Response 2 to Steve Rakoczy on Henry Jenkins

In our class discussion, Steve related the material Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins to the internet vigilante groups Anonymous and Lulzsec. From this, he posed the following questions:

…but if Jenkins sees some of the activities of groups like the Survivor Spoilers as "interference," what must he think when a relatively small number of people take down Paypal because they stopped processing payments for WikiLeaks? Should the world's population be subject to the whims of a headless organization that anyone can claim to represent? More importantly, are these forms of protests even accomplishing their original goals?

This is a lot to digest, and as we discovered in class, difficult to respond to in one coherent way. We went from discussions of the value of play, to personal stories about the effects of groups such as Anonymous, and somehow ended up exploring in depth comic books, continual reboots of beloved series, and responsibilities to loyalties versus attracting new fans. As you can imagine, formulating my thoughts from Steve’s questions and our class discussion has been challenging.

I’ll start with the first question. Would Jenkins consider Anonymous to be a natural progression of collective intelligence? Is it the personification of “imagine the kinds of information these fans could collect, if they sought to spoil the government rather than the networks” (29)? Well, on that account I would say that yes, it is the perfect example of what would happen if collective intelligence was used for more “serious” purposes. However, that doesn’t address the question on how Jenkins must feel about the way this power is being used. To explore this, I will jump to the end of the paragraph that the previous quote begins: 

 … I would argue that one reason more Americans do not participate in public debates is that our normal ways of thinking and talking about politics require us to buy into what we will discuss later in this chapter as the expert paradigm: to play the game, you have to become a policy wonk, or, more accurately, you have to let a policy wonk do your thinking for you. One reason why spoiling is a more compelling practice is because the way knowledge gets produced and evaluated is more democratic. Spoiling is empowering in the literal sense in that it helps participants to understand how they may deploy the new kinds of power that are emerging from participation within knowledge communities. (29)

From this, it can be inferred that Jenkins might think that Anonymous and Lulzsec are just part of the process of collective intelligence and that they are contributing members in shaping the future of participation culture. Whether he believes they are an “interference” or not might be beside the point. They are an active part of convergence culture, which can never be objectively judged, especially from the inside.

Jumping to the last question posed by Steve, if Anonymous represents collective intelligence, there can not truly be one goal. An individual acting at a specific time might have their own goal, and I might go as far as to say every individual working together to accomplish one task has an overarching goal, but those goals are very specific and limited. In speaking of the Survivor Spoilers, Jenkins says:

Because they are voluntary, people do not remain in communities that no longer meet their emotional or intellectual needs. Because they are temporary, these communities form and disband with relative flexibility. Because they are tactical, they tend not to last beyond the tasks that set them in motion. (57)

This is even truer for a group like Anonymous since members work only on the projects that interest them. While one member might belong to the group because they want to do better the world, another might be active simply because they are bored and possess the skill sets to hack into a major network. This, of course, brings up the larger issue of what “bettering the world” means. My definition of good is probably vastly different from even some people in our class of ten people, imagine that definition compared to hundreds of thousands of others worldwide. Therefore, assessing whether these tactics are effective in accomplishing their goal cannot be determined.

Further Questions

1. Our recent discussions have made me think about dichotomies in my own life and beliefs, and I was astonished to discover how easily I label things right or wrong, good or bad, and even justified or grievous. Is this human nature, or are we taught to polarize everything?
   
2. At the end of the introduction, Jenkins asserts that “we are entering an era of prolonged transition and transformation in the way media operates” (24). In the 5 years since this book was published, do you believe we are still in a period of transition, or is convergence and participation so engrained in our current media that we can say we are transformed?

Links

1. This is an example of how good intentions can lead to unexpected consequences. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/nov/02/anonymous-zetas-hacking-climbdown
2. Henry Jenkins wrote this blog post about the Occupy movement, but there are parallels to further explore how he might feel about Anonymous. "Occupy, if anything, pushes tactics of transmedia mobilization even further. Refusing to anchor a singular meaning behind the movements keeps the conversations alive, allows for more people to join and help reshape the message, enables quick and tactical responses to outside challenges, and supports creative responses from all participants." http://henryjenkins.org/2011/10/the_revolution_will_be_hashtag.html
3. Perfect example of how American Idol has shaped current TV practices. Winners of The Voice are determined not only by votes, but also by revenue generated from iTunes purchases of their performances. All the while, the TV show and contestants are Twittering during the show. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voice_(U.S.)