Henry Jenkins, Transmedia, Participatory Culture, and Collective Intelligence in Media

The videos on Transmedia and the interview of Henry Jenkins discuss the topics of participatory culture and collective intelligence in social media. Through the use of social media, people around the world are able to share their stories with anyone at any time. This is significant because, unlike movies or television shows pushing common narratives onto the general public, social media has allowed for people to share stories that are unique and unheard of before. Everyone has something unique and exciting to share, and social media has enabled this. Social media also incorporates aspects of collective intelligence, which is based on the idea that more people can contribute greater and more complex knowledge together rather than individually. Take Wikipedia for example. Wikipedia allows for people to work together and share their specific knowledge and ideas where this information can be accessed all in one place. Participatory culture and collective intelligence has allowed for social media to be used to share unique stories, knowledge, and ideas to people throughout the world. Henry Jenkins also discusses participatory culture in education. Education has oftentimes focused on the individual and discourages the idea of collaborative work. This highly contradicts the use of social media, where everyone is encouraged to work together and be creative. Henry Jenkins suggests that schools should become more open-source and incorporate social media more to allow for students to work together and be creative, just like how they are in the real world.