Convergence Culture

Convergence is the coming together of various things to meet at a point. "In the world of media convergence, every important story gets told, every band gets sold, and every consumer gets courted across multiple media platforms." (Jenkins, 2008, pg.3) This is demonstrated through some of the major franchises in media at the moment that simultaneously span films, television series, games and websites. This diversity of media platforms allows the audience to become more involved with the stories and allows them to see more content than if the franchise was restricted to one media platform. However, this can be overwhelming to some and there may be people intimidated by the mass of content available for a specific franchise.

For technology, this is Jenkin's "Black Box Fallacy" (Jenkins, 2008, pg.13) where one device replaces many and takes on the functions of many devices. An example of this is todays mobile phones that can do everything from accessing the internet to taking photos and video clips all on one device. This is quite prominent today with current technology, however as Jenkins mentions, there are many separate devices doing different tasks. Just as phones have cameras and MP3 players in them, these items still exist on their own, possibly because they perform their functions better separately than together. These items haven't replaced each other, instead they exist together.

With the convergence of media and technology, comes the convergence of intelligence "None of us can know everything; each of us knows something; and we can put the pieces together if we pool our resources and combine our skills." (Jenkins, 2008, pg.4)
This is collective intelligence and it is something that can be seen in groups of fans online as they try to work out what's going on in their favourite TV show before it happens. If applied to serious matters, this could be an impressive force. It could however, cause a spread of misinformation which could cause more harm than good.
Convergence Culture is ultimately all around us, it's happening now. We control which aspects stay, which ones go, and how we use its products in the future and what we use them for.
"Convergence describes the process by which we will sort through those options." (Jenkins, 2008, pg.24)

Bibliography
Jenkins, H. (2008) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, 2nd revised edition, NYU Press