Media Scholar Henry Jenkins on Participatory Culture and Civic Engagement

Henry Jenkins is the Provost's Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. He arrived at USC in Fall 2009 after spending the past decade as the Director of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities. He is the author and/or editor of 12 books on various aspects of media and popular culture. A couple key questions Jenkins asks in his research are: "How do we go from participating in our culture to participating in our political and civic structures? [...] What does it mean to be as passionate about the future of society as you are about anime, about games, about the sort of forms of popular culture that young people are involved with?" (2:42) (3:19) Henry was one of the first media scholars to chart the changing role of the audience in an environment of increasingly pervasive digital content, and has been at the forefront of understanding the effects of participatory media on society, politics and culture. His research gives key insights to the success of: social networking websites, networked computer games, online fan communities, advocacy organizations, and emerging news media outlets. Henry Jenkins blogs at http://www.henryjenkins.org and is a prominent member of the MacArthur Network on Youth and Participatory Politics (YPP). To learn more about the YPP network, go to http://ypp.dmlcentral.net.