Rewrite of Henry Jenkins (Photoshop for Democracy)

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9729506-7.html

When discussing Henry Jenkins and convergence culture, I immediately thought of the YouTube/CNN debates. This I guess has more to do with convergences politics which is politics coming together with things of pop culture in order to appeal to more people, especially a younger audience. Ever since I could remember, presidential candidates have had televised debates. However, at least in my opinion, these debates have been uneventful and boring to watch. I’m not that into politics. I mean I understand it pretty well however I would rather go out and debate it then watch other people do so. So for me, they have never been something I took great interest in watching. Now, after hearing about the YouTube/CNN debates, I find myself watching more and more of them. I really like how people can send in videos to ask questions. It doesn’t matter how old you are and you don’t need to physically be there to ask questions. It provides America with a more interactive experience with the candidates so they can make a more well-informed decision. In an article entitled “YouTube, CNN aim to ‘revolutionize’ presidential debate process” by Caroline McCarthy, it mentions that not only will people be able to post questions online, but all the debates will then be posted online so the responses can be heard. Also, the article predicts the success of the debates. Says YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley, “We're confident we're providing a new outlet for them for distribution. We have thousands of media partners, and we're actively working to provide them new opportunities and develop new technologies that provide some choice: choice to control their content in the system, and choice to provide more promotional and revenue opportunities." Some say the debates were rigged to only show the most non-controversial questions. However, I’m not sure I believe this to be true. If they did select their questions to be non-controversial, it might be because they were trying not to start an uproar so close to the election. It’s really up for speculation but the YouTube/CNN debates are a perfect example of Jenkins’ grassroots media and convergence culture.

Henry Jenkins gave several examples of these two things in his article “Photoshop for Democracy” and ends by saying on page 208, “In each case, entrenched institution are taking their models from grassroots fan communities, reinventing themselves for an era of media convergence and collective intelligence”. I think that pretty much sums but what convergence culture is. It is taking old forms of media and new forms and colliding them. Grassroots media is content created by citizens as opposed to giant corporations. With the debates, YouTube is generally a place where anyone (no matter age or social status) can share their videos. Big name corporations such as CNN post their own shows online but that’s not grassroots. That is why the debates were so effective was because all you needed was a webcam/video camera and a computer in order to create content or watch the debates. And the coming together of the two was a genius idea on their part. Now that the YouTube/CNN debates are over, many would agree with how effective they were. They caused people (especially young people) in America to become more involved in the campaigns and election. I think YouTube and CNN should strongly consider doing this in the future because it gives a great opportunity to citizens out there to participate in grassroots media.