Residual Culture

Yes! Chapter 3 in Jenkins was such a pleasure to read because it's something that I have been thinking about for a while now. In our communication classes, we often talk about how easy it is to access things from the past thanks to the internet. For example, in the earlier days, the moment you saw an event or something at an event, heard something on the radio, or even watched something on television, that was it. However, with new new media, everything is readily available. Once something has been seen or heard then it is forever going to be available for the public to use. One of the interesting things that Jenkins talks about is how corporations have tried for so long to be in control of the circulation of goods. Jenkins says, "In both uses, residual refers to the economic value generated through the after-life of material objects and media performances. Objects and texts are never fully emptied of value—whether exchange, use, symbolic, or sentimental. These multiple meanings of residual suggest that these materials' ongoing sentimental and symbolic interest may still generate profit long after their initial exchange and use-value has vanished from our memories" (Jenkins, 42). Basically, today's technology has made it even easier to bring value to things from the past. 

There are many examples of Residual Culture that Jenkins presented in this chapter. However, the section on wrestling is what stood out to me. He discussed how wrestling fans were responsible for the humongous wrestling industry that we know of today. With the help of newer technology, wrestling fans from different regions were able to see how different wrestling was across the country. Fans began to compare tapes from different regions, meet other fans, have discussions, and make complaints. This meant that promoters were put in a tough situation if one region had better quality shows than another. This lead to the merging of two of the largest regions, and created the wrestling we know of today. Instead of wrestling just fading into the background as just a fad, fans helped to turn it into a supersport.

In this class, we have discussed how new new media has taken control from the corporations and put it back in the hands of the consumers. In other words, the relationship between the consumer and seller has changed dramatically over the years. Before it seems as if products were just offered to the consumer without any of their input. Now, the consumer is the driving force in terms of what motivates the creation of new products, revision of old products, and the return of forgotten products. Jenkins, in continuation of the last quote, says, " Media producers have historically acted as if they needed to protect their franchise from the rough handling of their fans, seeing them as potentially depreciating the value of their intellectual property by changing its meaning in popular perception. Yet, our exploration of the residual here suggests the opposite—that fans appreciate media properties, both in the sense that they like them and also that they thus make them a site of emotional investments" (Jenkins, 42).  Media producers don't have control over the consumers anymore, and there is not really anything they can do about it. There's still laws and restrictions that attempt to stop the fans from having power, but there is no stopping the consumer these days. For example, Jenkins talks about how fans have created a modern platform where they can play old video games from older platforms on modern devices. Marketers are finally realizing that there is value in the retro, now they just need to listen to the consumers and fans. 

Consumer Change