TED'S DIGITAL JUNGLE #13: NEW THESIS STATEMENT

Have been reading Henry Jenkins on Convergence Culture for the past few weeks, and feel like a kid in a long-lost candy store. As a documentary producer, I have been experiencing exciting developments during the first three decades of the digital revolution, but I have been unable to find a theoretical framework to make some sense of what is happening in my field. Now, thanks to Henry Jenkins, I have found an intriguing framework in what he calls CONVERGENCE CULTURE.

For me, Jenkins' major discovery is that the key feature of The Digital Revolution is not the Content, but all the new Delivery Systems. As a producer, I had been preoccupied with the possibilties of

Digital Production - and had overlooked the impact of the new delivery systems. Now that I have been back in the US for almost three years, I am beginning to understand the importance of the new delivery systems - I am teaching an entire generation which consumes all visual media in small formats like I-Pads and Mobile phones, and which rarely ever goes to a movie theatre. ( of course, now that I have access to a fabulous digital cinema at SUNY/FIT for my film courses, I have the honor of introducing classic films to my students the way they were intended to be shown!)

The original title for my dissertation was DIGITAL DOCUMENTARY: THE REVOLUTION THAT IS NOT BEING TELEVISED. After reading Henry Jenkins, I now have a  new working title: DIGITAL DOCUMENTARY: STUDIES IN CONVERGENCE CULTURE.

The subjects of the first three studies will be:

1. MONUC/MONUSCO VIDEO UNIT :  The Video Unit of the UN Mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo, which I ran from 2007-2012, Needless to say, I have a lot of material, including my own MISSION END REPORT and the YouTube channel I created: www.YouTube.com/MONUCVIDEO 

2.DEMOCRACY NOW: Amy Goodman's news program on YouTube, and my personal favorite.

3.MANREPELLER: One of the leading fashion blogs in New York, MANREPELLER is leading the charge to democratize haute couture.

My Thesis Statement for Case Study #1:

STRICT VERTICAL CONTENT CONTROL IS ANTITHETICAL TO SUCCESSFUL CONVERGENCE CULTURE.

Stay tuned!!

TED'S DIGITAL JUNGLE #12: CONVERGENCE CULTURE

Good news! My new doctoral supervisor, Professor Lars-Gustaf Andersson of the Film Studies Department at Sweden's University of Lund, has given me a green light for my dissertation on

Digital Documentary. I completed a first draft three years ago, but then ran into problems with my

previous supervisor when he suddenly wanted me to change subjects - after I had already written and rewritten 100 + pages over two years. Needless to say, I began to have doubts about that collaboration, but with the help of the Lund University Ombudsman for doctoral candidates, I managed to get a new supervisor after more than  a year of negotiations.

The delay was beneficial in more ways than one. One of the glaring weaknesses of my first draft was the lack of a strong thesis based on contemporary media theory, I knew I wanted to explore how digital technology has democratized documentary around the world, transforming it from a centralized medium for manufacturing consent into  a de-centralized medium for grassroots explorations of personal reality, but I had no idea how to get there. My media gurus, Soviet documentarian Dziga Vertov and Canadian media philosopher Marshall McLuhan, are considered out-of-date by 21 st century post-moderns.

Then my friend and current boss Professor Bill Mooney, Chair of the Department of Film,Media Studies and Performing Arts, turned me on to Henry Jenkins and his theory of Convergence Culture. Some have called Jenkins " a 21st century McLuhan ", and I am happy to say that his work seems to be the missing link I have been looking for in my efforts to make some sense of our current digital jungle.

Stay tuned!:)