Over the past several years, many of us have watched as cell phones have become increasingly central to the release strategies of commercial motion pictures around the w o r l d , as amateur and professional cell phone movies have competed for prizes i n international film festivals, as mobile users have been able to listen into major concerts, as Japanese novelists serialize their w o r k v i a instant messenger, and as game play- ers have used mobile devices to compete i n augmented and alternative reality games.
Some functions w i l l take root; others w i l l fail. C a l l me old-fashioned. I didn't want a video camera, a still camera, a Web access device, an mp3 player, or a game system. I also wasn't interested i n something that could show me movie previews, w o u l d have customizable ring tones, or w o u l d allow me to read novels.
I didn't want the electronic equivalent of a Swiss army knife. W h e n the phone rings, I don't want to have to figure out w h i c h button to push. I just wanted a phone. The sales clerks sneered at me; they laughed at me behind m y back. I was told by company after mobile company that they don't make single-function phones anymore. This was a powerful demonstration of h o w central mobiles have be- come to the process of media convergence. You've probably been hearing a lot about convergence lately.
Y o u are going to be hearing even more. The media industries are undergoing another paradigm shift. It hap- pens from time to time. In the s, rhetoric about a coming digital revolution contained an implicit and often explicit assumption that new media was going to push aside o l d media, that the Internet was going to displace broadcasting, and that all of this w o u l d enable con- sumers to more easily access media content that was personally mean- ingful to them.
A best-seller i n , Nicholas Negroponte's Being Dig- ital, drew a sharp contrast between "passive o l d m e d i a " and "interac- tive new media," predicting the collapse of broadcast networks i n favor of an era of narrowcasting and niche media on demand: "What w i l l happen to broadcast television over the next five years is so phenome- nal that it's difficult to comprehend.
M e d i a barons of today w i l l be grasping to hold onto their centralized empires tomorrow. The combined forces of technology and human nature w i l l ultimately take a stronger hand i n plurality than any laws Congress can invent. The p o p p i n g of the dot-com bubble threw cold water on this talk of a digital revolution.
N o w , convergence has reemerged as an important reference point as o l d and new media companies try to imagine the future of the entertainment industry. If the digital revolution paradigm presumed that new media w o u l d displace o l d media, the emerging convergence paradigm assumes that o l d and new media w i l l interact i n ever more complex ways.
The digital revolution paradigm claimed that new media was going to change everything. After the dot-com crash, the tendency was to imagine that new media had changed nothing. A s w i t h so many things about the current media environment, the truth lay somewhere i n between. M o r e and more, industry leaders are re- turning to convergence as a w a y of making sense of a moment of dis- orienting change.
Convergence is, i n that sense, an old concept taking on new meanings. There was lots of convergence talk to be heard at the N e w Orleans M e d i a Experience i n October The N e w Orleans M e d i a Experience is more than a film festival; it is also a showcase for game releases, a venue for com- mercials and music videos, an array of concerts and theatrical perform- ances, and a three-day series of panels and discussions w i t h industry leaders.
Inside the auditorium, massive posters featuring images of eyes, ears, mouths, and hands urged attendees to " w o r s h i p at the Alter of Convergence," but it was far from clear what k i n d of deity they were genuflecting before. Was it a N e w Testament G o d w h o promised them salvation?
A n O l d Testament G o d threatening destruction unless they followed H i s rules? A multifaced deity that spoke like an oracle and demanded blood sacrifices? Perhaps, i n keeping w i t h the location, con- vergence was a voodoo goddess w h o w o u l d give them the power to inflict p a i n on their competitors?
Like me, the participants had come to N e w Orleans hoping to glimpse tomorrow before it was too late. Others were freshly minted from America's top business schools and there to find ways to make their first million.
Still others were there because their bosses had sent them, hoping for en- lightenment, but w i l l i n g to settle for one good night i n the French Quarter. The mood was tempered b y a sober realization of the dangers of moving too quickly, as embodied b y the ghost-town campuses i n the Bay Area and the office furniture being sold at bulk prices on eBay; and the dangers of m o v i n g too slowly, as represented b y the recording industry's desperate flailing as it tries to close the door o n file-sharing after the cows have already come stampeding out of the barn.
