Media Convergence in Contemporary Society Essay

Media Convergence in Contemporary Society - Essay Example Jenkins centers much of his argument upon the idea that freedom of the press has led to the establishment of the new media. Freedom is a large part of the way in which the convergence culture has been created, consumers now free to participate in the creation of communication. However, this culture is coming at a price. The technologies are improving and growing at fast rates that are difficult to continue to upgrade. The disposable culture has slipped to higher priced electronic items, making the use of the true world now a matter of socioeconomic status. As well, in having a culture that is so interlaced that a high school student has access to affecting world politics, credibility is suffering. In creating a convergence culture, freedoms have emerged that have broadened the interconnectivity of the world, but the price of these freedoms effect economic and journalistic credibility, thus causing a high cost to the consumer. In introducing his article about Henry Jenkins’ boo k about convergence media, Horowitz relates the story with which Jenkins begins his discussion about convergence culture. He tells the story of an American high school student who put together images with Bert, a character from Sesame Street, through Photoshop. The theme of the series of pictures done by this young man was ‘evil Bert’ with pictures of Bert with Adolf Hitler, Pamela Anderson, and Osama Bin Laden. Someone from a Bangladesh publisher was looking for images on the web of Osama Bin Laden for anti-American posters. The picture of Bert and Bin Laden ended up on posters throughout the Middle East, which eventually landed the image on CNN (Jenkins 1: Horowitz). This story contains the essence of convergence culture, where a high school aged boy can create a cut and paste image that ends up on anti-American posters on the other side of the world, which in turn show up on an American news service. Convergence means that multiple disciplines are impacted by the way in which consumers and media communicators interact, the consumer of information reacting and acting against the inflow of information from those who put that information out into the world. In a convergence culture, the consumer and the media communicators become interchangeable the consumer often taking on the role of the communicator putting his own ideas out into the media. Jenkins states that convergence culture is the â€Å"place where old media and new media collide, where grassroots and corporate media intersect, where the power of the media producer and the power of the media consumer interact in unpredictable ways† (Horowitz). The new forms of media have allowed consumers to have a much larger freedom in determining how they spend their time. Which media outlet gains attention has become a matter of large numbers of options, the consumer able to now choose which news, entertainment, or activity to participate with during their idle time. No longer is the consumer l ocked to the 5 o’clock news or the morning or evening paper, but can choose which outlet to interact with at what time is convenient. Even television is no longer precisely defined by time slots because most television programs can be seen through at the internet at the viewer’s convenience. Freedom of the press has allowed for new media forms to emerge, communication transforming into a free flowing network of information, consumer driven, but founded upon the concept that ideas have a need to be shared (Convergence,