The first thing I read from Convergence Culture was the book cover’s quote that states: “Henry Jenkins is the 21st century McLuhan.”
For those of you who might not know the name right off of the bat, Marshall McLuhan was the man that coined the famous phrase “the medium is the message.” This media/ communications theory focuses on studying the medium (i.e. television) rather than the media contents (i.e. television program) it contains.
He stated, “Each medium, independent of the content it mediates, has its own intrinsic effects which are its unique message.”
This was highly controversial at the time, as earlier media theories focused solely on media contents.
But in relation to the comparison between Jenkins and McLuhan, I believe the statement was made mostly in regards to McLuhan’s concept of “the global village” and Jenkins’s concept of the “convergence culture.”
McLuhan stated, “…since the inception of the telegraph and radio, the globe has contracted, spatially, into a single large village. Tribalism is our only resource since the electro-magnetic discovery. Moving from print to electronic media we have given up an eye for an ear.”
Today’s media world is more complicated than McLuhan could have ever predicted, but Jenkins begins to provide some insight by expanding on McLuhan’s ideas.
In the introduction of his book, he says that convergence culture has three parts which include media convergence (flow of content across media, cooperation between many media industries, and a migratory audience), participatory culture (consumers are now particpants and are expected to interact), and collective intelligence (every person knows something, but not everything; together these pieces of information create an alternate source of media power). Basically, Jenkins has taken McLuhan’s idea of a global village and has broken it down in more relevant, modern constructs as they have developed.
I find it very interesting that even as far back as the 50s and 60s when huge corporations were the only owners of media, these ideas of the globalization of media and an active audience were already on the radar and could be seen as determining factors in the future media landscape.
Below are a couple of links to YouTube videos featuring McLuhan and Jenkins that I think you all might find interesting. See for yourself how their concepts relate.
Marshall McLuhan about Global Village
What do you all think?
Wowzers! I’m amazed at the fact that McLuhan was able 2 sort of like visualize the future so many years ago. I like when he said: “if the audience can become involved in the actual process of making the ad..then it’s happy.” That is so true. After watching those vids….eye can see how Jenkins and McLuhan share similar ideologies. Participatory culture is the bomb.
Yeah, I have to admit I’m a McLuhan fan because he really developed some outstanding predictions about the future of media. It’s interesting to connect his ideas with media scholars’ ideas today, including Jenkins.
It would definitely have been interesting had McLuhan lived to see the internet, especially because the blurring of boundaries means that we can now experience the same “message” over different media (or at least delivery technologies). And that’s the big challenge for research – can we actually see a difference in the effect or interpretation of say, different TV shows based on how you watch? So if you watch Walking Dead on TV when it airs, vs. on DVD or Amazon streaming (but still viewing it on a TV screen – what’s the medium? Is it different? It’s possible that McLuhan’s message might break down at that level of analysis. But of course, the global village is so much more global thanks to the internet. Great food for thought!
That is definitely something to consider, too. I’d be interested in reading more about that. Thanks for throwing that out there!