The par- ticipants had come to N e w Orleans i n search of the "just right"—the right investments, predictions, and business models. N o longer expect- ing to surf the waves of change, they w o u l d be content w i t h staying afloat. The o l d paradigms were breaking d o w n faster than the n e w ones were emerging, producing panic among those most invested i n the status quo and curiosity i n those w h o saw change as opportunity.
Advertising guys i n pinstriped shirts mingled w i t h recording indus- try flacks w i t h backward baseball caps, H o l l y w o o d agents i n H a w a i i a n shirts, pointy-bearded technologists, and shaggy-haired gamers. The only thing they all knew h o w to do was to exchange business cards. A s represented on the panels at the N e w Orleans M e d i a Experience, convergence was a "come as y o u are" party and some of the partici- pants were less ready for what was planned than others.
It was also a swap meet where each of the entertainment industries traded problems and solutions, finding through the interplay among media what they can't achieve w o r k i n g i n isolation. In every discussion, there emerged different models of convergence followed b y the acknowledgment that none of them knew for sure what the outcomes were going to be.
Then, everyone adjourned for a quick round of Red Bulls a conference spon- sor as if funky high-energy drinks were going to blast them over all of those hurdles. Political economists and business gurus make convergence sound so easy; they look at the charts that show the concentration of media o w n - ership as if they ensure that all of the parts w i l l w o r k together to p u r - sue m a x i m u m profits.
In N e w Orleans, however, the representatives for different industries seemed tentatively ready to lower their guard and speak openly about common visions. This event was billed as a chance for the general public to learn first- hand about the coming changes i n news and entertainment. In accept- ing an invitation to be on panels, i n displaying a willingness to "go p u b l i c " w i t h their doubts and anxieties, perhaps industry leaders were acknowledging the importance of the role that ordinary consumers can play not just i n accepting convergence, but actually i n driving the proc- ess.
If the media industry i n recent years has seemed at war w i t h its consumers, i n that it is trying to force consumers back into old relation- ships and into obedience to well-established norms, companies hoped to use this N e w Orleans event to justify their decisions to consumers and stockholders alike.
Unfortunately, although this was not a closed-door event, it might as w e l l have been. Those few members of the public w h o d i d show up were ill-informed. After an intense panel discussion about the chal- lenges of broadening the uses of game consoles, the first member of the audience to raise his hand wanted to k n o w w h e n Grand Theft Auto III was coming out on the Xbox.
Y o u can scarcely blame consumers for not k n o w i n g h o w to speak this new language or even what questions to ask w h e n so little previous effort has been made to educate them about convergence thinking. A t a panel on game consoles, the big tension was between Sony a hardware company and Microsoft a software company ; both had ambitious plans but fundamentally different business models and v i - sions.
A l l agreed that the core challenge was to expand the potential uses of this cheap and readily accessible technology so that it became the "black box," the "Trojan horse" that smuggled convergence culture right into people's living rooms.
What was m o m going to do w i t h the console w h e n her kids were at school? What w o u l d get a family to give a game console to grandpa for Christmas? They had the technology to bring about convergence, but they hadn't figured out w h y anyone w o u l d want it. Another panel focused on the relationship between video games and traditional media.
Increasingly, movie moguls saw games not simply as a means of stamping the franchise logo on some ancillary product but as a means of expanding the storytelling experience. They wanted to use games to explore ideas that couldn't fit w i t h i n two- hour films. Such collaborations meant taking everyone out of their "comfort zones," as one movieland agent explained.
These relationships were difficult to sustain, since all parties worried about losing creative control, and since the time spans for development and distribution i n the media were radically different. Should the game company try to align its timing to the often unpredictable production cycle of a movie w i t h the hopes of hitting Wal-Mart the same weekend the film opens?
Should the movie producers wait for the often equally unpredictable game development cycle to r u n its course, sitting out the clock while some competitor steals their thunder? W i l l the game get released weeks or months later, after the b u z z of the movie has dried up or, worse yet, after the movie has bombed?
