Beyond Broadcast: Henry Jenkins

Henry Jenkins is the Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program, MIT.

UPDATE: Before I get to the notes, this was undoubtedly the best presentation of the entire day, and one of the best of the entire week here. Jenkins’ work is brilliant and deserves more recognition. His book, “Convergence Culture”, is on my reading list.

NOTES:

What is the line that connects participatory culture to participatory democracy? How does popular culture intersect with democracy?

What is an ideal democracy?

• Participatory
• Active
• Open-ended
• Transparent
• Transformative

“Right now, democracy is a special event, every four years. But it needs to be a daily way of living.”

Convergence is a cultural, not a technological process. In a networked society, people are increasingly forming communities to pool information and work together to solve problems they couldn’t confront individually. We’re seeing a new form of participatory culture (Second Life) as citizens take media into their own hands. Interactivity this isn’t – that’s the property of technologies. Participation is a property of cultures. We’re acquiring skills now through our play, including our game play, which we will later apply toward more serious ends.
Participatory culture isn’t new – it’s existed for hundreds of years.

We need to support freedom of expression in all its forms. We need to fight the over-enforcement of copyright that threatens participatory culture. We need to engage popular culture – use opportunities to engage the issues as they’re raised by popular culture.

How do we know we’re succeeding? Mass media is trying to create fake grassroots media – they sense the power that comes from authentic citizen movements.

The Net Neutrality is an excellent example of participatory culture – the coalitions ranging across political lines, etc.