Convergence Culture Research Articles

Re-imagining Television Audience Research: Tracing Viewing Patterns on Twitter

Re-imagining Television Audience Research: Tracing Viewing Patterns on Twitter

Moving convergence culture towards cultural intermediation: social media and cultural inclusion

Raymond Williams noted culture is specific to each society, where ‘the making of a society is the finding of common meanings and direction’. Cultural studies provide a foundation for an array of emerging research areas that seek to explore those meanings and directions, such as convergence culture. Recent humanities scholarship has called for researchers to move beyond the marvel of convergence culture, with its potential for increased social inclusion and cultural diversity, to a more nuanced understanding of networked participation. This paper uses empirical research data gathered from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to argue that embedded cultural industries research can contribute, through the cultural intermediation framework, to cultural studies and the political, economic, and practice-based strengths of the creative industries. It also argues that in a contemporary institutional social media environment, cultural intermediation is a useful framework to understand convergent media practices.

Pinning Design: The Curatorial Labor of Creative Professionals

Pinterest is a site primarily used for sharing online content particularly images; as such, it is a unique platform through which to explore curatorial practices. Professional designers are a unique community of interest because their expertise in the offline curation of visual images is central to their professional work. Drawing on digital curation, convergence culture, and creative professionals, this study examined the curatorial labor practices of design professionals on Pinterest. Through a series of in-depth qualitative interviews and online observation of design professionals, we identify three aspects of curatorial labor on Pinterest: (1) performance, (2) process, and (3) product. The strategic and creative selection and arrangement of digital images by these designers becomes an ongoing authorial act of creative labor. This community demonstrates how the public digital curation of visual images is an important part of the ongoing venture labor of design professionals. The study concludes with implications for our collective understandings of online curation, creative professional labor, and the role of social media within commercial and organizational contexts.

Nieznośna lekkość pocieszenia, nieznośna miałkość protestu. Internetowe zmartwychwstania Aylana Kurdiego

The aim of this article is to critically analyze the internet’s remixes of Nilüfer Demir’s photography showing the dead body of Aylan Kurdi – a 3-year old Syrian refugee – found on the beach near Turkish city Bordum. The main question here is: how the convergence culture ‘regards the pain of the other’ and deals with it? Semiotic analysis of chosen examples leads to a conclusion that while some artists undertake a specific visual tactics of protest and objection, more often, and even in clearly critical pictures, the ‘rhetoric of consolation’ is a predominating one and serves to both artists’ and viewers’ complacency and consoling. Terror of the pain and death is deleted from those images and replaced by cheap and idle tenderness or even kitsch.

An Example of “False Friends”: Literary Genres / Filmic Genres (Intermediality and Remediation in Print and on Screen)

This article deals with the analogies and differences between the notion of genre in literature and the notion of genre in cinema. Despite the apparent similarities between genre concepts in both domains, it appears that the notion of genre has a very different status in literature and in cinema, not only because not all genres are represented in both media, but also because of the fact that the debate on “ genre fiction” versus “ genreless fiction” is key to many forms of writing, whereas it is less frequently addressed in cinema. The aim of this article is not to draw general or universal conclusions from this comparison of film and literature, but to reopen the debate on issues of adaptation and/ versus medium-specificity in the era of convergence culture.

Generation Mini-Series: Contemporary German Historical Event-Television and the Implications of its Interactive Elements

