Media Industries, Work and Life

Abstract

■ Convergence culture, as a concept, articulates a shift in the way global media industries operate, and how people as audiences interact with them. It recognizes contemporary media culture as a primarily participatory culture. In turn, this assumption renders notions of production and consumption of (mass, mediated) culture not just theoretically problematic — as has been established earlier in disciplines as varied as communication studies, cultural geography and media anthropology — but also less than useful on a practical level when making sense of the role media play in people’s everyday lives. This paper explores the practical applications of convergence culture from the perspectives of media workers, suggesting not so much the use of ‘new’ categories, but rather an alignment of production, mediation and consumption as constituent practices in all experience of (in) media life. ■