Convergence Culture

"convergence culture, where old and new media collide... the flow of content across multiple media platforms". (Jenkins, 2008 pg 2)

Henry Jenkins give us a in depth insight into how convergence culture surrounds us every day. Each media platform we use is a combination of old and new media. Companies such as Apple have taken old media such as a personal music player and combining it with a new media mobile phone which allows us to access many different platforms within one device.  Therefore, the boundary between new and old media is beginning to become a small fading line. 

However, Jenkins believes "convergence represents a cultural shift as consumers are encouraged to seek out new information and make connections among dispersed media content" (Jenkins, 2008 pg 3) Jenkins persuades the reader to believe that we, the consumers of media platforms have a influence on convergence culture. In my opinion, I agree with Jenkins. Today the consumers have such a high demand for more actions to be performed on one device. Producers therefore try to satisfy our demand. We have realised the power we have to create basically, what we want. Through this power, we have pushed the shifts of old media to new. We can now access any content across the internet through our new media. This relationship between the consumer and producer has been named by Jenkins as 'participatory culture'. 

Jenkins speaks of 'delivery technologies'. In my opinion I feel participatory culture has an immediate effect upon delivery technologies.  Jenkins explains, "old media never die... what dies are simply the tools we use to access media content" (Jenkins, 2008 pg 13). Take music for a example, it is the medium. The old media cassettes are the delivery technologies. As the years have passed, we have seen new media delivery technologies from the cassette to CD's which are slowly going to be replaced. In reality though, all media content will not be able to flow through one single black box. Devices have become so in depth that it has lost the ability to serve its original function.

We are surround by convergence culture. It changes relationships, it alters our thoughts and our ability to process media.

Bibliography

Books
Henry, J (2008) Convergence Culture: Where old and new media collide. New York University Press: London

Convergence culture

Convergence culture is when new media replaces old media because technologies keep evolving and so the media industry has to keep up on all the new technologies. These platforms of media will be constantly evolving a good example of this would be Microsoft and Sony. Sony created the Play-station in 1994 and brought gaming to a new level and as the newer consoles came out the PlayStation became obsolete so they came up with the PlayStation two then their competitor created a gaming console called the Xbox. These consoles are now in a console war that separates their fans and they continue to try and bring more to their consumers for example the new Xbox called the Xbox one is trying to be the new main “black box” with everything in one as an entertainment system for example voice commands, TV, Internet, YouTube etc while the PS4 made by Sony is trying to be the main gaming console out there and just want to make a good console. Pictures of these can be seen below [Fig .1]

Figure 1

We can look at convergence culture in another light, one where old and new media forms can co-exist. This would be a better version of the older product. If we look at the way mobile phones are now compared to what they used to be for example a phone started as a simple communication device but now it has been upgraded and adapted over the years. The way phones are now you can have the internet, touch screen, MP3 player, movie player, you can download apps that do things like make music, learn music, play games and you can even get an app that allows you to play older games from other consoles like the super Nintendo or the gameboy. The progression of the iPhone can be seen below [fig.2]

References:

Henry Jenkins (2006) Where Old and New Media Collide, Introduction "Worship at the Altar of Convergence" p.1-25

Images:

Figure 1- http://i1.ytimg.com/vi/Bhs3TIJlvsE/maxresdefault.jpg?feature=og

Figure 2- http://images.anandtech.com/doci/6330/iPhone5-3899.jpg