This week's reading finally pushed me into the argument that has been my big media studies pet peeve of 2021, but since it's so relevant to the Jenkins article, I am going to talk about media convergence and its relation to the capitol insurrection. *sigh*
The point in the reading that connected this reading to our particular media moment was Jenkins' reflection on Pierre Levi's term "collective intelligence" and resulting "knowledge cultures," which are both painfully relevant concepts in our very fun, post-truth, conspiracy theory hell scape. Specifically, I groaned and resigned myself to making a connection to the events of Jan. 6th when Jenkins wrote, "knowledge cultures ... will gradually alter the way that commodity cultures or nation states operate" (35). This reading maps the patterns, concerns, and possible paths of the media landscape that led us to our current media moment and offers some interesting insights into how the cultural shifts that got us here were perceived by contemporary thinkers.
The trends Jenkins identifies in this article can be tied directly to the proliferation of online conspiracy theories and active organizing. When Jenkins speaks of the "uneasy truce ... brokered between commercial media and collective intelligence," (35) it's easy to see the perverse, symbiotic relationship between mainstream conservative news outlets and alt right online knowledge cultures. This dynamic ties directly into another question Jenkins raises, "Will the tension between narrowcasting and regulation result in more or less media diversity?" (39). The answer that has played over the last two decades seems to be— both. We live in a media environment with vastly more options to choose from, but little actual choice as algorithms narrow the scope of available content in the name of consumer individualized experience.
Perhaps my biggest "ah-HA" moment in this reading was not in recognizing Jenkins' correct predictions, but the one trend he identified that did not continue into the 2010s. Jenkins frames this article with the observation, "Right now, the cultural shifts, the legal battles and the economic consolidations that are fueling media convergence are preceding shifts in the technological infrastructure" (34). Shortly after this article was published, however, this dynamic inverted, with the technology (particularly social media) making a quantum leap ahead of the regulatory capabilities of our legal system. Reading that specific line of text, having witnessed congressional hearings where ever-aging representatives (not be ageist, but gosh it's pretty cringe-y to watch) ask baldly uneducated questions of the most powerful tech wizards in the country that hold all our data— it feels a bit like a cosmic joke.
[Colton Elzey Response #3]
ReplyDeleteMaybe I Zoom-know you too well now, but the *sigh* is audible when I read it haha.
I really like your main points on Jenkins' discussion regarding media and knowledge culture as he presents it, in the sense that they type of media we make influences the common ideology of a group.
I also think this ties into Holt's discussion on networks developing niche audiences. To continue your point, Fox built and audience of young adult male viewers, so their content continued to be cultivated in that sphere, then the audience grows and expects more of that, and after a few generations--it is the chicken egg complex. The media that was just trying to find an audience, becomes the end all ideology since it is the primary diet of its audience type, and adheres blatantly to their general wants. This brings up his idea of Cultural Discount in an interesting way, where in media is less potent in a culture that it was not produced from; inversely, this extreme content is exponentially more potent when paired with the culture/audience it was produced in and catered to.