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Large and In Charge

A note or two on the author:

1. Jenkins is eager to celebrate viewer control over content. I am as well, but not in all contexts and with all content. For example, fans eager for shows to extend their runs are often wrong. I had no democratic access to Seinfeld during its run. Larry David (who left the show after the seventh season) and Jerry Seinfeld exercised a large amount of control over the show. Seinfeld, seizing the moment, decided that the show had reached the end of its run and he wanted it to go out on top. Anymore Seinfeld now would risk disappointing. The creators had a vision and stuck to it despite the presence of a strong fan base that wanted more and network that was willing to pay.

2. Sometimes an artist needs to be the emperor of their art. What Jenkins leaves out (or at least doesn't seem to value) in his discussion of convergence (or at least doesn't develop when he could, see the Matrix section) is a discussion of how the creators of televisions show often have a singular vision of what they want the viewer's experience to be, and many viewers, respecting (or wanting) this, work to experience the show as the creators developed it. Jenkins seems too eager to dismiss such viewers as those willing to passively accept what is on TV, when they could, in fact, be willfully choosing to go only where the talented creator wants to lead them. I am not passive when I choose to go along for the ride.

Submitted by nrivers on Tue, 2007-03-20 09:52.
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Submitted by mark p on Wed, 2007-03-21 16:23.

Good point nate-dog Smiling I also don't think someone is passive if they choose to go along for the ride, don't seek spoilers, don't participate in fan boards, etc. In fact, I think this is exactly what could go wrong with convergence culture if people aren't careful. We don't want to set up new elitisms and new heirarchies of those who choose to participate and those who don't. We also have to be weary of people in this participatory communities who ban others from participating for suspicious reasons. We also need to figure out who this we I keep referring to is.