Summary of Henry Jenkins’ Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide “Black Box Fallacy”

The “Black Box Fallacy” begins by separating media from delivery technologies. The main difference is that the delivery systems are simple technologies that come and go (8-tracks, CD, MP3 files, ect.) but media never goes away and is much more complex. The media doesn’t get replaced just because a new media is presented. Example: television did not replace the radio, the old media’s function is, however, shifted. Most recently, the changing media has causes shifts in the way humans produce and consume media.

An argument exists that in the future, all media will travel through one black box either in our living rooms or on a portable device. But, this is not the case since this change would be media conforming to the delivery technology which has not been the dominate pattern. Although having all of our daily technology combined into one black box would make life a little easier, it won’t happen because the devices would be generic and lose features. We do have some technologies that are converging currently though. Cell phones are an example of a device that has been converged with other media. But since technology is evolving so quickly, there will never be one single black box to fit all the media through.

Big picture: Media is being converged during it’s production and consumption but there will never exist one black box that all media is flowing through.