I’m just dashing through the final pages of a book called Convergence Culture: where old and new media collide by a fellow called Henry Jenkins.
Now the first thing to note about this book is that the poor guy spent 8 years researching it, published it in hardback in 2006 and only finally got a paperback edition printed in 2008. So given that he started working on it eleven years ago, you might forgive him for, in some instances, seeming a trifle dated in some of his observations.
The main subject of the book is my pet topic of the moment: user involvement in brands. Media brands in this instance. Co-creation, he might have called it, if he had written it now. And it’s proved to be a wonderful complement to a trio of books I purchased back in November: Wikinomics, The Long Tail (have I blogged about this yet?) and finally this.
Principally valuable for its case studies, Mr Jenkins offers lists and lists of examples of users / viewers / gamers / readers getting involved in producing their own content supporting a hero (media) work. Or building a community around figuring out a challenge set by producers, as in the US show, Survivor. And his examples are brilliant. I, an innocent cinema goer, had no idea that such a plethora of online excitement sprung up around the Matrix for example.
But. And you’ll know by now that there’s a but coming. He delivers this whole fascinating work in about the most turgid, dry, academic tone possible. So let me cruelly give you an example:
What skills do children need to become full participants in convergence culture? Across this book, we have identified a number - the ability to pool knowledge with others in a collaborative enterprise (as in the Survivor spoiling), the ability to share and compare value systems by evaluating ethical dramas (as occurs in the gossip surrounding reality television), the ability to make connections across scattered pieces of information (as occurs when we consume The Matrix, 1999, or Pokemon, 1998), the ability to express your interpretations and feelings towards popular fictions through your own folk culture (as occurs in Star Wars fan cinema), and the ability to circulate what you create via the Internet so that it can be shared with others (again as in fan cinema).
Well yes, but could you not have said the same thing in quite a few less words?
My favourite (cruellest) example of all - and here I refer you back to the publication date to make sense of this - is the following:
The term “blog” is short for Weblog, a new form of personal and subcultural grassroots expression involving summarizing and linking to other sites. In effect, blogging is a form of grassroots convergence.
And here lies my fundamental objection to this book. How can this poor man make such a fascinating phenomena - such a time of extraordinary and unprecedented change - such a time of no-one quite knows where it’ll end up but we’re loving watching all of the twists and turns as people come up with ever cleverer ways of getting involved - how can he make all of this sound so extraordinarily dull??!!
His final chapter, bless his heart, looks at American politics and explains how the digital revolution is revolutionising the world of political engagement. Painfully pre-Obama, I couldn’t quite bring myself to read this chapter as attentively as I’d waded through the others (but bless him. I’ve just forced myself to read to the end and Obama gets a mention in his developed for the 2008 edition afterword. Published long before election day. I take it back. Some of it!).
He has one further infuriating habit - though maybe this is a publisher rather than a writer-instigated decision - of printing long (like eight page long) case studies alongside the regular chapter text. Case study taking a third of the page vertically and the book’s text occupying the other two-thirds. Maybe this was deliberately intended to make the reader take twice as long dwelling on his wisdom as you’re forced to read, retrace, read case study, try and find your original place and then move on.
Anyway, I shall hush with my Preston to Edinburgh train journey boredom fuelled rant. This is worth a flick for the case studies. He’s clearly a very smart man. His writing style in my opinion leaves something to be desired. But as a repository of information about real people moulding, shaping and remaking popular culture, it’s a pretty handy book to have around. We must congratulate Mr Jenkins on his exhaustive (exhausting) scholarly endeavour.
