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 My media gurus, Soviet documentarian Dziga Vertov and Canadian media philosopher Marshall McLuhan, are considered out-of-date by 21 st century post-moderns.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!:)