The controversial 2012 ZDF mini-series Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter/Generation War epitomizes German “historical event television,” a broadcasting trend aligned with the recent tendency to normalize the nation’s relationship with its past. Reaching beyond the borders of the narrative drama, the series’ producers created and promoted collateral content encouraging viewers to interact with the fictional characters and other audience members in such new media platforms as Facebook, a public archive on YouTube, and an app downloaded from iTunes. Digital interfaces allow viewers to learn about and relate to history in multi-faceted and self-directed ways, but they also reinforce the dominance of an immersive aesthetic of emotional affect, strong character identification and retrospective narrative cohesion. The imbrication of publicity for the mini-series with the Gedächtnis der Nation crowd-sourced YouTube video archive signals the emergence of a uniquely German convergence culture centered on the mediation of memory. Memory culture has long been embedded in Germany’s media institutions, and the newest of media are now integrated into Germany’s national memory project. Multiple layers of co-sponsorship of the project by representatives from the realms of new media, television, publishing, government, education, the automotive industry, and non-profit foundations, as well as private donors, blur the lines between collective memory and private memories and public knowledge and private intellectual and creative property. This essay explores the question of whether this new landscape of digital memory culture forecloses critical engagement with the German past and limits the diversity of avenues and aesthetics whereby narratives about the past are transmitted to audiences, present and future.

Convergence and Contingency: The Early Media Work of Reid Farrington

The work of media artist and director Reid Farrington, which primarily combines content from theatre and film, is exemplary of performance that engages with and challenges convergence culture—the shifting, consolidating set of tools of production and distribution, as well as the social and cultural practices that stem from a participatory media culture. Performances such as The Passion Project, Gin and “It,” and Reid Farrington’s A Christmas Carol demonstrate that the mediated and live body are both “inherently theatrical” and read together, both within and across media, with increasing fluidity and cultural literacy. Artists and audiences alike participate in these shifts and shape aesthetics and politics of production and consumption. Thus convergent performance helps to shape a reflexive and contingent historiography and practice of contemporary performance.

Convergence And Transmedia Storytelling in Journalism: Transformations in Professional Practices and Profiles

As the focus of research developed by Jenkins (2009), convergence culture brings changes to journalism; it affects the practices, routines and profiles of its professionals and their relations with the public. One example is TV Folha from Brazil, a program made by professionals in different areas using press equipment and objectives. Their convergent nature affects production processes and favours hybridization of languages and multiplatform production, accentuating the presence of transmedia storytelling; a term adopted by Jenkins to refer to a model which emerged out of media convergence. This study adopted a qualitative methodology using interviews and observational analysis in order to understand the effects convergence culture has on the way journalism is done and the profile of its professionals. This discussion leads us to believe that the challenge is more than just multiplatform production; it is in the relationships developed out of convergence.as the focus of research developed by Jenkins (2009), convergence culture brings changes to journalism; it affects the practices, routines and profiles of its professionals and their relations with the public. One example is TV Folha from Brazil, a program made by professionals in different areas using press equipment and objectives. Their convergent nature affects production processes and favours hybridization of languages and multiplatform production, accentuating the presence of transmedia storytelling; a term adopted by Jenkins to refer to a model which emerged out of media convergence. This study adopted a qualitative methodology using interviews and observational analysis in order to understand the effects convergence culture has on the way journalism is done and the profile of its professionals. This discussion leads us to believe that the challenge is more than just multiplatform production; it is in the relationships developed out of convergence.

Consumption of Digital Media by Children and pre-Teenagers in Catalonia, Spain

El objetivo este estudio es conocer los patrones de uso de los medios digitales, las plataformas más usadas y entender los controles parentales que se ejercen sobre niños de entre 7 y 10 años y preadolescentes de entre 11 y 12 años, los grupos que serán influenciados a medio plazo por las nuevas tendencias. Los resultados muestran que los medios digitales están presentes en la vida cotidiana de los niños, que consumen regularmente sus contenidos preferidos. Estos resultados pueden ser de gran alcance si es posible reconocer y utilizar su poder como usuarios en esta cultura de la convergencia digital.

