Convergence Culture

When new stuff meets old stuff can they blend, or does the new end up replacing the old entirely? Can grassroots organizations and corporations work together, or are they intrinsically opposing forces? Is the consumer doomed to mutely ingest what media producers create for him or her forever?

Henry Jenkins answers these questions and more in his book Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. Jenkins analyzes interactions between pop culture and technology, from internet users all over the world working together to figure out what will happen next on Survivor, to young fans writing their own Harry Potter stories online, to the transmedia storytelling of The Matrix spanning films, video games, and comic books.

Jenkins warns against the “Black Box Fallacy”–the error of reducing media change to simple technological change and thus assuming the conclusion that all media content will eventually flow through a single black box conduit. To understand media change, one needs to consider the cultural aspectss involved and the content itself, not only the way the content is conveyed.

Jenkins makes the case that the cultural shift currently occurring will change everything from the way we do business and elect leaders to how we educate children. If that’s true, what does it mean for JPS and the Tagged Tanakh?

The Tagged Tanakh represents the “convergence” of user-generated Jewish perspectives with traditional commentaries and sources. It also represents the convergence of technological practices and tools with Jewish values and educational practices.

As a nonprofit publisher, JPS isn’t a grassroots organization or a corporation, but possesses some aspects of each. As a content producer, JPS needs to be aware of the new ways content is being distributed (i.e. across multiple media platforms) and act accordingly.