Convergence Culture and a Marriage to Social Media
Thanks to the technical affordances available today, popular culture has taken a shift across mediums. There is a market for everything, and as new and old media collide in what Jenkins (2008) articulates as convergence, we see shifts in the continuum of participatory engagement, in media formats and collective knowledge. Convergence, according to Hesmondhalgh (2007),
“Convergence functions as a self-fulfilling prophecy: policy change is both brought about by perceived convergence and, at the same time, is likely to accelerate it.”
In the entertainment world, where there is convergence, there is transmedia and multiplatform storytelling and an evolution of the producer-audience relationship (Edwards 2012).
Audience labour and fandoms are driving forces in convergence culture. This is due to the power balance at play. Similar to the rise of influencers and parasocial relationships, where people build their success and exist through the presence of viewers (Robinson 2019), media needs to be consumed.
For example, Game of Thrones started as a book series, but it became a global phenomenon through the television show that fostered an incredibly active social media presence on Twitter in particular. García-Avilés (2012) notes that convergence media has led to a diversification of audience roles and distribution techniques that rely on social media impact and participation across the portfolio of content.
More than this, according to Hassler-Forest and Nicklas (2015), Game of Thrones and other media convergence artefacts are subject to the politics of adaption. As a transformative and ever-changing creative space, shows like Game of Thrones are products of gentrification and normalisation. It becomes a conversation about accessibility where a project can be defined separately to fandoms like Game of Thrones and a supposed categorical equivalence to ‘high culture’ or they are defined by the knowledge that having passionate audiences is a commodity to lean into.
With avid watchers, franchises can stretch simultaneously into other popular culture mediums. Nurturing this community might seem like a stroke of genius from a marketing perspective. Take Supernatural as an example, before the show aired the network was already building a fanbase and right up until the finale in 2020 after 15 seasons, they made the audience-creator relationship a priority and sometimes bent the lines between the two camps. The crossovers between the real-world and fiction kept the flames of the fandom burning and was arguably the reason for the show’s longevity.
However, the success of multiplatform shows that encourage active participation remains embedded in the fact that there are social, fiscal and geopolitical factors at play. Scott (2019) in Fake Geek Girls, highlights that convergence culture is no stranger to categorically defining fandoms through authenticity. In particular, Scott contends that there are gender politics constantly unfolding and a purposeful disparity in mainstream and realistic representations of geek and fan culture where “the same transformative and critical qualities that make female fan communities distinctive for researchers also render them disruptive and undesirable for media producers.”
What this eludes to, is that fan labour — a structure that reinforces convergent cultural industries — is readily commodified and altered to fit a particular narrative or brand goal. This could be explicit or self-inflicted exploitation for labour that might not be reciprocated (Guerrero-Pico 2017). This brings power relations, authenticity, fan agency and systems of mass culture industry conglomerates to the floor. In turn, this conversation once again returns to social media as we steadily move sociality online. Importantly, with the shift into the digital, media distribution is simultaneously connecting people and speaking to them on an individual level as well as speaking to collectives, and in converging cultural forms, there is a ‘grand fusion’ occurring (Dwyer 2010); a melting pot of content, opinions, perceptions and representations.
Whether it is videos-on-demand and streaming services, live broadcasts, or social media use, all three components have real-time and viewer-determined engagement components. Convergence has thus resulted in television becoming larger than the television (Evans 2011). Reminiscent of McLuhan’s (1967) ‘the medium is the message’, I posit that the story and audience outweigh the medium.
*Written for CIM402 — Critical Inquiry — SAE Institute. Blog Task 4, Part B
References
Dwyer, T. (2010). Media convergence. Berkshire: Open University Press.
Edwards, L. H. (2012). Transmedia storytelling, corporate synergy, and audience expression. Global Media Journal, 12(20), 1–12.
Evans, E. (2011). Transmedia television: audiences, new media and daily life. New York: Routledge.
García-Avilés, J. A. (2012). Roles of audience participation in multiplatform television: From fans and consumers, to collaborators and activists. Journal of Audience and Reception Studies, 9(2), 429–447.
Hassler-Forest, D., & Nicklas, P. (2015). The politics of adaptation: media convergence and ideology. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hesmondhalgh, D. (2007) The Cultural Industries. London: Sage Publishing.
Jenkins, H. (2008). Convergence culture: where old and new media collide (rev. ed.). New York: New York University Press.
Mcluhan, M. (1967). The medium is the massage. Bantam Books.
Scott, S. (2019). Fake geek girl: fandom, gender, and the convergence culture industry. New York: New York University Press.
