Jenkins, Conclusion: Social Participation

The concluding chapter of Convergence Culture focuses on the empowerment of consumers and communities through convergence culture, if they decide to actively participate in it.

Jenkins argues that popular culture serves as a platform for other, more significant, changing environments. Throughout his book, Jenkins applies certain concepts to case studies in popular media in order to demonstrate how our relationship to media is changing, without forgetting the broader implications of these changes. “What we learn through spoiling Survivor or remaking Star Wars may quickly get applied to political activism or education or the workplace” (Jenkins, 257). Convergence affects the changing environment of our culture as a whole, not just in popular media. This idea is also significant because popular culture and other areas of life, like political activism, are intersecting in a way they never have before.

An example included in the chapter is Al Gore’s attempt to “democratize television,” with his creation of an interactive news cable network called Current. “Gore held firm in his belief that enabling audience-generated content had the potential to diversify civic discourse” (Jenkins, 253). In this way, Gore is trying to solicit participation in the political sector through non-traditional forms of interaction with televised media. Another example of how our community interaction is changing is Wikipedia. Jenkins describes Wikipedia as an “adhocracy,” or a system of shifting leadership roles that lacks hierarchy, where everyone is equal overall. In reference to Wikipedia, Jenkins describes how the website is shifting the ideals and credentials of “expertise,” and that “adhocracy principles have been embraced by the open-source movement, where software engineers worldwide collaborate on projects for the common good” (Jenkins, 265). Older generations view Wikipedia as an illegitimate source of information for academia, but with a changing cultural environment, new perspectives on technological advances are necessary. To become full participants in our society, citizens must view this active collaboration as well as media reform movements as opportunities for change and not obstacles.

The uncertainty about these technological advances and this encouragement of participation is the question of how the general public will respond. Will everyone embrace convergence and participatory culture or will it be something left to a new kind of participatory elite? Jenkins asks, “whether the public is ready to push for greater participation or willing to settle for the same old relations to mass media” (Jenkins, 254). Furthermore, if not everyone participates, how will the non-participants be treated in the coming future? Can they even be involved? According to Jenkins, “A man with one machine (a TV) is doomed to isolation, but a man with two machines (a TV and a computer) can belong to a community (Jenkins, 256).

I think the most interesting factor in convergence culture is the principles by which we will relate to one another. Jenkins says, “We are trying to hammer out the ethical codes and social contracts that will determine how we will relate to one another just as we are trying to determine how this power will insert itself into the entertainment system or into the political process” (Jenkins, 256). The ways in which we interact change with the technological advances, but I think the rules or benefits of social interaction remain the same. Jenkins says, “The Long Trail model assumes an increasingly savvy media consumer, one who will actively seek out content of interest and who will take pride in being able to recommend that content to friends” (Jenkins, 263). The process of seeking content to recommend to friends feeds into the concept of basic human ideals. Some of the reasons people interact are so that they can feel accepted or have a sense of belonging, to discover hope and enlightenment through acquiring new information, to express their opinions and beliefs, and to get a general sense of happiness through social interaction. Convergence culture will change how we interact, but will it change why we interact socially because of its merging of different kinds of participation, some that do not necessarily have significant consequences and some that do (water-cooler gossip vs. political participation)?