BIOGRAPHY

Henry Jenkins, is the founding director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT and is the Peter de Florez Professor in the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. Currently completing a book entitled Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Intersect, he has written or edited 11 other books, including Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture, (with Justine Cassell) From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games, (With Tara McPherson and Jane Shattuc) Hop on Pop: The Politics and Pleasures of Popular Culture, and (with David Thorburn) Democracy and new Media. Jenkins writes a monthly column on the social and cultural impact of media and technology for Technology Review Online and with Kurt Squire, a monthly column for Computer Games Magazine which explores the intersection between academic game theory and the game design community. He is one of the leaders of The Education Arcade, an initiative to promote the educational uses of computer and video games. Jenkins has testified about youth and media violence before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation, addressed the Federal Communications Commission on children and media literacy and spoken to the Governor's Board of the World Economic Forum on Intellectual Property and Media Change. He was recently awarded a grant from the MacArthur Foundation to explore the skills which children and youth need to become more effective communicators, learners, and citizens in the 21st century.

ABSTRACT

Pop Cosmopolitanism, Collective Intelligence, and Participatory Culture: What Educators Need to Know About the New Media Landscape
Individual Presentation, Thursday (9:00 - 10:30) in Hall of Ideas G

Consider:

Japanese youth with greased back hair and black leather jackets dancing to 50s Rockabilly music in the parks of Tokyo.

American kids teaching themselves Japanese in order to participate in the underground translation and circulation of Japanese anime.

High schoolers getting national record contracts on the basis of music they composed and recorded in their own bedrooms.

Hundreds of people around the country pooling their knowledge to solve a complex game scenario or to try to track down who won Survivor.

These are simply snapshots of a brave new world being created by the forces of globalization and media convergence. Established notions of media literacy education were based on an era of mass media, where students received information from corporate producers, but played little or no direct role in shaping that content or participating in its circulation. Today, young people are key contributors to media culture and thus the ways we think about media literacy need to change to reflect their more active engagement as media producers. We would not see someone as literate if they can read and not write. Why should we see them as media literate if they can consume but not produce? This talk is designed both to outline some key trends in our current media landscape and some new approaches for media literacy education.

ABSTRACT

A Conversation across Generations of Media Scholars
Symposium, Friday (1:30 - 3:00) in Hall of Ideas G

ALSO

Playing Culture
Respondent, Friday (9:00 - 10:30) in Hall of Ideas G