Reading 2- Meredith Reed

While Henry Jenkins contends that convergence is a recent phenomenon and specifically targets media, I find that the most fascinating is the lack of privacy an artist has once his/her art is published on the internet. The meaning of the message immediately changes once the art is in the hands of someone with a large political agenda, but audiences with the original image could argue that the artist had an agenda himself.

With the use of appropriation and convergence, any form of media can take a message published for public consumption. One recent use of convergence comes from the Jimmy Kimmel show.

Jimmy Kimmel Stunt

Several news programs took the first half of the program to highlight the dangers of twerking, in order to spark interest in their audience and increase viewership. Gif and memes were made out of this video to highlight the ignorance of  pop culture only to find out it was hoax. While the "Bert is Evil" art project sparked more public controversy, there is a definite push towards lack of privacy and appropriation of messages to fit the agenda-setting messages of popular media today.