Henry Jenkins, who will soon have a book out called, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, posted an excerpt from his forthcoming book in his blog.

Grant McCracken, the cultural anthropologist and industry consultant, suggests that in the future, media producers must accommodate consumer demands to participate or they will run the risk of losing the most active and passionate consumers to some other media interest which is more tolerant: “Corporations must decide whether they are, literally, in or out. Will they make themselves an island or will they enter the mix? Making themselves an island may have certain short-term financial benefits, but the long-term costs can be substantial.”The media industry is increasingly dependent on active and committed consumers to spread the word about valued properties in an overcrowded media marketplace and in some cases, they are seeking ways to channel the creative output of media fans to lower their production costs. At the same time, they are terrified of what happens if this consumer power gets out of control, as they claim occurred following the introduction of Napster and other file-sharing services….

One can trace two characteristic responses of media industries to this grassroots expression: Starting with the legal battles over Napster, the media industries have increasingly adopted a scorched earth policy towards their consumers, seeking to regulate and criminalize many forms of fan participation which once fell below their radar. Let’s call them the prohibitionists.

To date, the prohibitionist stance has been dominant within old media companies (film, television, the recording industry), though these groups are to varying degrees starting to re-examine some of these assumptions. So far, the prohibitionists get most of the press - with law suits directed against teens who download music or against fan webmasters getting more and more coverage in the popular media.At the same time, on the fringes, new media companies (internet, games, and to a lesser degree, the mobile phone companies), are experimenting with new approaches which see fans as important collaborators in the production of content and as grassroots intermediaries helping to promote the franchise. We will call them the collaborationists…..

Other Posts Categorized as New Media Theory:

• Citizen Journalism No Longer Just an Interesting Idea - July 7th, 2007
• What is New Media? - July 24th, 2006
• The People Formerly Known as the Audience - July 24th, 2006
• Transmodiology - July 11th, 2006
• Concrete Poetry - A World View - June 29th, 2006
• Who Reads Hypermediated Tales? Children. - March 7th, 2006