Henry Jenkins, director of MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program, talks with ThoughtCast about the path from “participatory culture” to “participatory democracy.” He was the keynote speaker for this year’s Beyond Broadcast conference, held at MIT. He’s also an author, blogger and pop culture fan.
Click here: 
to listen to the interview (8:12 minutes)
And now, for extra credit, to listen to Jenkins’ thoughts on the “moral economy”… (5:12 minutes) CLICK HERE!
To listen to a discussion with Henry Jenkins on “The Economics of Open Content” on the WGBH Forum Network, click here.
And there’s more….
- WNYC’s Bill Swersey on “open source”
- Beyond Broadcast — the state of mind
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So first let’s attempt to get our heads around convergence. One of the leading voices on the subject is Henry Jenkins, author of Convergence Culture and Director of MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program. In his writings and talks, the word “participation” is frequently used. In the context of our class, I’m compelled to ask, “How is participation different from interaction?” Ask youself this question as you listen to this podcast, featuring Henry Jenkins. (Click on the link, then click on the grey play button arrow on the top left of the page, right above Henry’s picture.)
(van hetnieuwenederland.org, 12 april 2007:)
Hi There!
My website picked up your comment on my Henry Jenkins interview (above) — could you possibly translate it for me? Then I can post it on the site!
Thanks very much,
Jenny Attiyeh
Pretty cool how you can instantly find my post 🙂 Nice to talk to you.
Jenkins was brought to my attention by a friend of mine, Yuri van Geest. As a blogger, internet communications engineer and book reviewer for the Dutch Emerce magazine, he has been formulating his own very interesting ideas about what is happening in the media & social participation space. Two other writers that he’s repeatedly mentioned to me are Benkler and Tapscott.
I myself am interested in this area from a social engineering point of view, looking at the intersection of philosophy and social policy, and how it shapes our lives through psychology. I believe this is a subject matter which is often so controversial that we don’t allow ourselves to grasp the real potential it has; I think there is great inspiration to be found in the works of Adam Curtis (check out his new documentary ‘The Trap‘), Alan Watts, Douglas Rushkoff and ‘conspiracy’ writers like Michael Tsarion, David Icke and Alex Jones.
The foremost question I am currently investigating is this: “Is there a way for an n-th generation digg.com to function as a social participation space that is backwards compatible with the current forms of implemented social philosophy, and invite even the most corrupt, life-denying entities thereof into a new dance?”
You see, I want to get rid of the dissent-model that Jenkins and many others (also many of the abovementioned) use in their approach. It is based on an unexamined assumption that there will always be a tense opposition between the poles of elite and masses, which results in endless cycles of repressive dualism between them.
It is my thesis that this tension can be transformed by not seeking out a new way to oppose government, but to find a way to facilitate current forms of government as informed, networked and philosophically grounded social participants. The way to do this is by using effective collective visualisation tools, foremost of which a next-generation societal OS as a distributed ’supergame’, to speak in McGonigal terms; one that is homeostatic and backwards compatible with the current forms of scarcity-based social engineering.
What I would say to Jenkins is: the deep level of decentralized information and communication infrastructure that we currently have can be used for much more than just ‘Power to the People 2.0‚’ a phrase in which ‘the people’ usually hasn’t included the governing elite. What we can build is a broad, reliable support system that can balance and harmonize the fierce dualities in society today: left/right, elite/masses and one of my favourites, man/woman 🙂
Ok I’ll leave it at that for now. Cheers!
Henry Jenkins’ comments are interesting, but as someone who grew up in a community that used the Town Meeting system, I’m not convinced that it is any more of a “lifestyle” democracy than the prevalent spectatorial form. As you note, genuine participatory democracy would require much greater contributions of time & effort from the citizenry. Whether they would actually be willing to make those contributions remains unclear.
(He never actually responded to the question about whether there’s actually any such thing as a non-participatory culture; I wanted to hear his answer to that.)