Should the game become part of the pub- licity buildup toward a major release, even though that means starting development before the film project has been "green l i g h t e d " b y a stu- dio? Working w i t h a television production company is even more nerve wracking, since the turnaround time is m u c h shorter and the risk much higher that the series w i l l never reach the air.
If the game industry folks h a d the smirking belief that they con- trolled the future, the record industry types were sweating bullets; their days were numbered unless they figured out h o w to turn around current trends such as d w i n d l i n g audiences, declining sales, and ex- panding piracy.
The panel on "monetizing m u s i c " was one of the most heavily attended. Everyone tried to speak at once, yet none of them were sure their "answers" w o u l d work.
W i l l the future revenue come from rights management, from billing people for the music they d o w n - load, or from creating a fee the servers h a d to pay out to the rec- ord industry as a whole?
A n d what about cell phone r i n g s — w h i c h some felt represented an unexplored market for new music as w e l l as a grassroots promotional channel? Perhaps the money w i l l lie i n the intersection between the various media w i t h n e w artists promoted v i a music videos that are paid for b y advertisers w h o want to use their sounds and images for branding, w i t h n e w artists tracked v i a the web that allows the public to register its preferences i n hours rather than weeks.
The N e w Orleans M e d i a Experi- ence pressed us into the future. Every path forward had roadblocks, most of w h i c h felt insurmountable, but somehow, they w o u l d either have to be routed around or broken d o w n i n the coming decade. The messages were plain: 1. Convergence is coming and y o u h a d better be ready.
Convergence is harder than it sounds. Everyone w i l l survive if everyone works together. Unfortunately, that was the one thing nobody knew h o w to do. The Prophet of Convergence If Wired magazine declared Marshall M c L u h a n the patron saint of the digital revolution, we might w e l l describe the late M I T political scien- tist Ithiel de Sola P o o l as the prophet of media convergence.
Pool's Technologies of Freedom was probably the first book to lay out the concept of convergence as a force of change w i t h i n the media industries: A process called the "convergence of modes" is blurring the lines be- tween media, even between point-to-point communications, such as the post, telephone a n d telegraph, a n d mass communications, such as the press, radio, a n d television.
A single physical means—be it wires, cables or a i r w a v e s — m a y carry services that i n the past were provided i n sepa- rate ways. Conversely, a service that was p r o v i d e d i n the past b y any one m e d i u m — b e it broadcasting, the press, or telephony—can n o w be pro- v i d e d i n several different physical ways.
So the one-to-one relationship that used to exist between a m e d i u m and its use is eroding. Pool felt that these differences were largely the product of political choices and preserved through habit rather than any essential characteristic of the various technologies. But he d i d see some communications tech- nologies as supporting more diversity and a greater degree of partici- pation than others: "Freedom is fostered w h e n the means of c o m m u n i - cation are dispersed, decentralized, and easily available, as are printing presses or microcomputers.
Central control is more likely w h e n the means of communication are concentrated, monopolized, and scarce, as are great networks. N e w media technologies enabled the same content to flow through many different channels and assume many different forms at the point of reception. P o o l was describing what Nicholas Negroponte calls the transformation of "atoms into bytes" or digitization.
A t the same time, new patterns of cross-media owner- 9 ship that began i n the mids, during what we can n o w see as the first phase of a longer process of media concentration, were m a k i n g it more desirable for companies to distribute content across those various channels rather than w i t h i n a single media platform.
Digitization set the conditions for convergence; corporate conglomerates created its i m - perative. M u c h writing about the so-called digital revolution presumed that the outcome of technological change was more or less inevitable. Pool, on the other hand, predicted a period of prolonged transition, during w h i c h the various media systems competed and collaborated, search- i n g for the stability that w o u l d always elude them: "Convergence does not mean ultimate stability or unity.
It operates as a constant force for unification but always i n dynamic tension w i t h change. There is no immutable law of growing convergence; the process of change is more complicated than that. Two decades later, I find myself reexamining some 11 of the core questions Pool raised—about h o w we maintain the poten- tial of participatory culture i n the wake of growing media concentra- tion, about whether the changes brought about by convergence open new opportunities for expression or expand the power of big media.
