Convergence culture in the creative industries
Convergence culture in the creative industries
This article maps the emerging practices in media
professions like journalism, advertising, marketing communications and public
relations in adapting to a new global environment, characterized by an
increasingly participatory media culture. Among creatives and brand managers
in ad agencies ‘interactive advertising’ is at the center of the contemporary buzz.
Marketers in the cultural industries brainstorm about the potential of upstream
marketing, while in public relations the opportunities of two-way symmetrical
communication are explored. Editors of news publications increasingly jump on
the ‘citizen journalism’ bandwagon. All these trends are part of the same
phenomenon: a convergence of the cultures of media production and
consumption. In this essay, these developments are discussed in terms of their
potential impact on consensual assumptions about the nature of media work,
seen through the lens of the combination of individual creativity and mass
production, also known as creative industries.