To be somewhat critical of the photoshop chapter would be very simple, it felt all over the place to me, and a bit of a stretch. But, I’ll buy his argument that Photoshop encourages convergence culture, but perhaps not as clearly as some of the earlier examples such as survivor or what not.
Politics need to come up when discussing culture if for no other reason than the first ammendment affords political speech a high level of protection. Given this freedom, it is imperative that one understand the various ways that culture and speech come together with politics.
To this end Photoshop has allowed a tremendous amount of freedom with regards to editing and manipulating photographs often in ethically challenging ways. Photoshop in particular raises a lot of questions of truth and ethics. Is it ethical to alter a photograph? Does intent change the ethical nature of the photograph? Or for that matter is photography itself ethical. In my opinion a lot of this comes down to how you use it. As Jenkin’s pointed out earlier in the book the line between satire and fan fiction is often hard to say. In the conclusion Jenkins points out that it is important to strive against the conglomerates but that we should not burn ourselves out too much. His point then becomes that we also need to strive to preserve our intellectual properties and things such as that. Photoshop (like every other manipulation tool) raises a lot of questions about intellectual property and what is satire.
Agenda setting theory discusses the idea of whether the media tells us what to think or how to think it. While each of these sides are infinitely debatable it is equally important to understand how the public responds to media. In an age of convergence the space between the consumer and the corporation or between the producer and the grass roots movement gets smaller and smaller. Above all things, especially updated in the 2008 presidential campaign the grassroots movement was a really big deal. Obama was tearing up the social media world. Twitter, Facebook, Text messaging, Obama had his fingers on the social pulse. Ultimately, he won.
This is precisely where convergence gets complicated for me. Before he was elected which side of the fence was Obama on? I submit that he was the grass roots effort. Or rather, perhaps more likely that he started the grass roots movements (...his staff...). At any rate, he reaped the benefits of these systems.
Several years later he is equally under attack by similar groups who are displeased with his policy and who would like to see a different presidential contender from the Democratic party. I await anxiously to see how he mobilizes his fan base in the upcoming election cycle.
I’ve been wondering throughout the book when, if ever, he was going to discuss whether or not all of this convergence is a “good” thing. I’m hesitant; I do not always want to have a hand in creating that which I consume. Sometimes I just want to watch TV. I feel that I generally interact with enough books and Internet things that (especially in TV”s case) I just want to sit down and be entertained some time.
Also, is it a good thing to put so much power into the hands (though we can’t really take the power away) of those who might have selfish intentions with regards to how they manipulate media? If that question is going to be asked it could be wondered if we should trust the “media” to create media. Though there do not seem to be any clear cut answers I still find myself hesitant to buy “all the way” into the fact that a converging culture is some Utopian wonderland.
I do not see an end of the formation of digital communities. Particularly with the rise of Google+ and the continued dominance of Facebook digital relationships are not likely to go away soon. And as a result of these relationships people need goals. Many of these goals have been explained in this book, survivor, the Harry Potter writers and what not. People that share common interests (or even those who do not initially know one another, but come to have common interests) will steadily be pushing forward with the notion of convergence, because ultimately thats the way its working right now.
At the moment and to conclude, I suppose I will mention that I am looking forward to consciously being able to observe convergence culture, particularly participatory culture. I expect that with the continued rise of social media and mobile devices that these things will very soon be even more ingrained into our very beings. In many ways this seems the perfect segue into Turkle who will ask us why we are not relying on each other more but instead looking to technology. I expect that the difference will somehow do with the notion that Jenkin’;s is not advocating ending relationships. On the contrary, he seems to be for fostering them. But, I think Convergence should be viewed with some caution.
Politics need to come up when discussing culture if for no other reason than the first ammendment affords political speech a high level of protection. Given this freedom, it is imperative that one understand the various ways that culture and speech come together with politics.
To this end Photoshop has allowed a tremendous amount of freedom with regards to editing and manipulating photographs often in ethically challenging ways. Photoshop in particular raises a lot of questions of truth and ethics. Is it ethical to alter a photograph? Does intent change the ethical nature of the photograph? Or for that matter is photography itself ethical. In my opinion a lot of this comes down to how you use it. As Jenkin’s pointed out earlier in the book the line between satire and fan fiction is often hard to say. In the conclusion Jenkins points out that it is important to strive against the conglomerates but that we should not burn ourselves out too much. His point then becomes that we also need to strive to preserve our intellectual properties and things such as that. Photoshop (like every other manipulation tool) raises a lot of questions about intellectual property and what is satire.
Agenda setting theory discusses the idea of whether the media tells us what to think or how to think it. While each of these sides are infinitely debatable it is equally important to understand how the public responds to media. In an age of convergence the space between the consumer and the corporation or between the producer and the grass roots movement gets smaller and smaller. Above all things, especially updated in the 2008 presidential campaign the grassroots movement was a really big deal. Obama was tearing up the social media world. Twitter, Facebook, Text messaging, Obama had his fingers on the social pulse. Ultimately, he won.
This is precisely where convergence gets complicated for me. Before he was elected which side of the fence was Obama on? I submit that he was the grass roots effort. Or rather, perhaps more likely that he started the grass roots movements (...his staff...). At any rate, he reaped the benefits of these systems.
Several years later he is equally under attack by similar groups who are displeased with his policy and who would like to see a different presidential contender from the Democratic party. I await anxiously to see how he mobilizes his fan base in the upcoming election cycle.
I’ve been wondering throughout the book when, if ever, he was going to discuss whether or not all of this convergence is a “good” thing. I’m hesitant; I do not always want to have a hand in creating that which I consume. Sometimes I just want to watch TV. I feel that I generally interact with enough books and Internet things that (especially in TV”s case) I just want to sit down and be entertained some time.
Also, is it a good thing to put so much power into the hands (though we can’t really take the power away) of those who might have selfish intentions with regards to how they manipulate media? If that question is going to be asked it could be wondered if we should trust the “media” to create media. Though there do not seem to be any clear cut answers I still find myself hesitant to buy “all the way” into the fact that a converging culture is some Utopian wonderland.
I do not see an end of the formation of digital communities. Particularly with the rise of Google+ and the continued dominance of Facebook digital relationships are not likely to go away soon. And as a result of these relationships people need goals. Many of these goals have been explained in this book, survivor, the Harry Potter writers and what not. People that share common interests (or even those who do not initially know one another, but come to have common interests) will steadily be pushing forward with the notion of convergence, because ultimately thats the way its working right now.
At the moment and to conclude, I suppose I will mention that I am looking forward to consciously being able to observe convergence culture, particularly participatory culture. I expect that with the continued rise of social media and mobile devices that these things will very soon be even more ingrained into our very beings. In many ways this seems the perfect segue into Turkle who will ask us why we are not relying on each other more but instead looking to technology. I expect that the difference will somehow do with the notion that Jenkin’;s is not advocating ending relationships. On the contrary, he seems to be for fostering them. But, I think Convergence should be viewed with some caution.
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