Henry Jenkins

Henry Jenkins is Provost’s Professor of Communication, Journalism and Cinematic Arts at USC. He is author of Convergence Culture (2006) and has co-authored or edited more than a dozen books on the media. His forthcoming book with Sam Ford and Joshua Green, Spreadable Media, will be published in 2012. He formed the Participatory Culture and Learning Lab at USC. Prior to joining the university, Henry co-directed MIT’s Program in Comparative Media Studies.

What Henry will be doing at DIY DAYS

If It Doesn’t Spread, It’s Dead

Distribution has historically described a process for spreading media content which is top down, planned, and controlled and which independent filmmakers had trouble entering. Circulation refers to an emerging, hybrid system where the spread of media is partially shaped by the authorized and unauthorized behavior of consumers. What new opportunities does this still evolving world of spreadable content pose for those who create media outside or on the margins of the established industry? How can indie media makers more effectively court online communities who may be invested in their work? And what is the value of sharing content rather than seeking to tightly control its afterlife?

DIY DAYS asks Henry

What are you currently working on that you’re excited about?

With my co-authors Sam Ford and Joshua Green, I am finishing up my forthcoming book, Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture, which will come out from New York University Press in Fall 2012. This book reflects the conversations we’ve been having between academics and industry over the past seven years through the Convergence Culture Consortium and especially through our Futures of Entertainment Conferences at MIT and the Transmedia Hollywood events that have been hosted jointly between USC and UCLA out here in Los Angeles. We hope this book will spark more reflection and conversation about the shifting relations between media producers and their publics and especially help those who have been locked out of established industry practices to recognize and tap into the value of spreadability for extending the audience for their work.

What are some of your favorite sites and / or mobile apps and brief why?

Right now, I am getting really excited about the possibilities of expanded ebooks for all kinds of publishing. Right now, we are simply trying to reproduce the experience of reading a printed book on the Kindle or the iPad, an experience which, apart from making it easier to carry our books around when we travel, does nothing to enhance the reading experience. In fact, they had trouble reproducing the sidebar features from my Convergence Culture book on the Kindle, even though they were designed to create through print the multithread experiences we have on the web. But, the folks at the Annenberg Innovation Lab are starting to explore how books can become media-rich experiences with new affordances and new relationships with their public. So, most of my favorite apps at the moment are still under develop, but these guys are doing things which will knock your socks off. And I am excited to be now starting work on my next book project which will be born multimedia and will be serialized, chapter by chapter, as a series of apps for the iPad.

What are you currently watching, reading or playing?

My habits as a media consumer are expansive, so I always have trouble answering questions like this. This summer, my passions for silent films have been seriously re-awakened, especially through my attendance of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts’ extraordinary Summer of Silents series, and I am working my way through the box set of Murnau, Borzage, and Fox films (how geeky and obscure can you get). At the same time, I am eagerly anticipating the launch of the new fall television series — including the return of The Walking Dead and Castle, not to mention the launch of Persons of Interest, Pan-Am, 2 Broke Girls, and Prime Suspect. On the independent side of things, my favorite from this summer was the low budget British scifi film, Attack the Block, though this summer was spectacular for genre movies across the board. And as for comics, I would pimp for The Unwritten, Locke and Key, and Daytripper (in terms of major publishers) and Special Exits and You’ll Never Know (in terms of independent titles).

For More on Henry and his work visit

Project:@henryjenkins
Site:Confessions of an Aca-Fan