La cultura de convergencia digital y la inclusión sociocultural: Interconectando formación y práctica docente

Este artículo está basado en una investigación<br />cualitativa, del tipo estudio de caso,<br />sobre las probables implicaciones de la cultura<br />de convergencia digital y tecnológica,<br />en la construcción de los saberes docentes<br />y en el aprendizaje de la docencia digital.<br />Se sustenta en aportes teórico conceptuales,<br />interrelacionando dos ejes argumentativos:<br />la formación inicial de profesores en<br />la Universidad y la práctica docente de los<br />egresos en la Escuela Básica. El escenario<br />investigativo es el curso de licenciatura en<br />pedagogía, cuyos protagonistas se constituyen<br />profesores de la nueva generación<br />digital y los niños nacidos en el Siglo XXI.<br />Explicitar las implicaciones de la cultura de<br />convergencia digital trae nuevas perspectivas<br />a la planificación y desarrollo de los<br />procesos de enseñar y aprender, por medio<br />de ambientes pedagógicos y de coreografías<br />digitales que permiten la integración de las tecnologías digitales de la información<br />y comunicación (TDIC) y del propio Word<br />Wide Web (sistema hipertextual accionado<br />en red mundial vía Internet). Se concluye<br />que la formación universitaria en ambiente<br />pedagógico digital es fundamental para la<br />construcción de los nuevos saberes docentes<br />de las TDIC y de la Web, favoreciendo<br />la consolidación de la fluidez pedagógica y<br />tecnológica. En la escuela, tal ambiente parece<br />depender más de profesores fluentes,<br />de lo que de la transferencia de tecnologías<br />de última generación. Prácticas educativas<br />convergentes en la educación requieren<br />continuidad entre formación inicial y experiencia<br />docente, integradas a la experiencia<br />pedagógica hipermedia. En síntesis, el proceso<br />constitutivo de ser profesor envuelve<br />la apropiación de la cultura de convergencia<br />digital y tecnológica, lo que nos desafía<br />a nuevos postulados a la formación de<br />profesores.

How Viral Poems are Annotated

In How Viral Poems are Annotated: On ‘OCD’ by Neil Hilborn Kila van der Starre explores how, where and by whom viral poems are annotated. The article focuses on the performance of the poem ‘OCD’ by Neil Hilborn that went viral in the summer of 2013 and has been viewed more than 10 million times on YouTube. Researching online poetry performances and annotations can be seen as a new type of literary reception study in the digital age. It shows that poetry in the twenty-first century is a widespread, actively experienced and annotated, transmedia genre in what Henry Jenkins calls ‘convergence culture’ (Jenkins 2006: 2).The performance of ‘OCD’ triggered a broad array of reactions, including oral, written, creative, analytical, applauding and critical annotations. The video received more than 9,000 comments on YouTube from 130 countries and the poem was translated into at least thirteen languages. People used self-made films with actors, drawings, stop-motion techniques, footage montage and voice-overs to produce adaptations of the poem. Probably the most common annotation to the performance is a video in which a ‘cover’ performance of the poem is recorded; on stage for a live audience, in the original language or in translation, in the US, France, Germany, Servia and more.The way that Hilborn's poem is transcribed, translated, adapted, remade, remixed and analysed gives us insight into how people experience and understand poetry. Also, the ways in which online and offline annotations coincide give an alternative view on the idea that print and digital media are separate tracks that do not interact. By focusing on different types of annotations Van der Starre explores the ways in which active participants are ‘making meaning’ of the performance. The article shows how emotion, identification, translation, genre, authenticity, analysis and interpretation play a role in the way that people experience and understand the poem.

Extraordinary television time travel and the wonderful end to the working day

In this article I will present two arguments. First, the argument that the time travel television series historically provided viewers with a spectacular temporal and spatial alternative to the routine of everyday life, the regulation of television scheduling, and the small-world confines of domestic subjectivity. Taking the decades of the 1970s and 1980s, predominantly in a UK viewing environment, I will suggest that the special effect rendering of the time travel sequence expanded the viewer’s material universe, and affectively wrenched the television set free from the strictures of scheduling and realist programming. Further, the time travel series readily and regularly took the domestic space, the ordinary day and the everyman/person into awesome environments and situations that suggested alternative lifestyles and behaviours, with a different existential tempo and rhythm. At a narrative, thematic, meta-textual, and aesthetically spectacular level, television time travel saw to the wonderful end of the working day. Case studies include Sapphire and Steal, Dr Who, and Quantum Leap. Second, the article will argue that rather than the contemporary time travel television series being an extraordinary alternative to ordinary life, they instead articulate convergence culture, deregulation, multiple channel viewing, and time-shift culture where there is no such thing as an ordinary working day or domestic viewing context.

