Media Convergence of Politics and Cinema Fandom

Henry Jenkins in his book Convergence Culture said that "Convergence represents a cultural shift as consumers are encouraged to seek out new information and make connections among dispersed media content." In this picture of Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama, it shows how much affect the African American culture has affected the world and America itself. The use of technology has allowed us to combine things of great history and modern times together. I would relate this picture to Jenkins because he says how much culture has actually changed through time and also not everything has disappeared. By this I mean, as you can see in the picture; Martin Luther King Jr. was a great leader for a lot of people not only African Americans. King went to India to visit Gandhi and gained a lot of knowledge and information from him. Many people looked up to King. Barack Obama is also African American and this picture shows how King and Obama are very related. As you can see in the picture the words "Dream" and "Change" appear; this relates how King changed the culture and perspectives of colored and non-colored people. Obama wants to follow the same path and make changes and try to satisfy everyone in one of the greatest nations in this world.

For my next piece I chose a fan-made video of The Matrix. This is a clip of the whole series of Matrix and fan made. The Matrix is a movie based on computers and computer programming. So in this spoof, they are using the sources and features of "Windows XP" to show what the Matrix is. In Chapter 3 of Convergence Culture Jenkins shows a comic/cartoon type picture showing the feedback of the movie "Matrix." As you can see the young adults/teenagers in the background are saying "Wow! That was awesome!", "The Matrix was the Best Movie in Ages!", and "I don't get it." As Jenkins mentions that "not all participants are created equal". Every person has his/her own way of looking at things. The two people are talking about how interesting the movie was, all the technology they used and other information. On the other hand, the other guy did not understand the movie at all, because he is not interested in Science Fiction or Computer related movies.

In conclusion, the culture of media and technology has changed a lot; but not everything that was invented goes away. Henry mentions in the introduction of his book that Convergence Culture is combining the old media culture and the new media culture; this gives people the best of both worlds. It also changes the perspective of many people and more people are interested, because of the different changes convergence culture has done.