Convergence and participatory culture

"Welcome to convergence culture (...), where the power of the media producer and the power of the media consumer interact in unpredictable ways." (Jenkins, 2008, p2). Convergence is described as a process where different industries work together and the boundaries between different media fade. In this introduction Jenkins highlights the active participation of media consumers as a key feature of this process. It seems as if convergence culture would not exist if the consumer hadn't changed. However it remains unclear whether today's "active" consumer is actually different from yesterday's traditional media users.

The term "participatory culture" brings the image to mind of an engaged community where everybody's voice is heard, like Plato's utopian democracy. But just as there was no role for women and slaves in Plato's state, not everybody's voice is heard in this participatory culture either. Jenkins (2008, p3) acknowledges this by saying that "(n)ot all participants are created equal", but with this he mainly seems to aim at corporate media. However, it could be argued that the "active" audience is merely a small elite group. Research shows that the digital divide still exists both within (Van Deursen and Van Dijk, 2013) and between countries (Bacao et al., 2012). This means that there are large differences in access and ability to use technology.

Even if you look at the consumers who use New Media (almost) every day, the question remains whether they are really as active as Jenkins seems to suggest. When looking at Youtube for instance -for Jenkins says this evolution is still mainly restricted to recreational life - it becomes clear that most visitors don't actually upload videos or even comment on them and that the active produsers are just a small group. It looks like many users still use New Media in similar ways as the passive, old media.

Jenkins -like Time magazine in electing "you" person of the year- seems to be too convinced of a widespread participatory culture. Technology may have already changed a great deal in the process of convergence, but the evolution of the user still seems to be at an early stage.

Bibliography
Bacao, F., Cruz-Jesus, F. and Oliveira, T. (2012) Digital divide across the European Union, Information and Management, 49 (6), pp.288-289.
Jenkins, H., 2008. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide Revised., NYU Press.
Van Deurzen, A. J. and Van Dijk, J. A. (2013) The digital divide shifts to differences in usage, New Media and Society, 0 (0), pp. 14-16.