Throughout the book, Jenkins argues that the media model of the passive consumer is not and should no longer be the standard by which the consumer is judged. He uses many examples to prove his point, like the rise, and fall, of Howard Dean in the 2004 primaries, Al Gore's 'Current' television station, and a group of "female consumers frustrated by their historical neglect or patronizing treatment by the comics industry" called Sequential Tarts, to demonstrate how powerful consumer participation can be. The old media model focused on the individual, but the new convergence culture allows for a "politics of participation" that "starts from the assumption that we have greater collective bargaining power if we form consumption communities."
That said, he recognizes that not everyone is on equal footing with the convergence of media. He dedicates the next to the last paragraph of the chapter to discussing the consumer's responsibility to be educated in "media literacy" because, typically, "media are read primarily as threats rather than as resources." I found that interesting, particularly because he followed that up with an insight about parents lacking the skills to "help their kids build a meaningful relationship with media", though they were well-versed in limiting how much media their child consumed.
No comments:
Post a Comment