Henry Jenkins posts a previous article of his on the issues of how corporate media strategies and grassroots efforts among consumers to control media investments collide.

This essay focuses on the resulting reworking of the “moral economy” that shapes the relations between producers and consumers. “Moral economy” refers to the social expectations, emotional investments, and cultural transactions which create a shared understanding between all participants within an economic exchange. The moral economy which governed old media companies has broken down and there are conflicting expectations about what new relationships should look like. The risks for companies are high, since alienated consumers have other options for accessing media content. The risks for consumers are equally high, since legal sanctions can stifle the emerging participatory culture.

The proposal in this thesis is as follows:

Our contention is that this research increasingly needs to adopt a comparative or transmedia approach because of the increased flow of media content and audiences across every available platform and the speed with which developments in one media sector impact thinking in every other corner of the entertainment industry.

This is sure to be worth a continued reading since it deals with the sources of cultural production in any technologically advanced society such as the US.

Think of the phenomenon in 1994 with OJ Simpson’s infamous “slow ride” in the white Chevy Blazer.  As people watched the media that corporate news projected, they went outside to participate in the event as this demonic version of the ice cream van passed down their street.  This signaled the first obvious collapse in the boundary between content and consumer.

Cultural production from instant video feeds, instant participation in online environments, and media allowing any consumer to produce competitive media rivaling corporate cultural production makes for a fascinating phenomenon in the objectification of cultural structures of meaning.