Polity Participatory Culture: Interviews

About the Author Henry Jenkins is Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education at the University of Southern California. Product Description Since 2006, Henry Jenkins's Confessions of an Aca-Fan blog has hosted interviews in which academics, activists, and artists have shared their views on the changing media landscape. For the first time, Jenkins – often called “the Marshall McLuhan for the twenty-first century” – compiles some of these interviews to highlight his recurring interests in popular culture and social change.Structured around three core concepts – culture, learning, politics – and designed as a companion to Participatory Culture in a Networked Era, this book broadens the conversation to incorporate diverse thinkers such as David Gauntlett, Ethan Zuckerman, Sonia Livingstone, S. Craig Watkins, James Paul Gee, Antero Garcia, Stephen Duncombe, Cathy J. Cohen, Lina Srivastava, Jonathan McIntosh, and William Uricchio. With an introduction from Jenkins and reflections from each interviewee, this volume speaks to a sense of crisis as contemporary culture has failed to fully achieve the democratic potentials once anticipated as a consequence of the participatory turn. This book is ideal for students and scholars of digital media, popular culture, education, and politics, as well as general readers with an interest in the topic. Review “Henry Jenkins collects here, for a dark political time, some engaging conversations with leading scholars around one core issue: the transformative social potential of culture when it operates in a participatory mode. The result is open, richly contextual, and genuinely exhilarating.”Nick Couldry, London School of Economics and Political Science“Participatory Culture contains a multiplicity of voices that each uniquely expresses support for democracy, empowerment, respect, and empathy. With this book, Henry Jenkins has generously created a transdisciplinary meeting place, which will offer novel ideas to each reader.”Nico Carpentier, Charles University in Prague