Convergence and Change

  As stated by the famous Robin Williams “No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world”. One of the biggest ideas changing the world is technology. Technology is changing how we live every single day, and some people fear that we will lose where we came from with all of this change. This is where convergence comes in. So what is Convergence? Convergence is a term used by Henry Jenkins to describe the coming together of old and new technology. The world now has so much more access to things thanks to the advances in technology. In Jenkins’ piece, “Convergence Culture”, he describes how these things enhance one another.

One of his first examples was how phones have made things like watching movies so much easier. He describes a time when a film from Bollywood, Rok Sako To Rok Lo, was screened through mobile devices using a live screen casting. This was taking an old, familiar thing and giving it a new spin. Allowing mobile phones ability to access this movie made watching it an easier and more personalized experience. Phones are a big part of convergence because now we can change channels, take pictures, check the news, see the weather, listen to music, watch videos and so much more by just using our phones. Phones are making other devices, such as cameras and ipods, almost obsolete because who is going to by several devices when you can have one the does it all. Which led us to Jenkins’ idea of the Black Box.

He refers to the idea as The Black Box Fallacy and here is why. The Black Box is the idea of a single device being able to control all technology, kind of where the phone is heading, but this is impossible hence the Fallacy part of the name. The reason this would be impossible is mainly because technology is advancing and changing every single day. This device would be in a constant state of updating to try and keep up. The device would have to be able to do everything a computer, phone, xbox, playstation, cable box, etc. can do. How could the world even invent something with that much space for memory and processing? How could this device function fast and efficiently when it constantly has to update and keep up with advances? It would not be possible.

Convergence is not the idea that the old is becoming non-existent because the new is pushing it out of the way. It is the idea that old and new will come together to make something greater. Thanks to technology old ways of doing things will never be forgotten so the aim here is not to get rid of old technology. Let us face it they only way we made so many strides with technology is because the old technology existed in the first place. The reason so many people fear convergence is because so many people fear change and until we understand convergence people will always be afraid of it.