By
Shelley Jane Graff
This notion of ideal
interpersonal relations and communications as being interactive rather
than monologist (I.e. the mediums that have been predominantly used in the
recent past) seems to allude to the fact that media convergence is technologically based
yet culturally applied. Henry Jenkins wrote in
his book, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New
Media Collide, that: “Convergence does not occur through
appliances, however sophisticated they may become. Convergence
occurs within the brains of individual consumers and through their social
interactions with others.” (pp. 3)
Thus the concept of us entering this new age defined by ‘participatory culture’
implies that vast new communication possibilities on the horizon could have
profound implications for what we consider the media as well as the interpersonal
relationship as we know it. That being said,
innovation in media is just as susceptible to being abused by those same
individuals that it was supposed to help. The idea of anonymity and the
opportunity to cultivate a new personality through the phony construction of
one’s ‘online identity’ has been established as being a hazard as well as being
a boon…in so many of these relational situations, it all depends on context and
actors. Reality does not dictate what to make of us; we dictate what to
make of reality.
One technology that has rocked the media world is that of the DVD. In the
book Reinventing Cinema: Movies in the Age of Media Convergence by
Chuck Tryon, it states that: “One of the major effects of the DVD is the
ability to offer multiple versions of a given film. In this sense,
digital media, and DVDs in particular, work against the notion that media
objects can ever be truly finished.” (p. 26) This seems to suggest that because
of sophisticated technology everything we use to communicate is up for
redefinition.
(Word Count = 302 words total)
