The Cultural Logic of Media Convergence – A Summary

Below are my notes and summary of the Henry Jenkins reading, The Cultural Logic of Media Convergence.

• Media convergence: The phenomenon where digitisation of content, as well as standards and technologies for the carriage and display of digital content, are blurring the traditional distinctions between broadcasting and other media across all elements of the supply chain, for content generation, aggregation, distribution and audiences

• New media lowered production and distribution costs, made new media content very easy to circulate.
  • Contrastingly, there is a large concentration on the ownership of commercial media, with a small number of dominating conglomerates dominating the entertainment industry
  • Brings up the argument of who owns this media, who is in control of this media

• We are in a time where there is a reshaping of media aesthetics and economics – there is a general rise of new communities which are self-sufficient in creating content for themselves and others that share their interests

• There is a current uneasy tenuous relationship between commercial media and collective intelligence – this relationship is somewhat reframed through grassroots media

• Blogging is a primary example of this shift of self-generated content, where activists form important alliances, share ideas and organize and mobilise their movements within a digital space

• Blogging has then infiltrated commercial media, where sites such as Salon run blogs through its website
  • These blogs have become important resources for broadcast media, where they collect information and differing opinions and insert them into their commercial stories

• Convergence is allowing media companies to accelerate the flow of media content across delivery channels and expand their revenue, whilst consumers are learning how to use these different media technologies to bring the flow of media more fully under their control and interact with other users

• This convergence poses a risk to media conglomerates, as they fear fragmentation of their market – self-generated content is able to cater more specifically to individual needs then content that relies heavily on a large user base, and thus has to be broad in its appeal

• The relationship between audience and producer has then changed due to this convergence, and even shifted the digital economy – bands no longer have to go through commercial studios to brand and release content, game designers have a space in which to sell and promote their own content
  • Crowdsourcing and funding websites have also emerged such as Pozible – people do not need to reach out to commercial media outlets in order to create content

Interface & Interpretation Reading

The interface and Interpretation reading by Drunker, J spoke about interfaces and how people generally associate them with something graphic and on screen, that is a portal into the online world. In fact, an interface can be anything from switches, punch cards, and keyboards, basically anything that we interact with objects in the world. There are different definitions of interfaces named by people such as Norman Long and Brenda Laurel. They range from “a critical point of interaction between life worlds” (Johanna Drunker, 2014) to “a surface where the necessary contact between interactors and tasks allowed functions to be performed” (Johanna Drunker, 2014). Drunker also goes on to state that the average theory of the interface depends on the users experience and what task they are using it for.

Drunker also goes to state how it is interesting to think of the book as a type of interface, as well as how there are headers, footers, margins, gutters and page numbers in order to conduct our eyes around a page. She then proceeds to stating that the book of the future will be fluid and a digital interface.

Generally when I think of an interface, I automatically associate it with something digital like an iPhone or tablet. After reading this it has endorsed me to think of an interface as any object that you interact with. It has also allowed me to apply our speculative object to this reading and enabled me to think in a different way.

For Flux, the interface being used is the contact lenses and the task that is being conducted is to transport the user into an augmented reality in which they are educated. The intended experience that is wanted for the user is to submerge them into an easily accessed learning space where they are not distracted.

References:

Drunker, J. 2014, Visual Forms of Knowledge Production, Harvard University Press, Massachusetts