In the introduction of Henry Jenkin's book, Convergence Culture, the author begins with an example of an edited Bin Laden photo with a Sesame Street Character that began as a joke. The image quickly spread across global media platforms and ended up being distributed throughout the Middle East. This example quickly brought into perspective Jenkin's intentions for this book. I liked the way he began the text with an example that pulled in his three concepts that he wanted to outline throughout the text. Media certainly converged when the photo began to spread across the world from a high school student's computer to CNN. Participatory culture is evident in the image being printed off and worn by American protesters, and collective intelligence is demonstrated by the entire situation.
After explaining the different concepts, he points out a way that convergence can negatively impact the way we use media. I appreciated his story of attempting to purchase a cell phone that was just that, a cell phone. Later in the chapter he returns to his story, pointing out that a device serving several different purposes can limit its ability to serve the single purpose it was originally designed for (p.15). I cannot count how many times my BlackBerry has frozen during a phone call because I had previously streamed a music program.
It was very interesting to read about the New Orleans Media Experience. This helped me understand Jenkin's purpose of the book because it highlighted both positive and negative aspects of convergence. The conference was open to anyone that wanted to attend, but magnified the difference between the particular groups that were interested. Skeptics, potential investors, and advertisers all had their own agendas which make convergence extremely difficult. I liked that different panels were touched on, such as the one for gaming consoles. I am not what Jenkins would call an "Early Adopter," and bringing in the competition between Sony and Microsoft made the idea of convergence being difficult easier to understand.
The last five pages of the introduction were somewhat repetitive. The author has already mentioned that the text is going to be comprised of arguments both for and against convergence, but he repeats it throughout the last few pages as he lists that he will be using to do so.
The first chapter goes into detail about a spoiler community for Survivor. This was very interesting to read about because I have never watched survivor and did not even know online spoiler communities existed for anything. I have followed several shows closely including a few reality ones, but I would never think to put in the amount of time and effort to figure out how the show would eventually play out. Survivor Sucks and the spoilers involved with it are the perfect example of collective intelligence. The collective effort between users such as ChillOne and Wezzie allow them to uncover a great deal of spoiler information, but it becomes very clouded when considering the different layers that information can be filtered through. Reading about this with no prior knowledge of these sites, the hierarchy of the users seems to contradict the collective intelligence that they are attempting to gain. The more respected users, in some cases, are unreachable by the majority of the community, which seems to put information regarding the show at a premium, bringing the community back to its starting point. If most of the community members remain starving for hints and information, doesn't that defeat the purpose of joining a spoiler community in the first place?
ChillOne's inclusion on the Amazon season seems to derail the collective intelligence that the community had used to uncover what they had in previous seasons. The brain trusts could have been and probably were discrediting ChillOne's information out of jealousy, and the members began to focus their attention on those statements rather than searching for new information.
The fact that CBS and former contestants had contact with the message boards makes this an even more twisted witch hunt. I find it both fascinating and brilliant that CBS was able to use the spoilers as a springboard for more publicity and attention. That being said, the extent that people went to to uncover information upset people that made attempts to "spoil the spoilers" (p.50). To me, the amount of twists that occurred in the spoiler forums completely negates the reason that they exist. People beginning to complain of ChillOne ruining the season (p.54) shouldn't have been on a spoiler site in the first place. If you want to be surprised by a show, then sit back and enjoy the show for what it is.
I enjoyed reading the last few pages relating back to collective intelligence. Jenkins writes, "What holds a collective intelligence together is not the possession of knowledge, which is relatively static, but the social process of acquiring knowledge...(p.54)." What I take from this is that it is for the sake of collective intelligence, it is better to be wise than to be smart. Walsh points out that real-life experiences are more credible than formal education, which I found interesting. I also agree with the closing paragraph that points out the often overlapping interests of producers and consumers. This is directly supported by the ties between CBS and the spoiler sites, both benefiting from each other.
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