Brown Blog Post

In the conclusion to his essay, Brown writes, "The very situation of symbolic exchange is an opening to the other regardless of the words that come out. These words may be hateful, dismissive, crude, disgusting. But regardless of content, we can, in some sense, view all discourse as an opening. Such an opening would not reduce Bert and bin Laden to sameness, and it would not proclaim that they have resolved their differences. But it might it start us down a road toward peace."

I agree to Brown to a certain extent. Yes, we can find meaningful discourse in all conversations. These exchanges are what gives us a peak into the state of the world today. The reactions by groups and individuals to content, regardless of its original intent, is reality. You cannot control people's emotions and initial reactions to anything. This is what we fail to understand at times, regardless on what side of the argument we lie. This is also whatI feel Jenkins means as the road towards peace. It is not that we can eventually find a common ground and agree on everything, but rather it is that we acknowledge that these differences exist. We must take our experiences in broadening our individual critical consciousness toward and acceptance of not becoming the same but, as Brown writes "resolving [our] differences."

S/R 1: Convergence Culture - Henry Jenkins

In Convergence Culture, author Henry Jenkins explores the juxtaposition and therefore collision between the worlds of old and new media. This oscillation contributes to a shift in our everyday culture not only in the manner in which we perceive entertainment, but also in the we way communicate, educate, and conduct politics. Jenkins writes, “Convergence, as we can see, is both a top-down corporate-driven process and a bottom-up consumer-driven process” (18). He utilizes examples from entertainment such as the Matrix franchises, American Idol series, and Harry Potter to exemplify the tension between these increasingly converging separate spheres. “What we need to keep in mind here … is that the interests of producers and consumers are not the same. Sometimes they overlap. Sometimes they conflict” (58). Audience and consumer demands are becoming increasingly important and “producers who fail to make their peace with this new participatory culture will face declining goodwill and diminished revenues” (24). Media convergence allows for the unfiltered and free flow of information and knowledge, resulting in purely synergistic effects and “collective intelligence [which] refers to [the] ability of virtual communities to leverage the combined expertise of its members” (27). This new way of experiencing and interacting with the world contributes to a paradigm shift; a shift in which the world is moving towards a participatory democracy, a form of utopia not where information is absolute and at a standstill, but a utopia where knowledge is ever evolving and meaningful discourse shapes and changes the world. The radical transformation in politics, education and communication is but one outcome of a participatory and fully connected society. Jenkins concludes, “Convergence culture is the future, but it is taking shape now. Consumers will be more powerful within convergence culture – but only if they recognize and use that power as both consumers and citizens, as full participants in our culture” (270).

In Chapter 6, titled “Photoshop for Democracy,” Jenkins discusses the modern interrelations between politics and popular culture. Campaign voices are moving off the street and onto the web at an alarming rate, and advocacy groups are employing new interactive and online strategies to further their agenda. “Those silenced by corporate media have been among the first to transform their computer into a printing press. This opportunity has benefitted third parties, revolutionaries, reactionaries, and racists alike” (221). The unprecedented influence of these virtual voices cannot go ignored. Media literacy is becoming increasingly important in the world of politics, taking somewhat the form of virtual gerrymandering. Having the ability to rally and manipulate online boundaries can have the power to swing the vote in one direction or the other. Those who take advantage of this strategy employ what Jenkins calls the “serious fun” approach, such as parody videos, games, and satirical media pieces. “Educators embrace the informal pedagogy within fan communities as a model for developing literacy skills” (218). The relationship between politics and popular culture also has a drastic effect on our identity and social relations. In today’s world of social networking sites and profiles that accompany registration to effectively every website, participants are increasingly finding their identity as represented by their online persona. Stating one’s political viewpoint on Facebook may spark both online and offline conversations with friends and strangers that would otherwise not occur. Participants shape their online identities by not only choosing a political side on their profiles, but also in the content they share through various virtual outlets. Media pieces, such as parody videos and captioned images, offer a glimpse into the personality of the individual sharing it. These media pieces blur the line between political and pop culture spheres. New and significant discourse emerges as a result. However, these conversations may also be a mere outcome of “fan community” characteristics. Jenkins writes, “few of us simply interact in political communities; most of us also join fan communities on the basis of recreational interests … popular culture allows us to entertain alternative framings in part because the stakes are lower … [and] commitments don’t carry the same weights as our choices at the ballot box” (249). He concludes, “This is in the end another reason why popular culture matters politically – because it doesn’t seem to be about politics at all” (250).

