Intro to Convergence Culture
When taking a look at our society in the midst of mass circulation of media content, there is an increasingly larger load on the shoulders of the consumer. Now, more than ever, the notion of a participatory culture is at hand.
One may ask, what is this “participatory culture” you speak of?
Recently, there has been a major shift in the relationship between producers and consumers. Traditionally, media producers have the upper hand in what consumers are essentially viewing, however now consumers have greater abilities to participate in this culture. Consumers are essentially becoming producers, via YouTube and other mechanisms of self expression, where they can produce their own work at their leisure, without the force of corporations dictating when and what is aired.
The relationship between the media producers and consumers is an interesting one to take a look at, as it is currently being re-written. This notion of convergence is occurring within the brains of this newly revamped consumer culture, where through the consumer’s social interactions with others skews their interests. The power relation is still present, where corporations have more leverage to force-feed media to the masses, however each consumer extracts pieces from this mass media flow, making whatever information received seem relevant to our individual lives.
It will be even more interesting to see how this convergence culture transforms as the years progress…