It is beyond m y abilities to describe or fully document all of the changes that are occurring. M y aim is more modest. I want to describe some of the ways that convergence thinking is reshaping American popular culture and, i n particular, the ways it is impacting the relation- ship between media audiences, producers, and content.
Although this chapter w i l l outline the b i g picture insofar as any of us can see it clearly yet , subsequent chapters w i l l examine these changes through a series of case studies focused on specific media franchises and their audiences. M y goal is to help ordinary people grasp how convergence is impacting the media they consume and, at the same time, to help industry leaders and policymakers understand consumer perspectives on these changes.
Writing this book has been challenging because everything seems to be changing at once and there is no vantage point that takes me above the fray. Rather than trying to write from an objec- tive vantage point, I describe i n this book what this process looks like from various localized perspectives—advertising executives struggling to reach a changing market, creative artists discovering new ways to tell stories, educators tapping informal learning communities, activists deploying new resources to shape the political future, religious groups contesting the quality of their cultural environs, and, of course, various fan communities w h o are early adopters and creative users of emerging media.
I can't claim to be a neutral observer i n any of this. For one thing, I am not simply a consumer of many of these media products; I am also an active fan. The w o r l d of media fandom has been a central theme of m y w o r k for almost two decades—an interest that emerges from m y o w n participation w i t h i n various fan communities as m u c h as it does from m y intellectual interests as a media scholar.
D u r i n g that time, I have watched fans move from the invisible margins of popular culture and into the center of current thinking about media production and consumption. A t a time w h e n the roles between pro- ducers and consumers are shifting, m y job allows me to move among different vantage points.
I hope this book allows readers to benefit from my adventures into spaces where few humanists have gone before. Yet, readers should also keep i n m i n d that m y engagement w i t h fans and producers alike necessarily colors what I say. M y goal here is to docu- ment conflicting perspectives o n media change rather than to critique them. I don't think we can meaningfully critique convergence until it is more fully understood; yet if the public doesn't get some insights into the discussions that are taking place, they w i l l have little to no input into decisions that w i l l dramatically change their relationship to media.
What dies are simply the tools w e use to access media content—the 8-track, the Beta tape. These are what media scholars call delivery technologies. Most of what Sterling's project lists falls under this category. Delivery technologies become obsolete and get replaced; media, on the other hand, evolve. Recorded sound is the m e d i u m. C D s , M P 3 files, and 8-track cassettes are delivery tech- nologies.
Delivery systems are simply and 14 only technologies; media are also cultural systems. Delivery technolo- gies come and go all the time, but media persist as layers within an ever more complicated information and entertainment stratum. A medium's content may shift as occurred w h e n television dis- placed radio as a storytelling m e d i u m , freeing radio to become the pri- mary showcase for rock and roll , its audience may change as occurs w h e n comics move from a mainstream m e d i u m i n the s to a niche m e d i u m today , and its social status may rise or fall as occurs when theater moves from a popular form to an elite one , but once a medium establishes itself as satisfying some core h u m a n demand, it continues to function w i t h i n the larger system of communication options.
Once recorded sound becomes a possibility, we have continued to develop new and improved means of recording and playing back sound. Print- ed words d i d not k i l l spoken words.
Cinema d i d not k i l l theater. Each o l d m e d i u m was forced to coexist w i t h 15 the emerging media. That's w h y convergence seems more plausible as a w a y of understanding the past several decades of media change than the o l d digital revolution paradigm had. O l d media are not being dis- placed. Rather, their functions and status are shifted by the introduc- tion of new technologies.
The implications of this distinction between media and delivery sys- tems become clearer as Gitelman elaborates on what she means by "protocols. So telephony includes the salutation 'Hello?
Cinema includes everything from the sprocket holes that run along the sides of film to the w i d e l y shared sense of being able to wait and see 'films' at home on video.
A n d protocols are far from static. M u c h contemporary discourse about convergence starts and ends w i t h what I call the Black Box Fallacy. Sooner or later, the argument goes, all media content is going to flow through a single black box into our l i v i n g rooms or, i n the mobile scenario, through black boxes we carry around w i t h us everywhere we go.
