User blog:EeRSSS31526/Convergence Culture- Henry Jenkins

Henry Jenkins’ Welcome to Convergence Culture blog provides thoughtful insight into the fandom world. He covers media convergence, participatory culture and collective intelligence as terms to use for describing the media world we live in today. His thoughts and ideas can be helpful when looking at the progress of vampire stories through time.

Media convergence is the multifaceted use of entertainment throughout a variety of media spaces. The audience has changed drastically over the years, which can definitely be seen in our contemporary vampire stories. From once dark and scary stories, to more romantic, our ideas of what a vampire should be has changed. There are many places in today’s age for people to share what they want and expect from stories. These platforms make it easier for people to get those new stories. So that audience can be held accountable for the mass amount of vampire stories we see today. It is a part of our participatory culture. This is the culture where the consumers of the media interact with the producers of it. Yet one person cannot cause a stir like this on their own. Jenkin describes the idea of collective intelligence as the movement of media as a collective rather than as an individual. Everyone brings an idea to the different platforms and then together it all forms something marvelous. For example, on different sites, it is easy to find fan fiction that dive further into the stories that most people already know. This new viewpoint causes a new movement of media, which may progress into something even more incredible.

With the new idea of what a vampire should be, we must start by looking at the most beloved vampire story of them all, Dracula. The story of Count Dracula, though, has been used as a starting point for many new stories that fans have adored. Consumers of media have cleverly changed the story to be what they want. All in all, Henry Jenkins idea on convergence culture has helped explain the media platforms today.

