro traga análises de programa que se encerraram como Survivor e American Idol, e analise a campanha de George W. Bush, podemos fazer uma conexão, ou ainda, uma convergência desses temas com os dos dias atuais e ver como tudo isso começou e como se transformou naquilo que temos hoje. Se você fizer essa comparação, vai se espantar com o resultado!
November 24, 2023
The phenomenon in which we find ourselves involved today where new technologies are taking shape and increasing their influence on daily tasks of what we do. This book is a little about that, right? The author very effectively shows us how convergence is a phenomenon that, according to him, affects the media company, even changing the degree of importance that television and newspapers have, which will possibly suffer and are suffering changes due to new technologies. However, I believe that this will not be the only scenario where convergence changes will take place.
H. Jenkins, is very precise when it comes to demonstrating how the phenomenon of convergence is even creating a new culture, of course he does so from the perspective of media companies, since it is his focus of study, however, said phenomenon will be extrapolated in various branches, but it is perhaps this area, the area of the media where it affects the most today because the monopoly that the information company managed until previous decades was fragmented with the spread of the Internet, new technologies and forums like these where social relations can be maximized in their maximum splendor and we will see what destiny brings.
H. Jenkins, is very precise when it comes to demonstrating how the phenomenon of convergence is even creating a new culture, of course he does so from the perspective of media companies, since it is his focus of study, however, said phenomenon will be extrapolated in various branches, but it is perhaps this area, the area of the media where it affects the most today because the monopoly that the information company managed until previous decades was fragmented with the spread of the Internet, new technologies and forums like these where social relations can be maximized in their maximum splendor and we will see what destiny brings.
November 14, 2023
Sometimes this book feels more like a collection of blog articles by some teenager and sometimes this book can offer its reader some serious insights into new media and how convergence changes our culture.
The book has a lot of problems, for example, sometimes the author feels a need to write about two different topics simultaneously. Half of the page is filled with some random text and the other half of the page is filled with actual content that you were reading before.
Furthermore author goes much into detail about specific events and movements and how every kid feels about some things and what is the name of everyone that is involved and then he describes every event that happened in a lot of details.
Overall I do not feel that my time was wasted, because I got something out of it, however a lot of the times when you are reading about countless events you feel like your time is being wasted.
The quote from the cover of the book that states "Henry Jenkins is the 21th century McLuhan" is just laughable.
The book has a lot of problems, for example, sometimes the author feels a need to write about two different topics simultaneously. Half of the page is filled with some random text and the other half of the page is filled with actual content that you were reading before.
Furthermore author goes much into detail about specific events and movements and how every kid feels about some things and what is the name of everyone that is involved and then he describes every event that happened in a lot of details.
Overall I do not feel that my time was wasted, because I got something out of it, however a lot of the times when you are reading about countless events you feel like your time is being wasted.
The quote from the cover of the book that states "Henry Jenkins is the 21th century McLuhan" is just laughable.
August 25, 2023
Jenkins' deliverance of essential terminology, various concepts he employs to discuss "convergent culture" are theoretically engaging; but how aggressively dated many of the case studies are (no fault of his own) it becomes a slight drag. Overall, the premise of fictional realms expanding across multimedia franchises alongside the audience desire to master scrupulous intertextual references as a collective "participatory culture" are fascinating, alongside the dichotomy he introduces between "popular culture" and "mass media" as a division between 'natural' folk arts against industrialised commodities. Additionally, the chapters drawing on intellectual property and the internet as a force for forging political affiliations via common interests are relevant as ever. I found this tedious to finish, but it left plenty of breadcrumbs to follow with regards to other cultural theorists.
November 29, 2022
Incredibly outdated but doing my masters at the Sorbonne and in true French fashion they have stuck to some reading regardless of whether it correlates to modern times but rather just for the fact that it’s in English lol.
BUT I found it interesting to review my childhood / teen era from the scope of communications academia; so many cultures I myself participated in without knowing I was a nomad of some of these spaces.
One has to laugh when he takes time to warn of the media literacy or dangers of the influence of certain information spaces online - I’m sure he’s giving us a big fat ‘told ya so’ at this moment.
BUT I found it interesting to review my childhood / teen era from the scope of communications academia; so many cultures I myself participated in without knowing I was a nomad of some of these spaces.
One has to laugh when he takes time to warn of the media literacy or dangers of the influence of certain information spaces online - I’m sure he’s giving us a big fat ‘told ya so’ at this moment.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 167 reviews