Part of what makes the black box concept a fallacy is that it reduces media change to technological change and strips aside the cul- tural levels we are considering here. I don't k n o w about y o u , but i n m y living room, I am seeing more and more black boxes.
There are m y V C R , m y digital cable box, m y D V D player, m y digital recorder, m y sound system, and m y two game systems, not to mention a huge m o u n d of videotapes, D V D s and C D s , game cartridges and controllers, sitting atop, laying alongside, toppling over the edge of m y television system. I w o u l d definitely qualify as an early adopter, but most American homes n o w have, or soon w i l l have, their o w n pile of black boxes. The perpetual tangle of cords that stands between me and m y "home entertainment" center reflects the degree of incompatibility and dysfunction that exist between the various media technologies.
A n d many of m y M I T students are lugging around multi- ple black boxes—their laptops, their cells, their iPods, their Game Boys, their BlackBerrys, y o u name it. A s Cheskin Research explained i n a report, "The o l d idea of convergence was that all devices w o u l d converge into one central device that d i d everything for y o u a la the universal remote.
What we are n o w seeing is the hardware diverging while the content converges. Your email needs and expectations are different whether you're at home, work, school, commuting, the airport, etc. We can see the proliferation of black boxes as symptomatic of a moment of convergence: because no one is sure what kinds of functions should be combined, we are forced to b u y a range of specialized and incompatible appliances. O n the other end of the spectrum, we may also be forced to deal w i t h an escalation of functions w i t h i n the same media appliance, functions that decrease the ability of that appliance to serve its original function, and so I can't get a cell phone that is just a phone.
Media convergence is more than simply a technological shift. C o n - vergence alters the relationship between existing technologies, indus- tries, markets, genres, and audiences. Keep this i n m i n d : convergence refers to a process, not an endpoint.
There w i l l be no single black box that controls the flow of media into our homes. Thanks to the proliferation of chan- nels and the portability of new computing and telecommunications technologies, we are entering an era where media w i l l be everywhere. Convergence isn't something that is going to happen one day w h e n we have enough b a n d w i d t h or figure out the correct configuration of appliances. Ready or not, we are already living within a convergence culture.
O u r cell phones are not simply telecommunications devices; they also allow us to play games, d o w n l o a d information from the Inter- net, and take and send photographs or text messages. Increasingly they allow us to watch previews of new films, download installments of serialized novels, or attend concerts from remote locations. A l l of this is already happening i n northern Europe and A s i a. A n y of these functions can also be performed using other media appliances. Y o u can listen to the Dixie Chicks through your D V D player, your car radio, your walk- man, your i P o d , a Web radio station, or a music cable channel.
Fueling this technological convergence is a shift i n patterns of media ownership. Whereas o l d H o l l y w o o d focused on cinema, the new media conglomerates have controlling interests across the entire entertain- ment industry.
Warner Bros, produces film, television, popular music, computer games, Web sites, toys, amusement park rides, books, news- papers, magazines, and comics. In turn, media convergence impacts the w a y we consume media. A teenager doing homework may juggle four or five w i n d o w s , scan the Web, listen to and d o w n l o a d M P 3 files, chat w i t h friends, word-process a paper, and respond to e-mail, shifting rapidly among tasks.
A n d fans of a popular television series may sample dialogue, summarize epi- sodes, debate subtexts, create original fan fiction, record their o w n soundtracks, make their o w n m o v i e s — a n d distribute all of this w o r l d - w i d e v i a the Internet. Convergence is taking place w i t h i n the same appliances, within the same franchise, w i t h i n the same company, w i t h i n the brain of the con- sumer, and w i t h i n the same fandom.
Convergence involves both a change i n the w a y media is produced and a change i n the w a y media is consumed. They wake up together, w o r k together, eat together, and 18 go to bed together even though they live miles apart and may have face-to-face contact only a few times a month. We might call it tele- cocooning. Convergence doesn't just involve commercially produced materials and services traveling along well-regulated and predictable circuits.
It doesn't just involve the mobile companies getting together w i t h the film companies to decide w h e n and where we watch a n e w l y released film.
