"Media on Demand" (Convergence Culture Assignment)

Even as its extinction is imminent, I do appreciate my VCR. As I am sitting in class Thursday, it will be taping the premiere of one of my favorite shows, CSI. Sixty minutes of my favorite prime time show preserved, waiting for my viewing. Even though the technology of the VCR is being outdated, the idea of re-viewing media is far from gone, and perhaps just beginning to be tapped. The demands of the ‘converged culture’ that Henry Jenkins spoke of demand such replay by audiences.

I was one of the few people that viewed the flopped premiere of Anchorwoman on FOX, which is still available on “FOX on demand.” Not surprising to me, since the main character of this series does no credit to women or those who shade my shade of hair color. (Blond.) “FOX on demand” is a concept I’m sure is familiar to many television viewers. Most shows, especially popular series such as the before mentioned CSI, have their own web pages nestled in the network’s web site. A great first option for fans who are a little less hard core than the “Survivor Sucks” crowd that Jenkins reveals the world of.

A “Convergence Culture” to me is a giant VCR. We can recapture our favorite shows that we couldn’t watch last Friday and here they are today or there are shows normally thrown down the tube, simply broad-casted on another medium. (Brilliant but cancelled, for example.) Of course, Jenkins went well out of his way to show us that series are not just simply “reviewed.” For my VCR to ‘convergence culture’ analogy to be complete, I would have to mention how the series that are copied by VCR are “imitated”, “edited”, “re-imagined.”

The ‘converging culture’ Jenkins spoke of is one that is slowly moving away from mass production to customization. For instance, transmedia, such as The Matrix celebrates that each audience member experiences the series differently. Transmedia offers a base and expansion for varying audience that includes members that will have varying commitments. Fans of popular series are not limited to the works themselves but expand the resources at their disposal to reinterpret the series constantly, from endless angles, often in the form of fanfic and fan ‘cinema’ (as Jenkins refers to it). The way fans interact with each other, such as on the “Survivor Sucks” board, has basis in other series. While these television fans are hunting and scrimping for clues, puzzle pieces, the key to the ultimate secret that is unveiled (and I’ll just mention, they used VCRs to re-watch episodes), other fans use such resourceful intellect in fiction, bending reality (or a fictional reality). Jenkins mentions in the chapter on the Harry Potter fan-fiction writers, “Across this book, we have identified a number-the ability to pool knowledge with other in a collaborative enterprise (as in Survivor spoiling)….the ability to make connections across scattered pieces of information (as occurs when we consume The Matrix, 1999…)” (176) The members of The Daily Prophet website take their knowledge and connections, (and writers of any kind of fanfic), and apply it to their writing. Even though their means to is to an end that is for purely enjoyment rather than uncovering a clue to a puzzle, it is just as valuable, as they are effectively employing tools offered to them by the ‘converging culture.’

After I’m done watching, or reviewing, the Thursday episode of CSI, on which day I choose, I might be up to watching some other media. Perhaps later I’ll go re-watch this good imitation of a familiar commercial. Or perhaps I’ll go edit something in Photoshop. For me, Jenkin’s Convergence Culture is a little like “FOX on demand”, or as I like to call it, “Media on Demand,” where media is not just reviewed constantly, but re-imagined constantly.