Henry Jenkins Finds a New Audience in Hollywood
Posted by Christine C.at 8:41 am on November 24, 2009 • Leave a comment
USC professor Henry Jenkins talks “transmedia” storytelling and new media literacy with the L.A. Times.
The L.A. Times profiles University of Southern California professor Henry Jenkins, who recently joined USC after 20 years of teaching at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he directed the Comparative Media Studies program.
“I spent the first 20 years of my academic life at MIT in the midst of the digital revolution, and I thought it would be fascinating to spend the second 20 years in Hollywood, observing the other side of the equation,” Jenkins, now officially the provost’s professor of communication, journalism and cinematic arts, tells the Times.
Larry Gross, director of the school of communication at USC, says that media studies scholars often have “a kind of contempt for the audience,” but Jenkins “is someone who views the audience as active participants and creative participants, who don’t simply accept what is happening to them.”
Times writer Zachary Pincus-Roth describes Jenkins’ work on how audiences engage with media through the Internet, fan fiction and video games, and the reach of his scholarship is other areas:
Jenkins’ study of audiences goes beyond pop culture. His other class this semester is on new media literacy, an area where he applies what he knows about audiences to improving education.
“A kid learns 200 Pokemon characters and their relationship to each other, and the schools are saying kids can’t possibly learn the pantheon of Greek gods,” Jenkins says. “Many kids in America have a richer intellectual life outside of school than they have inside.”
Jenkins is working with the MacArthur Foundation to create curricula that would improve new-media literacy. In one of his pilot programs, for instance, students studied “Moby-Dick” by updating the novel’s Wikipedia page.
Spotlight recently wrote about the new literacies Jenkins has identified that children must learn to master in addition to the traditional literacy skills. Learn more about Jenkins’ project at NewMediaLiteracies.org. You can also check out his blog at HenryJenkins.org.
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