It also occurs when people take media i n their o w n hands. Enter- tainment content isn't the only thing that flows across multiple media platforms. O u r lives, relationships, memories, fantasies, desires also flow across media channels. Being a lover or a m o m m y or a teacher occurs on multiple platforms. Sometimes we tuck our kids into bed at 19 night and other times we Instant Message them from the other side of the globe.
A n d yet another snapshot: Intoxicated students at a local h i g h school use their cell phones spontaneously to produce their o w n soft-core porn movie involving topless cheerleaders making out i n the locker room. Within hours, the movie is circulating across the school, being downloaded by students and teachers alike and watched between classes on personal media devices.
W h e n people take media into their o w n hands, the results can be wonderfully creative; they can also be bad news for all involved. For the foreseeable future, convergence w i l l be a k i n d of k l u d g e — a jerry-rigged relationship among different media technologies—rather than a fully integrated system. Right now, the cultural shifts, the legal battles, and the economic consolidations that are fueling media conver- gence are preceding shifts i n the technological infrastructure.
H o w those various transitions unfold w i l l determine the balance of power i n the next media era. A t the same time, there has been an alarming concentration of the ownership of mainstream commercial media, w i t h a small handful of multinational media conglomerates dominating all sectors of the enter- tainment industry.
N o one seems capable of describing both sets of changes at the same time, let alone show h o w they impact each other. Some fear that media is out of control, others that it is too controlled. Some see a w o r l d without gatekeepers, others a w o r l d where gate- keepers have unprecedented power.
A g a i n , the truth lies somewhere i n between. The arrows provide numbers others can call to access recorded voice messages—personal annotations on our shared urban landscape. They use it to share a beautiful vista or criticize an irresponsible com- pany. A n d increasingly, companies are co-opting the system to leave their o w n advertising pitches. Convergence, as we can see, is both a top-down corporate-driven process and a bottom-up consumer-driven process.
Corporate conver- gence coexists w i t h grassroots convergence. M e d i a companies are learning h o w to accelerate the flow of media content across delivery channels to expand revenue opportunities, broaden markets, and rein- force viewer commitments. Consumers are learning h o w to use these different media technologies to b r i n g the flow of media more fully under their control and to interact w i t h other consumers.
The promises of this new media environment raise expectations of a freer flow of ideas and content. Inspired by those ideals, consumers are fighting for the right to participate more fully i n their culture.
Sometimes, corporate and grassroots convergence reinforce each other, creating closer, more rewarding relations between media producers and consumers. Some- times, these two forces are at war and those struggles w i l l redefine the face of American popular culture. Convergence requires media companies to rethink old assumptions about what it means to consume media, assumptions that shape both programming and marketing decisions.
If old consumers were as- sumed to be passive, the new consumers are active. If o l d consumers were isolated individuals, the new consumers are more socially connected.
If the w o r k of media consumers was once silent and invisible, the new consumers are now noisy and public. M e d i a producers are responding to these newly empowered con- sumers i n contradictory ways, sometimes encouraging change, some- times resisting what they see as renegade behavior.
A n d consumers, i n turn, are perplexed by what they see as mixed signals about h o w m u c h and what kinds of participation they can enjoy. A s they undergo this transition, the media companies are not be- having i n a monolithic fashion; often, different divisions of the same company are pursuing radically different strategies, reflecting their u n - certainty about h o w to proceed.
O n the one hand, convergence repre- sents an expanded opportunity for media conglomerates, since content that succeeds i n one sector can spread across other platforms. O n the other, convergence represents a risk since most of these media fear a fragmentation or erosion of their markets. Each time they move a viewer from television to the Internet, say, there is a risk that the con- sumer may not return. Industry insiders use the term "extension" to refer to their efforts to expand the potential markets by m o v i n g content across different deliv- ery systems, "synergy" to refer to the economic opportunities repre- sented by their ability to o w n and control all of those manifestations, and "franchise" to refer to their coordinated effort to brand and market fictional content under these new conditions.
Extension, synergy, and franchising are pushing media industries to embrace convergence. For that reason, the case studies I selected for this book deal w i t h some of the most successful franchises i n recent media history.
