Convergence Culture, Pt. 1

I'm reading "Convergence Culture" by Henry Jenkins.  The following is my reflections of my reading so far.

With the internet and mass media, we have the ability to share everything that is happening, to everyone.  The opportunist in me is excited at the prospect of all the excellent and useful information that can be (and is) shared, but I find that so often, the "cloud" is clogged.

With the freedom of the internet, we have the intelligent who chose relevant, witty and entertaining information to put out there for the world to access.  And then there are those who feel it necessary to have every moment of their lives uploaded to the infinite world wide web.  I haven't had channels on my television for over ten years, because the majority of it was a waste of time, for a very similar reason.  I instead prefer Netflix, which I came upon fairly recently.  I find I only get on the internet looking for a specific item, then close the window, similarly, because most of it, is a waste of time.  The problem is, I know I miss out on some interesting things, but the time it takes the wade through the junk is usually not worth it.

I can't help but feel that there can be some way to streamline useful information, but of course if we start placing restrictions, we defeat the purpose.  Filtering seems the only option, and without google I would be lost.

Participatory Culture - meaning we are not created equal.  Corporations do hold the greatest power, even the individuals within them. 

Convergence occurs within the brains of individual consumers, and through their social interactions with others.  That's why this is such a unique and individualized, yet mass process at the same time.  A prime example of this is facebook.

Collective intelligence and media convergence - very interesting concepts again, unlikely so important without the internet.

Pg.14: New Media doesn't kill old media.  TV didn't kill the radio, etc.  This is especially important to note when e-book readers are on the rise, and libraries are closing their doors for good.  I, a "real" book fan myself, hold hope that print is not dead, but will become simply more precious.  Though as one of my favorite authors has three of his newer titles available in e-format only, I feel like the grandmother who can no longer listen to music when they stopped making records.  I think I will be forced to switch to e-books, or settle for what is left in print.

Media is plural for a reason, it is almost infinite in capability alone.

Pg. 18: "Convergence, as we can see, is both a top-down corporate driven process and a bottom-up consumer-driven process."  This I have duly noted, as now consumers have more a voice than ever to shape the way things are made and delivered.

Pg. 20: "Affective Economics" - ideal consumer is: active, emotionally engaged and socially networked.

Participation affecting the outcome - I think the best example of this is Walking Dead.  I see "If Darrell Dies, We Riot" everywhere... You can be sure AMC takes this into consideration when they continue the series.

Pg. 21: Transmedia Storytelling: The art of world-making. I think a great example of this that I participated in as well, was Blair Witch.  I was 15 when this came out, and it was also one of my very first encounters (within the first month or two) of the internet.  There were chat rooms, news reports, all kinds of hype around this, based on whether or not this was real.

Pg. 22: Popular Culture to Public Culture shift.  This is change we see today.

Pg. 27: Old vs. New community - this is a sad one and while I've never been close to even my nuclear family except my sister, I wish we supported the family unit more.  As we grow closer to our digital appliances and status updates, we draw even farther away from the people in our lives.  As a society we seem incapable of "unplugging."