Convergence Culture

This is the first post on my blog for the Honors Seminar on new Media Frontiers. Today we discussed Convergence Culture, and participatory media, in particular how they related to the music industry. One of the most interesting aspects of this class was how the record companies are being cut out by the new avenues for releasing music (specifically mp3). I think though, that the use of interactive media is not just a consequence of a more user-friendly internet, but also reflects a pervasive discontent with the entertainment industry. Record companies are artistically conservative. The main priority is a return on an investment, not the creation of quality music (or movies, or television etc.) Because artistic risk equals financial risk, art moves into the lowest common denominator. The decline in record sales has at least as much to do with declining interest in mass-marketed music as it does with the rise of the MP3. I hope that the internet will render such absurd structures as the record industry obsolete. It is not so much that the internet has lead to any great outpourings of art, but these new structures can lead to unimaginable artistic consequences. Possibly a revival of folk culture.