Page 57 - Cultural Studies Dictionary

DICTIONARY OF CULTURAL STUDIES

are more active and creative in relation to magazines and other forms of consumer
culture than she had given them credit for. She points to the productive, validating
and inventive bricolage of fashion style that women originate and to the dynamic
34 character of shopping as an enabling activity.
Ironically, as Willis has argued, it is capitalism and the expansion of consumerism
that have provided the increased supply of symbolic resources for young people’s
creative work. Capitalism (in the world of work) may be that from which escape is
sought but it also provides the means and medium (in the domain of consumption)
by which to do so. Thus, it is argued that the consumption practices of youth
cultures are able to offer resistance to the apparent passivity and conformity of
consumer culture.

Links Active audience, commodification, common culture, ideology, popular culture,
resistance

Convergence The concept of convergence, that is the coming together or joining of
previously discrete items, has taken on a particular set of meanings during the 1990s
in the context of changes within the communications industries and their related
technologies. One use of the concept of convergence refers to the breaking down
of barriers between technologies that had once been separate. For example, this can
be seen in the merging of television sets and computers to produce PC-TV and the
super-information highway. That is, television with built-in computers linked to
cable which will allow us to order and pay for shopping, transfer e-money, keep an
eye on our bank accounts, call up a selection of films and search the Internet for
information.
To a considerable extent this kind of convergence has been enabled by digital
technology that organizes information electronically into bytes or discrete bundles
of information that can be compressed during transmission and decompressed on
arrival. This enables more information to travel down any given conduit (be that
cable, satellite or terrestrial signals) at greater speed over larger distances. The impact
of new technologies in general, and digital processes in particular, can be summed
up in terms of speed, volume and distance. That is, more information at greater
speed over larger distances.
The concept of convergence also refers to the consequences of the re-structuring
of the communications industries so that corporate activities, and corporations, that
had been distinct have come together in order to accrue for themselves the benefits
that flow from synergy. This involves bringing together the various elements of the
communications industries at the levels of production and distribution so that they
complement each other to produce lower costs and higher profits. Indeed, it is
becoming apparent that the technologies having the most impact are those
concerned with distribution. Organizations that control the distribution
mechanisms are eclipsing the power of producers because no one is willing to
commit expensive resources to a project that has not secured a distribution
agreement. For this reason, traditional producers are becoming distributors and vice
versa.