Conclusion (Jenkins)

In the conclusion to Convergence Culture, Jenkins writes, "The emergence of new media technologies supports a democratic urge to allow more people to create and circulate media. Sometime the media are designed to respond to mass content ... The challenge is to rethink our understanding of the First Amendment to recognize this expanded opportunity to participate. We should thus regard those things that block participation ... as important obstacles to route around if we are going to [democratize aspects] of our culture ... [M]ost centrally the challenges surrounding corporate control over intellectual property and the need tor a clearer definition of the kinds of fair-use rights held by amateur artists, writers, journalists, and critics, who want to share work inspired or incited by existing media content" (p269).

As I was reading through this passage, I was reminded of Creative Commons, a non-profit organization that "that develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation." Creative Commons is one such organization that aims to solve some of the criticisms that Jenkins has about fair-use and sharing of new media. CC has released licenses aimed at optimizing the ability for people to share their work, build upon others' work, reuse, and remix as well. Sites such as Google, Flickr, and Wikipedia have adopted the CC model, allowing information and media to flow in and out of its networks with ease. It also allows people to adapt upon other's work legally. Al Jazeera, a television network, has even released some of their videos under a CC license so that even rival news networks could use their footage freely (with attribution to Al Jazeera).

This free sharing of information follows a "Some Rights Reserved" model for the original creator, rather than "All Rights Reserved", which allows people to remix and reuse the original creator's intellectual property while still crediting that original creator. CC reinforces the idea of the participatory culture, of the democratization of knowledge. Artists, photographers, and writers can contribute exponentially to our culture. Now, imagine if our textbooks, courses, and lesson plans were released under CC, and the potential it has for reshaping our education system; or even scientific journals, primary data, and research.

"Searching for the Origami Unicorn" (Jenkins CH3)

In the third chapter of Convergence Culture, author Henry Jenkins explores the idea of "transmedia storytelling". He writes

A transmedia story unfolds across multiple media platforms, with each new text making a distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole ... a story might be introduced in a film, expanded through television, novels, and comics; its world might be explored through game play or experienced as an amusement park attraction (p98)

In this chapter, Jenkins writes about the success of transmedia storytelling through the various mediums in which the Wachowski brothers' The Matrix is told. Fans can enjoy the text through it's original film, but to fully enjoy the the Matrix universe, one must venture through not only the film's sequels, but also experience the Animatrix animated spinoff, and play the online game Enter the Matrix as well. Each text tells the story from a different point of view, augmenting the Matrix universe as a whole and offering new insights to and from each compartmentalized medium. The success of this transmedia experience is attributed to "synergistic storytelling" (p103) and "collaborative authorship" (p110) only possible when a story is told across the various media platforms.

However, Jenkins also writes that "redundancy burns up fan interest and causes franchises to fall" (p98). I disagree with Jenkins to some extent. The Scott Pilgrim franchise, originally a graphic novel series, has been remade into a film starring Michael Cera, and has been released as a video game on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles. The graphic novels, film, and game each tell the same story. Nothing new is learned by the reader/player/watcher when experiencing the various mediums. However, the success of each media experience is attributed to fans wanting to experience the same story across these various platforms. They want to explore reinterpretations of the same story as a film and video game, rather than venture into an expanded universe (the transmedia strategy the Matrix franchise takes advantage of). Redundancy may not be the reason in why franchises fall then. Franchises tend to fall when the extended texts and mediums do not live up to the same caliber as the source material. Video games such as Doom, Prince of Persia, and Final Fantasy have been reimagined into film. Ratings indicate that these films do not follow the same popularity and recognition as it's video game source. Many fans will cry fowl at the film adaptation, citing poor and lazy storytelling and exploitation of the franchise for the sole purpose of making more money. That inherently is another negative consequence of the transmedia experience. Franchise integrity is ofter compromised when it's owners become too hasty with releasing new mediums; when it becomes too easy to reuse assets, art, and 3d models from a film and place those assets into a game (or vice versa).