Wachanga’s First Friday
Here are my initial thoughts from our course material and your discussion notes from this week:
The word “social” has a Latin root – “socialis,” – which stands for “companionship or living together. The term media stands for “middle, in between” and that is why to media-te (mediate) refers to being in the middle.
Let us now consider these two terms together: social media – the in-between that has become our companion; that lives with us; that has become us.
The transformative aspect of social media is emerges from a complex flow of contents across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behavior of media audiences who are ready to go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they want.
The coming together of these aspects is what has been defined as “convergence.” It describes technological, industrial, cultural, and social changes that ubiquitously surround us. In the world of media convergence, every important story gets told, every brand gets sold, every consumer gets courted across multiple media platforms.
Right now, convergence culture is being defined top-down by decisions being made in corporate boardrooms and bottom-up by decisions made in teenagers’ bedrooms. It is shaped by the desires of media conglomerates to expand their empires across multiple platforms and by the desires of consumers (or pro-users: producers who are also consumers) to have the media they want, where they want it, when they want it, and in the format they want.
This circulation of media content – across different media systems, competing media economies, and national borders – depends heavily on the active participation of the consumer.
From this week’s discussion, it occurred to me that the idea of convergence cannot merely be understood primarily as a technological process – the bringing together of multiple media functions within the same gadgets and devices. Instead, in my view, convergence represents a shift in cultural logic, where users are encouraged to seek out new information and make connections between dispersed media content.
In other words, we are no longer consuming media; instead, there has emerged a participatory culture that contrasts with older notions of media spectatorship. In this emerging media system, what might traditionally be understood as media producers and consumers are transformed into participants who are expected to interact with each other according to a new set of rules which none of us fully understands.
This participatory culture does not merely occur through media or technological devices – however sophisticated they may become. It occurs within the mind of individual consumers. Yet, each of us constructs our own personal mythology from bits and fragments of information we have extracted from the ongoing flow of media around us and transformed into resources through which we make sense of our everyday lives.
In a culture that is “burdened” with information overload, it is impossible for any one of us to hold all the relevant pieces of information in our heads at the same time. Because there is more information out there on any given topic than we can store in our heads, there is an added incentive for us to talk amongst ourselves about the media we consume. This conversation creates buzz and accelerates the circulation of media contents.
Consumption has become a collective process. None of us can know everything; each of us knows something; we can put the pieces together if we pool our resources and combine our skills. This forms a unique form of collective intelligence, which can be seen as an alternative source of media power. We are learning how to use that power through our day-to-day interactions within convergence culture.
How does this collective meaning-making changing the way religion, education, law, politics, advertising, and even the military operate?
Wachanga @ January 30, 2026
I agree that social media has evolved into a participatory culture which differs than what it was originally intended for. I think there’s a sense of belonging that comes with social media because it allows you to connect with groups who have shared interests, similar thinking, etc. Since social media connects groups, it often leads to collective thinking because they find like minded people. In topics such as law which is somewhat subjective it can and can create support for the way things operate even if there are more efficient or better ways out there.
You make a really interesting point about how social media has basically become part of our everyday lives — almost like a constant companion. I like how you break down convergence too, not just as a tech thing but as a shift in how we think, share, and make sense of all the information coming at us.
And you’re right — no one can keep up with everything anymore, so we kind of rely on each other to fill in those gaps. That collective meaning-making definitely changes how big systems like education, politics, and even religion work. It’s wild to think about how much of that power now comes from regular people interacting online every day. Words are powerful and I believe they are more powerful online!
Like the character Neo said in the 1999 film, “The Matrix”, “Whoa!” Social media is fascinating and complex! Two concepts you touch on, “a shift in cultural logic” and being “‘burdened’ with information overload” strike me as being of particular interest.
The cultural shift is a continually moving target, providing content producers with the ongoing challenge of how to target a certain message to a specific audience. Flexibility and agility seem to be necessary skills for social media professionals.
Information overload takes my mind to the lengthy “Digital 2024 Global News Report”. It is an insightful look into the complex parts in motion that make up social media as it relates to news alone! The various charts and statistics connected to news consumption data and platform usage, along with the sheer scale of users and sight visits and the money involved can be dizzying!
I wonder what factor information overload plays in users grouping together in like-minded communities? Perhaps these communities provide a respite from the storm of massive data, allowing for the comfort of agreement and certainty among its members. And perhaps “a shift in cultural logic” is a shift in the logic of many different cultures; cultures being formed by groups of users finding their safe shelter from the storm. Some members choose to remain in place, while others brave the mass of information to travel and interact between communities and with fellow travelers along the way.
I agree with your point that the blending of media is shaping how we think. We are not just receiving information anymore. We are constantly putting together pieces from different places and creating meaning together. For me, this feels exciting because it gives people more power to share their experiences. But it also feels overwhelming because the flow of information never stops. It pushes all of us to be more thoughtful about how we understand and share what we see online.
