Henry Jenkins of MIT - -bloggers, modders, spoilers and thieves

Cyprien’s Intro

Henry has a blog
his core value system – humanism – speak to everybody: media, citizens Henry -put some vodka in our orange juice -canada is a nation of morning people! NOT :-) -big picture of media change -vision of convergence and where it’s going -writiing book called Convergence Culture -documented in Technology Review -Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be bloggers -bloggers, modders, spoilers and thieves -Bill Gatus of Borg :-)
Bert and Bin Laden photoshop image created by Filipino American high school student site Bert is evil
Bert in Al Quaeda support’s poster ! -got flack from Sesame street (Children’s Television Workshop) -this is a parable for the flow of media across the world -a world of interconnected media -anyone can produce something that’s too close to reality -new orleans conference - worship at the altar of convergence -how do we connect pieces together -corporate: convergence black box fallacy -figure out which black box to invest in and we’ll make a killing -convergence = flow of stories, brands, etc. across media platforms -it is social and culture change not a technological one! -both top down and bottom up -we OWN the media -we are part of the media -old model is revolution and displacement of old by new -participatory culture began with VCR and photocopy -negroponte was wrong -convergence is interplay between old and new
Ithiel Pool had it right in 1983 - “trend is convergence among media”, “many modes working at once in interconnected ways” -nominates Pool as prophet of Convergence -Pool’s Technologies of Freedom resonantes -convergence is a process not an endpoint -media are not dying but changing -there are no dead media -relations between media are constantly being renegotiated -reality TV is killer app of converged media -last gasp of appointment television, watch it LIVE or you don’t watch it all -draws viewsers back in real time NOT on Tivo -creates buzz that no other program is -high % of people using SMS for American Idol were first time people -huge SMS growth -testing ground for product placement -killer app for advertising for media branding -reality tv is huge branding machine - tv, records, concerts, books -american idol has generated lots of revenue in every space except movies -powerful way of tappiing into participatory culture -great deal of anger emerged in American Idol -“hanging chads in Florida is nothing compared to this stupid voting procedure”! -tension: old media wants to control -nobody is sure what the roles are
what does consumer sovereignty mean? -important polically and socially -matrix = games, anime, movies -the matrix is a transmedia phenomenon -transmedia storytelling = controlled unified story told across multiple media -matrix flexes the muscles of the new transmedia system -critics didn’t know what to make of it since they were only looking at one medium -jada pinkett (sp?) character is central to game but not to movie -filmakers see movie as only part of large canvas -lessons from Pokemon - wolrd is fleshed out from bits that kids have hunted and gathered -the film critics didn’t get it -is joe popcorn supposed to carry matrix concordance in head? -no, it’s on the Internet :-) -collective intelligence - Pierre Levy “ members of a community search, inscribe, connect, consult, explore -artworks will be designed for the world of collective intelligence like The matrix was
fan films - hundreds -new distribution channle, no longer home movies, public movies! -LiveJournal - creating a dialog via blogging -young composers -jade monkey - manga, art -do it yourself manga -the refrigerator, scam art, create sticker put on fridge
the web = digital refrigerator -the more you open up creativity, the more great stuff will emerge -need stuff where people can be bad -training ground for artists -live in an era of mixed signals -for al the talk of participatory we have napster -music industry suing children -not allowed to put stickers on website but encouraged by music industry to put them on walls -corporations don’t want us to create a fan website -the line needs to be drawn -Jamie Kellner - must watch ads ; it’s our contract -we must re-negotiate our contract -hypocritical - we are being encourage to participate but only on their terms not ours -kids can’t figure out what they should do, what the rules are, etc. -participatory education? -top down standards leave every kid behind -outside schools - education is taking place, heather’s daily prophet school newspaper for Hogwarts (harry potter) -120 world wide writers -heather has never been to school (home schooled) -she is editor for school that doesn’t exist -fictionalley.org - 100, 000 amateur stories and amateurs written by many including kids -the sugar quill -jk rowling encouraged this -warner brothers tried to shutdown the system -goes on MSNBC and negotiates settlement -children’s crusade against copyright enforcement -kooketsunafansubbing - american youth more connected to japanese culture rather than american culture -stepping stone to deeper global connections -affinity spaces defined around common interstes –many skill levels –no fixed hierarchy –informal mentorship –improvement, no pass or fall -gaming -tropical america - history of america game fom kids who didn’t know who columbus was -america’s army –building civilian military connection –not a prowar site –dialogue and rules of respect - one of the few sites –interesting communication experiment -education arcade –computer games don’t fix everything - just tools that if integrated can be used effectively –need framework that evaluates them critically as well as everything else –cool game - shakespeare’s text is cheat sheet! -blogging = sharing of info at a grassroots level -grassroot intermediaries who act as smart filters -spoilers - trying to spoil reality tv –done through grassroots -thieves –sequential tart - attract females to comics QUESTIONS -total fan of popular culture -he watches American Idol -angered by voting manipulation -Fantasia controversy - viewers - multi-racial, media:bi-racial -What is the impact of convergence on Election –moving to photo finish +-5% –voter turnout -test between 2 models of participatory: talk radio and Internet -dean phenomenon complicated built on Internet destroyed on TV, caught between 2 media at a moment of media change -people use pop culture to reach out -Ben and jerry’s founders use spoof videos -online communities unravel over time without face to face communications -comparative media studies –transmedia: print, oral, painting, modern mass media, fully integrated interdisciplinary –work as RAs not TAs, production experience in academic subjects, have to observe critically and then create an artifact - can be anything (print, digital, whatever) –2 core faculy - 35 adjuncts