Convergence Culture and Creative Engagement

According to Jenkins, convergence culture is where the old and new media intersect so that users have an access to multiple media forms in one place. This way, the question of who is the producer of the content is getting ambiguous because the media user's desires interact with the media owner's capabilities. I think the biggest conclusion of the convergence culture is that it clearly shows us how big the media have a part in our lives. Through each kind of convergence (economic, technological, cultural etc.), we get to interact with the media almost all the time.

Creative engagement refers to the idea that media users have new ways to interact with this convergent culture. Jenkins talks about "spoiler" forums to explain how viewers of TV shows interact with this specific medium in other media forms. Another example can be role playing games which help viewers interact with the movies like Harry Potter outside of the movie theaters. So, creative engagement is a way of having new uses of convergent culture.

Long Tail and Consumer Behavior

1) Long tail theory refers to the idea that a variety of less common products could be sold more than the most common product in the same category. This is of course only possible through the use of the Internet since people didn't have a way to reach alternative products before the Internet.

The best example of long tail theory applied to my life is online book shopping. Personally, I don't really like to read popular books in Turkey. Online book stores provide a huge variety of books and the ease of finding them with one click. Instead of going to the book store, and judging the books according to if they are best sellers, I can read comments made by the ones who have already read the book. That's why the chance that I could be disappointed by my shopping is lower. In this way, I have created my own taste - which puts me in a niche-, so instead of simply clicking on best sellers, I search for more specific categories which creates the long tail.

Compared to best sellers, the online book store I usually shop has millions of niche products. So, when the demand is divided into many small parts, it leads that the demand for the best seller books could actually be lower than the total number of buyers of niche products. This is such a good opportunity for alternative styles to reach readers and for people to have an easy access to different kind of products.

2) I would generally describe myself as a surfer because I like shopping online more than actually going to stores, so I don't always have a purpose to look at things on web. Sometimes I just look at online shopping websites for fun and if I like something, I think about buying it. However, when it comes to traveling, I'm definitely a bargainer. I don't purchase or book anything without comparing the prices with other websites. Lastly, for some of my specific hobbies, I shop like sportsters. For example, I like using analog cameras, and there is only one website  - Lomography- where I always buy my films no matter what the prices are in other online stores.