In Henry Jenkins’ writing “Worship at the Altar of Convergence,” He claims that the union of media is not the technology itself but the culture. However, I believe his “black box fallacy” is possible. As time passed, technology has grown exponentially around the universe. Well, I think today’s consumers and producers try to make the “black box” because that is what our society desires. Therefore, I believe Jenkins’ fallacy is possible up to a certain point.
In my opinion, I would say the 3G phones like Blackberry and iPhone would be the predecessors of the emerging “black box” in the future. In today’s society these phones allows people to call, take pictures, surf the web, watch TVs, and etc. Especially for the iPhone it allows the people to create new applications which they want or need. Also, it is a perfect example of convergence of technology of a phone and an iTouch that was created by Apple few years ago. What surprises me is that the cutting edge technology has come to a point where we could even use the internet with a mobile phone considering that the internet was invented less than two decades ago. Now, the technology “evolves” in our hands into something that we can’t even imagine.
Considering the improvement of technology and although the convergence of media and the invention of the “black box” seem imminent, I don’t think it would be that simple creating a “perfect” device. Even though the society always crave for convenience and mobility, there will always be conservative people who will not accept the new media, or those who can’t keep up with technology due to lack of skills and knowledge. Just like my grandparents who prefer non-electronic things like mails rather than e-mails, some people wouldn’t be able to follow the improvement of the technology. Thus, People wouldn’t be able to agree to a point for a single “black box” but rather several universal devices customized to each individual’s usage.
As a citizen of Korea, where cutting edge technology is omnipresent around the city, I have always anticipated for new products and new capabilities of machines. I believe that the culture forms the technology and vice versa. Society would always need better technology and the technology will help us better our lives. Consequently, we will make our lives better and make this global world a better place with improving technology.
