Convergence

What struck me the most about my "screening" assignment this weekend was the convergence of different media that was so clear in the fan cultures surrounding TV shows. It started when I noticed on the Six Feet Under website that there was an entire section on "Claire's Art." For those of you who don't know, Claire is a character on the show who goes to art school, and episodes often show the artwork she is working on/has created. On the website there are pictures of some of her art, accompanied by comments by the producer as well as the artists that actually created the art. This ties the form of visual art with the televisual show. In addition to this, the page also provides links to interactive games, providing yet another medium. Under the title "community" the show is also connected to online newsletters and blogs. Of course, the very fact that I was finding this on a website is yet another example of a combination of media.

For those of you that are familiar with the show Weeds, you know that the theme song of the show is played by a different musician or group for each episode. Each of these versions is available on the Weeds website, thus linking music to the televisual. A similar thing is done on HBOVoyeur; there is an emphasis on the background music, which you can even select in the lower left corner of the screen. The mixing of these different media is beneficial to both sides, as musicians gain fans of the show and the show gains fans of the music. One Tree Hill offers yet another example of this more indirectly, by using the name of a song as the title of each epsiode.

I found Jenkin's article on Convergence Culture extremely interesting and would love to discuss further in section the implications of it. I think the concept of interaction between viewer and producer is extremely important to the changing culture of media and is changing our perception and expectations of media. I feel like this relates back to Keenan's ideas on which way the window is pointing; the relationship between the different directions of light is becoming more complex.