“Don't Cry because it's Over, Smile because it Was:” American Soap Operas and Convergence Culture

This essay focuses on the struggles of the soap opera, a foundational television genre, as emblematic of the American television industry's struggles to maintain its once dominant role in media culture in the wake of technological and social changes associated with convergence culture. The soap opera has played a central role in defining the television industry, yet the 2012 cancelations of long-running broadcast soaps All My Children and One Life to Live as well as the beleaguered attempt to transplant these soaps into an online-only platform seems to suggest the industry has labeled soaps as outdated casualties of convergence that must be sacrificed in order to align television with its “new” future. However, such a view ignores the role the soap opera has played throughout the social and technological transitions that have shaped television culture. By looking closely at industry discourses surrounding the American soap opera from its inception to the contemporary moment of crisis, this essay advocates for a historical approach to convergence. That is, rather than seeing convergence as a property of the contemporary digital age, a move evident in industry discourses on television culture, this essay explores the importance of understanding how “new” media forms collide with, rather than replace, the “old” within convergence culture.

From the Physical to the Social: Twitter as a Pedagogical Innovation in the Sport Communication and Sport Management Classroom

This essay discusses how Twitter can be used as a pedagogical tool for sport communication and sport management courses. Given the prevalence with which Twitter has penetrated the sport industry and the frequency with which college students use social media, Twitter is a complementary and viable classroom component. The essay provides ways in which Twitter can be used for formal assignments in the sport communication and sport management classroom. The essay concludes by discussing some challenges to using Twitter in the classroom, describing strategies for overcoming these barriers, and encouraging sport communication and sport management educators to embrace the culture of convergence that Twitter affords. The appendix offers detailed guidelines for the assignments discussed in the essay.

트랜스미디어 담론에 대한 집단지성론적 고찰

Transmedia has become a significant theme in the media studies sector and an academic discourse itself since its wide diffusion through Henry Jenkins` seminar book Convergence Culture. The aim of this essay is to examine the authentic intention of the proposer to understand its profound meaning and value in the research discourse. Firstly, Transmedia has originated as a part of the convergence culture research context, which is an identical approach in the `active audience` research tradition. Thus, a history of the research in terms of Birmingham Cultural Studies tradition and its implication is scrutinized. Secondly, in respect of Pierre Levy`s `collective intelligence` which made significant influence on the making of the Convergence Culture and Transmedia Storytelling, the meaing of the transmedia discourse is studied. Thirdly and finally, the implication of this concept as a critical theory or Critique in the Cultural Studies tradition, which has highlighted the importance of the revelation of the binary oppositions and structures of dominance/resistance, with the interpretation of the role of the collective intelligence idea in the transmedia discourse, is studied.

Enterprise and development: The role of social networks

The advertising landscape has undergone significant changes in recent years, as consumers spend more time online and less with traditional advertising. As a result, some advertisers are evolving to a culture of where the traditional methods of work must adapt to the new reality of interactive and emerging media. The purpose of this article to show how agencies and companies are finding new ways to connect with consumers and build their brand. The increase in emerging media has led to a cultural change towards a culture, which is also known as a convergence culture. During this time, consumers have changed their choices by redefining their relationship with the media, reducing the time dedicated to the traditional ones and increasing the use of online media. The advertising industry, largely governed by the old systems, continues to struggle with the challenges of this digital world. They say new communications systems that are based on the interest that the user turns to new media such as social media network.

