Product Description

Winner of the 2007 Society for Cinema and Media Studies Katherine Singer Kovacs Book Award

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 Hogwart's 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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14084 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-01
• Released on: 2006-08-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Henry Jenkins, founder and director of MIT's comparative media studies program, debunks outdated ideas of the digital revolution in this remarkable book, proving that new media will not simply replace old media, but rather will learn to interact with it in a complex relationship he calls "convergence culture." The book's goal is to explain how convergence is currently impacting the relationship among media audiences, producers and content, a far from easy undertaking. As Jenkins says, "there will be no magical black box that puts everything in order again." Jenkins takes pains to prove that the notion of convergence culture is not primarily a technological revolution; through a number of well-chosen examples, Jenkins shows that it is more a cultural shift, dependent on the active participation of the consumers working in a social dynamic. He references recent media franchises like Survivor, The Matrix, and American Idol to show how the new participatory culture of consumers can be utilized for popular success and increased exposure. Jenkins' insights are gripping and his prose is surprisingly entertaining and lucid for a book that is, at its core, intellectually rigorous. Though wordy at times, Jenkins' impressive ability to break down complex concepts into readable prose makes this study vital and engaging.
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Review
"Jenkins is an astute observer of media culture and his insights are spot-on...He intends his book to be a powerful tool both now and in the future...This is a book to be praised. It raises many issues." -- Los Angeles Times

"The standard convergence narrative of recent years presents media concentration as a threat both to the diversity of communication channels and to individuals' opportunities to engage in public discourse. A respected and well-established media scholar, Jenkins (MIT) here counters such pessimistic perspectives on the brave new media world with theoretical and evidentiary attestations to the growing power of individuals and grassroots groups to affect the larger media landscape." -- Choice

"Henry Jenkins offers crucial insight into an unexpected and unforeseen future. Unlike most predictions about how New Media will shape the world in which we live, the reality is turning out far stranger and more interesting than we might have imagined. The social implications of this change could be staggering." -- Will Wright, designer of SimCity and The Sims

"Jenkins is an astute observer of media culture and his insights are spot-on...He intends his book to be a powerful tool both now and in the future...This is a book to be praised. It raises many issues." -- Los Angeles Times

"The standard convergence narrative of recent years presents media concentration as a threat both to the diversity of communication channels and to individuals' opportunities to engage in public discourse. A respected and well-established media scholar, Jenkins (MIT) here counters such pessimistic perspectives on the brave new media world with theoretical and evidentiary attestations to the growing power of individuals and grassroots groups to affect the larger media landscape." -- Choice

"Henry Jenkins offers crucial insight into an unexpected and unforeseen future. Unlike most predictions about how New Media will shape the world in which we live, the reality is turning out far stranger and more interesting than we might have imagined. The social implications of this change could be staggering." -- Will Wright, designer of SimCity and The Sims

"Jenkins tries to bring clarity to cultural changes that are melting and morphing into new shapes on an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly basis. Convergence Culture provides a view that looks at the restless ocean and tracks the currents rather than just looking at the individual rocks on the beach." -- The McClatchy Newspapers

"Remarkable...Jenkins' insights are gripping and his prose is surprisingly entertaining and lucid for a book that is, at its core, intellectually rigorous...Jenkins' impressive ability to break down complex concepts into readable prose makes this study vital and engaging."
—Publishers Weekly

"Jenkins is an astute observer of media culture and his insights are spot-on."
—Los Angeles Times

"For any Sony PS3 execs out there wondering why their technological masterpiece is being ridiculed by customers before its even released . . . Convergence Culture is a must read...Jenkins offers numerous insights on how technology and media professionals can forge better relationships with their customers."
—Slashdot

"One of those rare works that is closer to an operating system than a traditional book: it s a platform that people will be building on for years to come. What's more, the book happens to be a briskly entertaining read as startling, inventive, and witty as the culture it documents. It should be mandatory reading for anyone trying to make sense of today's popular culture but thankfully, a book this fun to read doesn't need a mandate."
—Steven Johnson, author of the national bestseller, Everything Bad Is Good For You

"Henry Jenkins is the 21st century McLuhan I ve been waiting for. With all the fuzzy generalities, moral panics, and gloomy pronouncements from industry spokesmen and social critics, Jenkins clearly communicated and nuanced analysis is sorely needed. The world McLuhan foretold back in the age of 'electric media' has become immensely more complicated in today s many-to-many, converged, remixed and mashed-up, digital, mobile, always-on media environment. If you are a parent, a student, an educator, a creator or consumer of popular culture, an entrepreneur, or a media industry executive, you need to understand convergence culture. And you will only after reading Henry Jenkins."

—Howard Rheingold, author of Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution --Los Angeles Time

"Jenkins tries to bring clarity to cultural changes that are melting and morphing into new shapes on an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly basis. Convergence Culture provides a view that looks at the restless ocean and tracks the currents rather than just looking at the individual rocks on the beach." -- The McClatchy Newspapers

"Henry Jenkins is the 21st century McLuhan I’ve been waiting for. With all the fuzzy generalities, moral panics, and gloomy pronouncements from industry spokesmen and social critics, Jenkins’ clearly communicated and nuanced analysis is sorely needed. The world McLuhan foretold back in the age of 'electric media' has become immensely more complicated in today’s many-to-many, converged, remixed and mashed-up, digital, mobile, always-on media environment. If you are a parent, a student, an educator, a creator or consumer of popular culture, an entrepreneur, or a media industry executive, you need to understand convergence culture. And you will only after reading Henry Jenkins."

