Beyond Covergence: a New Way to Look at Communications Professions
Convergence Culture Recognizes that: ‘Mass messages’ are so 1990s People spend less time with traditional media, and more time online WOM and peer reviews are becoming important information sources Pull’ technologies (TIVO) allow people to create own mediated experiences
Convergence to Confluence? Convergence: channel based –Conglomeration of media, accessed from any point. Confluence: message based –A flowing together of two or more streams. –The point of juncture of such streams. –The combined stream formed by this juncture.
Confluence Culture Participatory –Consumers are active –Producers and consumers no longer separate Remediation –New media both diverge from and reproduce ‘old’ media
Confluence Culture Collective Intelligence –Learning becomes a collective process –People look to each other to ‘make sense’ Collective Meaning Making –Bricolage: remixing of content for new messages –Repurposing old to make the new
Confluence Messages flow seamlessly among media channels Technology becomes adaptive and associative –Multiplatform engagement –Rich dialogue –Proclivity for ‘mashups’ or bricolage
New Ways of Working Nick Haley iPod ad "Professional" version M and Ms HP/Jumper Commercial HBO Voyeur Storytelling Liberty Mutual's Responsibility Project
The Challenge for Communications Professions To not only create messages, but help others manage the creation (and ultimately comprehension) of messages
Identified Issues: Keen, Cult of the Amateur Ethics –Amateurs don’t have same standards as professionals Economic viability –What was a source of income is now free..e.g. Craig’s List Credibility –Who is responsible for accuracy of information? Democracy –The “YouTubification of politics…infantalizes the political process, silencing the public discource.”
Additional Challenges for Academics How to help students learn important skills? – – How to help them become professionals in an ‘amateur’ world How to come to grips with the new nature of ‘knowledge’