Change of Paradigm: From Individual to Community-Based Scholarship

The title does not refer to the application of knowledge through faculty engagement in community-based research, teaching and service – something that is usually understood as community-engaged scholarship. The change of paradigm referred to in the title should be understood within the broader framework of the general transformation of our participatory or convergence culture in the age of social and “spreadable” media (to use a terminology made current by Richard Jenkins). As the Web 2.0 evolves toward the Web 3.0, or the semantic web, community-engaged scholarship remains one of the most crucial components of this larger and more pervasive phenomenon and this also refers to the academic at large. What is at stake is not only the transformation of the procedures of scholarly research and learning but also and more importantly the transformation of its goals: traditionally based (at least in the humanities) on the individual researcher and author, knowledge work, or the scholarly mode of production, is increasingly overhauled into a collective, collaborative enterprise, on a much larger scale. Moreover, the general move from discursive to graphic-algorithmic forms of data visualization and interpretation (including textual data), has eventful consequences for critical thinking: as humanists engaged with a potentially radical transformation of the community we belong to, our most daunting task is how to transpose traditional scholarly practices onto the new platform, envisioning new goals and outputs for our traditional tasks.

Grading ePortfolios: Tracing Two Approaches, Their Advantages, and Their Disadvantages

How does one grade an electronic portfolio? This question is one I have thought about, have enacted, and have written about, primarily in reference to ePortfolios used in writing classrooms (Yancey, McElroy, & Powers, 2013). But what happens when the content and developmental levels are changed, in this case from an undergraduate first-year writing class to another required class, this one offered at the graduate level, Digital Revolution and Convergence Culture? Is using a scoring guide, the preferred approach in writing classes, the best approach in this new context? Or, following Moss, Girard, and Haniford (2006), could one use outcomes to “stage a conversation” around a student's ePortfolio; if so, what might a staged conversation look like? Or what might happen if instead of using outcomes as a framework, students themselves set the terms for that conversation? Here, I consider these options, attending especially to the importance of making good judgments and of fostering learning.

What Julian Smith hates (and loves) about Facebook: social media parody as self-promotion

Through a case study of Julian Smith, this essay investigates what makes YouTube comedians/entrepreneurs successful. In order to understand the channel juliansmith87 and its connections to social media platforms, I adopt two strategies: focusing on a specific video from the channel called 25 Things I Hate About Facebook; and discussing the channel on a macro-level, looking at it from inception to current state. While 25 Things has not achieved the success of other videos by Smith, it created a formula characterized by a self-reflexive approach to digital media and a high production value. Why are so many users following Smith's work? How did these videos go viral? How did he manage to beat the competition of other users aiming to reach the same visibility? How does he take advantage of our current digital environment and convergence culture? Generally presented in a three to five minute format, Smith's videos are professionally produced with updated digital cameras and editing software and then shared online via media marketing strategies. Smith proves that YouTube is both a site for personal use (summarized by its tagline ‘Broadcast Yourself’) and a platform for the shared artistic visions of comedy entrepreneurs. The study concludes with an initial map of some comedy content creators that possess characteristics similar to those of juliansmith87, evaluating their role in the modernization of digital humor.

Transnational convergence culture: grassroots and corporate convergence in the conflict over amateur English-translated manga

The exponential growth in the licensed output of English-translated manga (Japanese comics) and associated internet fandom have led to a growing number of scanlation sites, which post translated manga far ahead of the output of the licensees for free. Initially, scanlations had small-scale circulation among fans but have recently been more widely available via aggregator sites that earn large advertising revenues. Japanese publishers support an amateur publishing scene and its large comic markets within Japan. They took a firmer stance in June 2010 by forming a coalition with US publishers to fight scanlation aggregators. In the wake of this transnational corporate convergence, there have been changes in both aggregator and industry practices and extensive online debate among fans. Through an analysis of online fan forums, this paper traces the divergent grassroots responses to transnational corporate convergence in the context of a publishing industry in transition and facing serious economic challenges.