—Howard Rheingold, author of Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution

"I simply could not put this book down! Henry Jenkins provides a fascinating account of how new media intersects old media and engages the imagination of fans in more and more powerful ways. Educators, media specialists, policy makers and parents will find Convergence Culture both lively and enlightening."

—John Seely Brown, Former Chief Scientist, Xerox Corp & director of Xerox PARC

"Henry Jenkins is the Director of MIT’s Comparative Media Studies Program. Or, in other words, he’s a genius. He’s one of those rare people you meet and are instantly jealous of, wishing you could somehow transplant their amazing wealth of knowledge into your own noggin. I was privileged to have made his acquaintance when he interviewed me for his fabulous new book, Convergence Culture...Go read it, you just might learn something."

—The Heather Show

"The book is a short, smart, buttery read on a hot topic, and it is sure to draw both popular and academic interest."

—Water Cooler Games

"The standard convergence narrative of recent years presents media concentration as a threat both to the diversity of communication channels and to individuals’ opportunities to engage in public discourse. A respected and well-established media scholar, Jenkins (MIT) here counters such pessimistic perspectives on the brave new media world with theoretical and evidentiary attestations to the growing power of individuals and grassroots groups to affect the larger media landscape."

—Choice

"Jenkins tries to bring clarity to cultural changes that are melting and morphing into new shapes on an hourly, daily, weekly, monthly basis. Convergence Culture provides a view that looks at the restless ocean and tracks the currents rather than just looking at the individual rocks on the beach."

—The McClatchy Newspapers

"I thought I knew twenty-first century pop media until I read Henry Jenkins. The fresh research and radical insights in Convergence Culture deserve a wide and thoughtful readership. Bring on the monolithic block of eyeballs!"

—Bruce Sterling, author, blogger, visionary

"Henry Jenkins offers crucial insight into an unexpected and unforeseen future. Unlike most predictions about how New Media will shape the world in which we live, the reality is turning out far stranger and more interesting than we might have imagined. The social implications of this change could be staggering."

—Will Wright, designer of SimCity and The Sims

About the Author

Henry Jenkins is the DeFlorz Professor of Humanities and the Founder/Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT. The author or editor of eleven books including Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture and From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games, Jenkins also writes a regular column for Technology Review.

Customer Reviews

Focused on Media, Art, Culture, Less So on Social Networks
I come late to this book, published in 2006. I do not regret it. It is a bit too focused on media, art, and "culture" for me, but I cannot penalize the author for being a master of arcane tid-bits. This book is a collection of previously published articles reworked into a book--for me, that is a good thing, as I do not cover the sources that originally carried the pieces.

The book comes recommended by Howard Rheingold and Bruce Sterling, two of the originals, so that alone should encourage anyone interested in this area to take this book very seriously.

Although the author focuses on "participatory culture" the emphasis is this book is on the CULTURE part, not the social networks, integral consciousness, appreciative inquiry, co-intelligence, and so on as I have learned from my Eco-Topia colleauges.

The author himself speaks early on about the book speaking to three concepts:

+ Media convergence
+ Participatory culture
+ Collective intelligence

He gets an A for the first, a B for the second, and a C for the third.

I don't consider myself qualified to be critical of this book, so here are the tid-bits that grabbed me:

+ Paradigm shift is not about communications among individuals but rather about their *being* in *being* with one another (from one to many and one to one to many to many)

+ Author credits Ithiel de Sola Pool (1983) with seeing the transitions that were coming

+ Convergence changes relationships and logics

+ The biggest convergence may be the sharp total confrontation between top down attempts to keep control, and bottom up demands to wrest control

+ Media right now is being excessively influenced by the wealthy that can afford the trinkets (look for my 1993 rant to INTERVAL on "God, Man, and Informaiton: Comments to Interval" for the other side of the story)

+ Public getting harder to "impress" (see my review of The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business

+ Emotions and feelings of connection matter more--the author writes of an "affective economy"

+ Producers are finding they must agree to co-creation (this media or cultural trend has a counterpart in the business world, see the Business Week cover story of 20 June 2005 on "The Power of Us")

+ Media industry is split between the prohibitionists and the collaborationists, and I am most fascinated to see mobile telephone companies in the latter category. If I had to place a bet on Nokia versus Google, I would go with Nokia.

+ In discussing the presidency, the author observes that what is changing is not the political parties, which we all know are Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It, but rather the communications and cultural norms. The author cites Joe Trippi's excellent The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet, and the Overthrow of Everything.

+ Other authors prominently cited several times include Pierre Levy, Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace (Helix Books) and Cass Sunstein, Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge.

+ Citing another author (always with credit) I am engaged by the concept of "adhocracies" as the opposite of bureaucracies.

+ Digital enclaves are becoming counter-productive, allowing nesting rather than engagement (at least among the one billion rich), need to get out and cross those cultural divides.

Four books within my ten book limit that cover material this book does not:
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter
The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People

A book just published that includes Yochai Benkler and 54 other Collective Intelligence gurus, none of them less Howard Rheingold in this book:
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

I am glad I got and read this book. It is clearly very learned in the media convergence and media-mind aspect, but it is not at all as versed as I was expecting in the nuts and bolts of participatory networking, appreciative inquiry, deliberative democracy, integral consciousness, world brain, etcetera, nor is it all oriented toward large scale problem solving with collective intelligence.

pretty useful book
Well... Maybe I was expecting something more detailed and technic.
It still remain a good book, but it could have been more specific on the subject of convergence and old media, re-positioning and economic consequences.

Blank Pages in Book
There are at least 8 blank pages in the book. I have no time to return and exchange for another book as the class is currently in session.