Thank you for presenting such meaningful ideas. Your post encouraged me to think more deeply about how much our communication world has changed and how much it continues to shape our everyday lives.
I strongly agree with your framing of convergence as both a top-down and bottom-up process, and the bottom-up nature of power and creation is the aspect I find most compelling. The idea that cultural influence and meaning-making can originate from ordinary individuals, rather than only from institutions or corporations, feels both hopeful and necessary. I am especially drawn to moments when an average person’s voice goes viral for the right reasons.
A current example for me is a woman named Quinn in Wisconsin, who posts under the TikTok handle @_wisconsquinn. She is creating a series of videos raising concerns about the rapid expansion of data centers in the state. Her work exemplifies participatory culture and collective intelligence in action. She is articulate, evidence-based, and transparent in her process, sharing screenshots and publicly available information that suggest possible campaign donation connections and highlight how easily data center projects can move forward with limited public awareness.
This is where the bottom-up nature of convergence becomes most powerful. Through resharing, commenting, and discussion, viewers collectively extend her reach and accelerate the circulation of her message. Social media becomes a site of shared knowledge-building rather than passive consumption, allowing individuals to influence public discourse, challenge institutional silence, and contribute meaningfully to civic awareness. I love it! 🙂
The point about participatory culture is definitely something different from even when I was young. Admittedly I am substantially older than an undergraduate student (35), but in the years since my childhood, the way we interact with the systems mentioned in this post have changed dramatically and almost exclusively because of what is explained in the remainder of the post.
Where we once arguably defaulted to accepting information provided by “authorities,” we now interact with the information more. We have the opportunity to comment on nearly everything, to fight with our neighbors about what’s happening at city hall when they post about their newest referendum or a stranger in New York when CNN posts about immigration action. I would almost argue there are virtually no rules rather than that we do not understand them. For example, where we may have once expected to discuss things in a public meeting with those who cared enough to show up, I’m called a “corny, adult braces-wearing moron” instead of being credited as someone with a degree in Political Science in an internet discussion. We’ve removed the human element from our news stories, too, not pausing before attacking the people at their core in an effort to feel involved in all of it. We take that “each of us knows something” without always recognizing the “none of us can know everything” part.
Put simply, we now view ourselves as the authorities much of the time, even where we are not. Questioning authority has perhaps gone a bit too far (although at its core, it is good and should continue).
Collective meaning-making has completely shifted how power works because knowledge isn’t only held by experts or institutions anymore, or at least it doesn’t feel that way. Instead, meaning is created in real time by a lot of people sharing bits and pieces of information, reacting together, and building narratives as things unfold. That can be powerful in a good way, because it allows people to collaborate, challenge authority, and feel more engaged with the world around them. But it also comes with some serious drawbacks.
Social media is where this really starts to drive me nuts. The same platforms that allow collective intelligence to thrive have also made everyone think they’re an expert on everything. The idea that “we all know something” has slowly morphed into “I know enough,” which is not the same thing. There’s this overwhelming confidence that comes from seeing a few TikToks, reading a thread, or skimming a headline, and suddenly people feel qualified to weigh in on religion, education, law, politics, science, and war with zero actual understanding of how some of those systems work.
And don’t even get me started on the “I did my own research” crowd. Research is not a Google search. It’s not reading the AI overview at the top of the page and calling it a day. Actual research involves context, methodology, peer review, and an understanding of bias, including your own. But convergence culture rewards speed and certainty, not depth or nuance, so the loudest and most confident voices often carry more weight than the most informed ones.
So while collective meaning-making has absolutely changed how institutions operate by forcing them to respond to public interpretation and participation, it’s also blurred the line between informed contribution and pure opinion. Collective intelligence has real potential, but only if people recognize the limits of what they know instead of assuming access to information automatically equals understanding.
Social media has become such an evolution – heck, I remember when you needed an .edu email to access a Facebook account! It is remarkable to reflect on what social media’s initial intentions and goals were during its inception compared to the information, community, and revenue generating machines they have become today.
I saw a social media post the other day that was coined with the phrase “learn with your eyes” — it led me to think about all of the information that circles around us each and every day. How can we even begin to decipher truth from not. There is a preconceived notion that information no longer has to be sought out, it is merely delivered to the palm of your hand.
Before the collected dependence of social media, we did our own research, we read the newspaper, we watched the news. We took it upon ourselves to be informed. Now, what choice do we have to not have information forced to us?
I often wonder with the established social media algorithm, are we positioned to only receive information that social media thinks we want to know? Speaking for myself, I want to see it all and proceed to make my own decision.
This conversation is powerful and something that pertains to us all.