Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins

Convergence Culture

by Henry Jenkins

Winner of the 2007 Society for Cinema and Media Studies Katherine Singer Kovacs Book Award
2007 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
A classic study on the dynamic between an individual and different media channels

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. Industry leaders see opportunities to direct content across many channels to increase revenue and broaden markets. At the same time, consumers envision a liberated public sphere, free of network controls, in a decentralized media environment. Sometimes corporate and grassroots efforts reinforce each other, creating closer, more rewarding relations between media producers and consumers. Sometimes these two forces are at war.
Jenkins provides a riveting introduction to the world where every story gets told and every brand gets sold across multiple media platforms. He explains the cultural shift that is occurring as consumers fight for control across disparate channels, changing the way we do business, elect our leaders, and educate our children.

Reviewed by clementine on

4 of 5 stars

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Henry Jenkins is one of my favourite media scholars. After reading many excerpts from his works over the course of my undergrad, I decided to purchase Convergence Culture with an eye towards potentially using some of its concepts in my graduate work.

I really enjoy Jenkins' writing because it is so clear and accessible. It isn't bogged down with academic jargon or cryptic syntax, and he defines new terms he introduces clearly. I also love that he uses contemporary case studies to illustrate his concepts. My undergraduate degree was essentially in pop culture studies, so I love when cultural texts that are seen as banal and frivolous are studied in a serious academic way. I especially enjoyed the chapters on Survivor, The Matrix,and Harry Potter (perhaps because I was quite familiar with each franchise already), but I found each chapter to be fairly interesting and very effective case studies. Jenkins is an extremely astute and intelligent man, but his writing is enjoyable to read. I've read it for school and now I'm reading it for fun. I like that his work straddles the academic and consumer worlds and can be cited in scholarly journals while remaining compelling to the general public.

Really my biggest issue with the book - and Jenkins' writing in general - is that there isn't always a flair to his style. I realize this is quite nit-picky. I found my attention easily held throughout the chapters on subjects with which I was already familiar and interested in. My attention wandered a bit during some parts of the other chapters because there is nothing that wows me about Jenkins' style. I do like that it's clear and accessible, but when the subject matter didn't interest me hugely the style wasn't always quite enough to make reading truly pleasurable. But overall I think this is an excellent book from a legendary media scholar.

By the way - this book was written a decade ago and some of it is pretty funny because the media and cultural landscape has changed considerably since then, and a lot of it seems fairly prescient considering the time it was written. Jenkins effectively predicts the Netflix model in one chapter, for example. Most jarringly, I found this sentence:

"Who would have imagined that Donald Trump would have become a populist spokesman, or that sympathetic images of corporate control could fuel a movement to reclaim democracy?"

Ahh. Who would have imagined indeed...

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 12 October, 2016: Finished reading
  • 12 October, 2016: Reviewed