“The Poachers and the Stormtroopers: Cultural Convergence in the Digital Age” is a fascinating study of the intersection of media and culture in the area of fandom and paves the way for Henry Jenkins’ eloquent book published in 2006 Convergence Culture: where old and new media collide. In an era when 'convergence culture' has spread across all forms of media and entertainment (fandom is no longer an underground activity) and media is in transition it is difficult to assess how creators can be financially rewarded for their creations, the notion of intellectual property and copyright are ‘punitive models’ that are inadequate to deal with the contemporary media environment. Corporates e.g. Star Wars/ LucasArts have had to negotiate a balance with fandom enthusiasm and investment in production and protecting intellectual property.
Jenkins’ paradigm for understanding media change spans franchises (corporates top-down) and grassroots level (bottom-up) as media producers as well as consumers. “This book is about the relationship between three contexts – media convergence, participatory culture and collective intelligence,” he writes. He discusses the migratory experience of audiences who will go ‘almost anywhere’ to find the entertainment experience they desire – and the unpredictability of the appropriation of cultural images and their circulation – in a complex media environment which depends on active participation “by a new set of rules nobody really fully understands”. Convergence is not simply a technological term. Jenkins covers the notion of divergence as part of the same phenomenon, and while his focus is on popular culture, he understands that the lines between this and politics have already blurred (Obama’s election campaign is a prime example).
As Pool predicted before Jenkins, convergence does not imply stability, rather as media cultures compete and diversify, it is predicated on tension with change. Jenkins’ aim is to understand some of the ways in which convergence is impacting on popular culture in America, “in particular the ways in which it is impacting on the relationship between media audiences, producers and content.” He describes us as living within a ‘convergence culture’ which will lie somewhere between the world ‘without gatekeepers’ and the world with ‘too tightly controlled gatekeepers’. A world where audiences empowered with new technologies are part of the landscape and producers will be rewarded for embracing participatory culture.
I found Douglas Bowman’s ‘abrupt exit’ (The Sunday Age, Business syndicated from the New York Times) from Google very well-handled by the designer who explained on his blog that when user data wholly dictates the engineering of a site, it leaves little room for designer innovation (is this an example of ‘analysis paralysis’?). The question is how textured the feedback is and whether reactive data when taken to an extreme, is the most useful in building web design. Certainly, Bowman is not suggesting that designers should ignore user feedback which he states informs valuable insights.
The website I’ve been following Arts Hub has become slightly more streamlined but has not improved aesthetically. News is divided into latest reviews, views and profiles with the first and last being free content. It still carries advertisements including the easy stray click to Deakin University on the right hand side. It is a straightforward click on reviews to ‘free content’, but ‘premium content’ – e.g. latest Australian news takes the user to the beginning of the article with only one line displayed before it asks you to sign in or join now. I guess it’s the balancing act of piquing interest as discussed last week. Partial feed is not saleable, however, just look at the presentation of Crikey's new aggregated content.
Arts Hub has a flash through of top stories that seems to be regularly updated but features many media releases. It is optimising business opportunities and resolving copyright issues (although Fairfax has attempted to claim copyright over headlines and bylines) by making the user click through directly to other publications to see full stories from national or international publications (the view remains clunky and aesthetically unappealing with the summary, link and comment box). It features an arts directory with many entries ‘that have not yet provided a profile’. CEO Lisa Watts was announced in early April. Under events, classifieds and arts directory users are invited to browse or lodge an advertisement. It is offering a free 60 day trial for companies. It is encouraging members to keep in touch with Facebook page (for latest giveaways) or Twitter in its e-bulletin. Central to driving its subscriptions are employment and volunteering opportunities, residencies and auditions etc. However, it does not sort employment opportunities from voluntary and other opportunities for members except to offer a volunteer search for the user actively seeking voluntary positions or a breakdown of industry sectors. It offers a browse job function without specific organisational details to all users. Arts Hub charges for job and volunteer listings.
Having looked at mediabistro.com, although overwhelmed, I find the content much more tantalising and it’s skew more creative than Arts Hub, while it targets a broader, more textured demographic and showcases more interesting offers.
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