CHAPTERS
Grassroot Convergence
DISCLAIMER
CREATIVE TEAM
GLOSSARY
Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide reviews the cultural transformations taking place as media audiences play a participatory role in commercial media activities. Yet, while the assumption is that consumers are increasingly becoming more active participants, it is still unclear what the terms of this participation are. The book explores various examples of experimentation into the potential intersections between commercial and grassroots culture, reveling the power consumers have, living in a network society. It also looks into the media industry’s struggle to keep up with the changes, through cases of successful and failed crossmedia projects. The book’s premise is that understanding the opportunities and pitfalls of convergence culture is key to the successful navigation through the current multiplatform landscape of stories told and brands sold.
Accolades:
Winner of the 2007 Society for Cinema and Media Studies Katherine Singer Kovacs Book Award
2007 Choice’s Outstanding Academic Title
THE AUTHOR & THE BOOK
About the book
Henry Jenkins is a Communication, Journalism and Cinematic Art professor at the University of Southern California, and the former director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies program and Peter de Florez professor of Humanities.
He has written and/or edited twelve books in the fields of media and popular culture, and writes regularly for publications such as Technology Review, Salon and the Huffington Post, as well as on his personal blog Confessions of an Aca-Fan, in which he discusses contemporary developments in the field and showcases his and his students’ academic work. His works include: Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture, Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture, and the basis for this website Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. Jenkins’ writings about participatory culture and convergence have inspired a variety of academic research projects, educational endeavors and connections between a network of media academics and industry professionals.
Jenkins is a public advocate for fans, gamers and bloggers. He has testified before the United States Senate in their investigation into “Marketing Violence to Youth”, advocated for media literacy education before the Federal Communication Commission and called for a more consumer-oriented approach to intellectual property at the World Economic Forum. He publically opposes games censorship, and is a regular contributor in the press on media change and popular culture related topics.
Henry Jenkins has a B.A. in Political Science and Journalism from Georgia State University, a M.A. in Communication Studies from the University of Iowa and a PhD in Communication Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
About Jenkins
Convergence Culture
