Jenkins and Today’s Converged Culture

Expertism vs. Collective Intelligence

In the introduction and the first two chapters of Convergence Culture (2006), Henry Jenkins described the primary differences between the old paradigm (expertism) and the emerging environment (collective intelligence) in digital fandom.  Media consumers used to be engaged individually, with a few users serving as experts, based upon knowledge they gained independently through their personal studies and/or experiences. 

Media users today, however, are embracing convergence, which is “the flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they want” (Jenkins, 2006, p. 2). Likewise, these consumers are creating a new, “participatory culture,” where fans move from being “passive spectators” to interacting with each other to develop their knowledge-base through mutual engagement.  Collective Intelligence is a term coined by French cybertheorist Pierre Lévy to describe this new culture (Jenkins, 2006).  With collective intelligence, “None of us can know everything; each of us knows something, and we can put the pieces together if we pool our resources and combine our skills” (Jenkins, 2006, p. 4).

The digital fan bases of the popular reality shows Survivor and American Idol are prime examples of how users utilize various mediums to gain insight surrounding the shows’ contestants; how they share information and research clues together; how they present speculations which are expanded upon and critiqued by fellow users; and ultimately, how they decide they shows’ outcomes ahead of the producers’ schedules.  Conversely, in the old paradigm, viewers would have merely tuned in, discussed possibilities with family and friends, and then waited until the next week to repeat the same sequence.

Spoilers: Brats or Skilled Media Consumers

When the most hard-core fans of reality shows flock together in an online frenzy to determine the show’s outcome ahead of time, the phenomenon is called spoiling (Jenkins, 2006).  

This ritual is a common activity for college students for two primary reasons:  1) College students represent a diverse community, and with diversity comes different perspectives, experiences, backgrounds, and thus, knowledge bases; and 2) “(Spoiling) allows (the students) to exercise their growing competencies in a space where there are not yet prescribed experts and well mapped disciplines” (Jenkins, 2006, p. 52). 

While many consumers from the old paradigm might see spoilers as malicious brats who just want to ruin the shows for the rest of us, the reality is that spoilers have invested their energies to become experts collectively, while developing research and communication skills, as well as other skills like deduction, presentation, and observation.

Practical Applications for Collective Intelligence

Aside from spoiling, there are other practical applications for collective intelligence.  As mentioned in my post on Knowledge Communities (Knowledge Communities), Paul Levinson speaks about the most popular collective intelligence model, Wikipedia, in his book New New Media (2014).  However, he also addresses other mediums that I believe can also be considered as collective intelligence pools, such as Twitter.  Here, the difference is that with Wikipedia, authors share detailed and lengthy explanations on subjects, while other authors compound the works with their own contributions or corrections.  Whereas with Twitter, authors offer character-limited gems of information, which are passed along, supplemented, challenged, or refuted by other users.  (Note: Some use Twitter merely as a tool to gossip or share entertainment news, but many Tweeters use the service to gain valuable insights and information.  For example: this Twitter link combines sources of political information surrounding Benghazi: Twitter Link on Benghazi.)

Another arena in which collective intelligence is effective is the workplace.  Employees are evolving from being individual contributors to being collaborative team-members, who tackle challenges across many mediums.  For example, to implement improvement of a product, employees from across the globe can present and discuss ideas through instant messaging and virtual meetings, then disburse to conduct research on the Internet, then share their findings on restricted web data-bases for further review and revisions.  During this process, various team-members share the roll of “expert.” Afterwards, the marketing or public relations personnel may update the company’s social media sites to include the new product features.  Then, consumers will offer their comments and may create their own fan communities to promote the product amongst other, like-minded consumers.

Utilizing Collective Intelligence in Converged Communications

As practitioners of Converged Communications, how can we effectively use collective intelligence to enhance our situated user communities?

First, we need to become familiar with the existing knowledge communities encompassed within our field. How are they organized, and who are their internal experts?  By what means to they gain their knowledge?

Next, we need to determine the appropriate level of involvement we might have with these communities.  How can we contribute to them, influence them, or expand them? 

Furthermore, we need to explore through what means can we create other media avenues to attract new collective intelligence participants; and what can we learn from their new perspectives?  (For example, Project Natal .)

And last, we need to assess how can we shape or direct the future convergence for our participants.

References

Jenkins, H. (2006).  Convergence culture.  New York, NY: New York University Press.

Levison, P. (2014).  New new media.  New York, NY: Pearson.