1. MUSIC STORING
List every device you can think of
where people store music.
• Mobile phone, e.g. IPhone
• Games consoles, e.g. Xbox 360
• Laptops/Netbook, e.g. MacBook
• MP3 Player, e.g. IPod

2. Functions of devices
iPhone
• Make phone calls
• Email
• Listen to music
• Access the internet
• Watch movies/TV
• Play games
• Personalise the phone by
downloading different Apps

3. Functions of devices
Xbox 360
• Play games (Online)
• Customise you profile and display
• Access Facebook and Twitter
• Watch movies and TV
• Listen to music (Lastfm)
• Talk to people via the headset
• Communicate through MSN

4. Functions of devices
Laptop/Netbook

Internet (Unlimited
access)

Play games

Online chat

Customisable

Plays music

Work station

Watch movies and TV

5. All of these examples originally had
one purpose but over time they have
evolved and adopted features of other
devices. This therefore makes it harder
to define what is the main purpose of a
piece of media as the differences
between them are becoming few.

6. This is
technological convergence
• Convergence is when one particular device has many other
features than its primary use. A device which originally had
one primary purpose has evolved into doing similar tasks to
other devices.

7. Learning Objective:
• Understand what ‘Convergence
Culture’ is all about.

8. Convergence Culture
• “Where old and new media collide.”
• Using new media devices for a range of new
and old media viewing.
Eg. Reading a book on a computer (ebooks)

9. Henry Jenkins
• “old media[s] never die”.
• He also believes that media will continue to grow
in multiple ways through computing and
communication.
• “media persists as layers within an ever more
complicated information and entertainment
system ... A medium’s content may shift, its
audience may change and its social status may
rise or fall, but once a medium establishes itself it
continues to be part of the media ecosystem”.

10. What does he mean?
What Jenkins is trying to say is that media does
not disappear, it changes and shifts into
different forms but essentially remains the
same. For example, ebooks could be classed
as a ‘new’ media, yet they are just a
regeneration of an old media which has been
around for many years. This may appeal to a
different audience, yet it is essentially still the
same medium as when it first began.

11. 5 processes that make up
‘Convergence Culture’
• Technological Convergence
• Economic Convergence
• Social or Organic Convergence
• Cultural Convergence
• Global Convergence

12. Technological Convergence
“When words, images and sounds are transformed into digital
information, we expand the potential relationships between them
and enable them to flow across platforms.”
- Sausages being cooked on a PS3
This is the digitalisation of media content – even traditional
content such as radio, books and film that are digitalised or
converged. Example of this can be seen in the possibility of
Cinemas using Digital imagery rather than film, and also how
the new iPad shows how people can now read books on a
screen the size of a book.

13. Economic convergence
“The horizontal integration of the
entertainment industry. A company like AOL
Time Warner now controls interests in film,
television, books, games, the Web, music,
real estate and countless other sectors. The
result has been the restructuring of cultural
production around “synergies,” and thus the
transmedia exploitation of branded
properties— Pokemon, Harry Potter, Tomb
Raider, Star Wars.”
(Or using media to its full extent when
it’s in fashion)

14. What is he saying?
Essentially Jenkins is
acknowledging the way large
companies are exploiting the
development of both new and
old medias to their financial
advantage, making franchises
out of a particular brand and
branching out into other
medias. For example, Harry
Potter began as a book but has
since expanded into a
multimedia franchise including
films, toys, video games, sticker
books, posters and clothing.

15. Social or organic convergence
“Consumers’ multitasking strategies for navigating the new
information environment. Organic convergence is what occurs
when a high schooler is watching baseball on a big-screen
television, listening to techno on the stereo, wordprocessing a
paper and writing e-mail to his friends. It may occur inside or
outside the box, but ultimately, it occurs within the user’s
cranium.”
This is also known as ‘media stacking’. This is getting more common
in modern lifestyles as we are constantly surrounded by easily
accessible media technologies, some of which are often essential to
our daily routine – for example the internet is often used for
studying which can be used whilst watching TV or listening to the
radio.

16. Cultural Convergence
“The explosion of new forms of creativity at the intersections of
various media technologies, industries and consumers. Media
convergence fosters a new participatory folk culture by giving
average people the tools to archive, annotate, appropriate
and recirculate content. Shrewd companies tap this culture to
foster consumer loyalty and generate low-cost content.
Media convergence also encourages transmedia storytelling,
the development of content across multiple channels. As
producers more fully exploit organic convergence, storytellers
will use each channel to communicate different kinds and
levels of narrative information, using each medium to do
what it does best.”

17. What is he saying?
Some types of new media can be altered by average people. For
example; homemade trailers and other content on youtube;
wikipedia articles that are open to create and edit to the public;
edited pictures can easily be hosted and shared on facebook and
flickr; bands can upload their own songs and share them on sites
such as myspace.
Production companies can now use any given media to their own
advantage and make the audience feel like they are part of the
process. This generates more interest in products such as films,
music albums etc. For example a new film can be advertised over
most media forms, tv/radio/newspaper/internet/cinema
trailers/posters.
The level of integration and interactivity media now has in modern
lives means that media can in fact change the way we live and view
the world.

18. Global Convergence
“The cultural hybridity that results from the international
circulation of media content. In music, the world-music movement
produces some of the most interesting contemporary sounds, and
in cinema, the global circulation of Asian popular cinema
profoundly shapes Hollywood entertainment. These new forms
reflect the experience of being a citizen of the ‘global village.’”
With the new advancements in media technology it has become
much simpler to view media from around the globe. Whereas
before it would have been necessary to physically travel to a certain
country to view their culture, with the use of the internet this is
now possible in a few clicks.

19. The growth of media has begun a transformation of life as we know it. We
are now more connected with each other and the world then ever before,
which will have a huge impact on our day to day lives.
“The digital renaissance will be the
best of times and the worst of times,
but a new cultural order will emerge from it.
Stay tuned.”