Some American Idol, , and Survivor, originate on television, some The Matrix, , Star Wars, on the big screen, some as books Harry Potter, , and some as games The Sims, , but each extends outward from its originating m e d i u m to influence many other sites of cultural production. Each of these franchises offers a different vantage point from w h i c h to understand h o w media convergence is reshaping the relationship between media producers and consumers.
Chapter 1, w h i c h focuses on Survivor, and chapter 2, w h i c h centers on American Idol, look at the phenomenon of reality television. Survivor spoiling w i l l be read here as a particularly v i v i d example of collective intelligence at work. Knowledge communities form around mutual i n - tellectual interests; their members w o r k together to forge new k n o w l - edge often i n realms where no traditional expertise exists; the pursuit of and assessment of knowledge is at once communal and adversarial.
M a p p i n g h o w these knowledge communities w o r k can help us better understand the social nature of contemporary media consumption. They can also give us insight into h o w knowledge becomes power i n the age of media convergence. O n the other hand, chapter 2 examines American Idol from the per- spective of the media industry, trying to understand h o w reality tele- vision is being shaped b y what I call "affective economics.
This new "affective economics" encourages companies to transform brands into what one industry insider calls "lovemarks" and to blur the line between entertainment content and brand mes- sages. A c c o r d i n g to the logic of affective economics, the ideal consumer is active, emotionally engaged, and socially networked. Watching the advert or consuming the product is no longer enough; the company invites the audience inside the brand community.
Yet, if such affilia- tions encourage more active consumption, these same communities can also become protectors of brand integrity and thus critics of the compa- nies that seek to court their allegiance. Strikingly, i n both cases, relations between producers and consumers are breaking d o w n as consumers seek to act u p o n the invitation to par- ticipate i n the life of the franchises.
In the case of Survivor, the spoiler community has become so good at the game that the producers fear they w i l l be unable to protect the rights of other consumers to have a "first time" experience of the unfolding series.
In the case of American Idol, fans fear that their participation is marginal and that producers still play too active a role i n shaping the outcome of the competition. H o w m u c h participation is too much?
W h e n does participation be- come interference? A n d conversely, when do producers exert too much power over the entertainment experience? Chapter 3 examines The Matrix franchise as an example of what I am calling transmedia storytelling.
Transmedia storytelling is the art of w o r l d making. To fully experience any fictional w o r l d , consumers must assume the role of hunters and gatherers, chasing d o w n bits of the story across media channels, comparing notes w i t h each other via on- line discussion groups, and collaborating to ensure that everyone w h o invests time and effort w i l l come away w i t h a richer entertainment ex- perience.
Some w o u l d argue that the Wachowski brothers, w h o wrote and directed the three Matrix films, have pushed transmedia story- telling farther than most audience members were prepared to go. Chapters 4 and 5 take us deeper into the realm of participatory cul- ture. Chapter 4 deals w i t h Star Wars fan filmmakers and gamers, w h o are actively reshaping George Lucas's mythology to satisfy their o w n fantasies and desires.
Fan cultures w i l l be understood here as a revital- ization of the o l d folk culture process i n response to the content of mass culture. Chapter 5 deals w i t h y o u n g Harry Potter fans w h o are writing their o w n stories about Hogwarts and its students. In both cases, these grassroots artists are finding themselves i n conflict w i t h commercial media producers who want to exert greater control over their intellec- tual property.
We w i l l see i n chapter 4 that LucasArts has h a d to contin- ually rethink its relations to Star Wars fans throughout the past several decades, trying to strike the right balance between encouraging the enthusiasm of their fans and protecting their investments i n the series. 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. The Harry Potter books are not universally welcomed into U. The teen writers are acutely aware of those censorship struggles and many have decided, not to talk with parents and teachers about what they are writing.
But some teachers do care enough to read and give feedback on these stories. And there are supportive parents who fly with their sons and daughters to conventions where the young writers speak to rooms full of people about the story-writing craft.
Many young fan writers aspire to professional writing careers; many are getting accepted into top colleges and pursuing educational goals that stem from their fan experiences. Fandom is providing a rich haven to support the development of bright young minds that might otherwise get chewed up by the system, and offering mentorship to help less gifted students to achieve their full expressive potential. Either way, these teens are finding something online that schools are not providing them.
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