Journal Description
Convergence aims to encourage and advance interdisciplinary modes of enquiry into the study of the histories, trajectories, impacts, practices, pleasures and creative potential of contemporary convergent media & allied innovative technologies.
Convergence is an international peer-reviewed academic journal which was set up in 1995 to address the creative, social, political and pedagogical issues raised by the advent of new media technologies. As an international research journal, it provides a forum both for monitoring and exploring developments in the field and for encouraging, publishing and promoting vital innovative research. Adopting an inter-disciplinary approach and published six times a year, Convergence has developed this area into an entirely new research field.
Topics include:
- Convergent media: histories, cross-cultural/international contexts, emergent products
- Digital creative production (music, television, art, photography, cinema, kinetic media)
- Games, gaming and ludic technologies
- Digital media distribution
- Mobile media/content
- Extended Realities (XR) – Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality
- Local and Global Media Regulation and Infrastructure (e.g. Intellectual Property (IP), censorship, policy, platforms)
- Diversity, Inclusion and representational politics
- New techno-subjects of the anthropocene – Algorithmic, Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Life
- Democratisation of the digital economy: co-production, open access and block chain and cryptocurrency
- Distributed data, networked subjects and vulnerable publics
Access all issues of Convergence on SAGE Journals Online.
Journal Feed
- by Simone NataleConvergence, Ahead of Print. Theories of deception in digital media often rest on the assumption that deception occurs when something in the process of communication does not work as it should – due to an intention to lie, or to faults and mistakes in the communication process. Such perspectives, however, do not fully account for the more subtle practices by which deception becomes normalized in the very functioning of digital media. This article advances the concept of ‘banal deception’ to describe deceptive mechanisms and practices that are incorporated in the functioning of media technologies, to the point that they appear […]
- by Alexandra BurnusuzConvergence, Ahead of Print. Bioprinting is increasingly recognised for its substantial potential in facilitating customised artistic creations. This field, inherently interdisciplinary, enables the exploration and utilisation of novel materials, techniques, and conceptual frameworks, leading to the emergence of innovative and intellectually engaging art forms. The article refers to ‘MetabolA.I.’ and other interdisciplinary projects as examples of how theoretical and artistic reflections on possible biological or techno-biological forms of life sprout into reality through a mediation of technologies, such as bioprinting. The work on the project and subsequent research in this domain led to the development of two bioprinter prototypes, based […]
- by Marty MillerConvergence, Ahead of Print. This paper develops contemporary theorizing of vernacular screenshots by positioning them as artifacts reflecting the technological design and individual choices that allow their content to be viewed. By situating them within metapicture theory, screenshots induce a multistable perception of static image content as visibly nested within an imaging process. Screenshots, then, infer causal reasoning over how and why they exist. Several examples of screenshots are given to exercise this contextually reflective reading. Analysis of each exemplifies the theoretical stance described and aids in two contributions for this paper to existing discourse on image ontology in New […]
- by Jingrong TongConvergence, Ahead of Print. This article examines whether, how, and to what extent eighteen UK audience participants developed diagrammatic thinking while reading eleven COVID-19 data visualisations published by UK newspapers. Despite data visualisations being a prominent feature in COVID-19 news coverage, audience perception of data visualisations is a relatively new field of study. This study reveals the presence of Stuart Hall’s three types of reading (dominant, opposition or negotiated reading) in the participants’ reading, with the prominent role played by their reflections and the influence cast by their levels of data literacy and familiarity with terminologies. As an experience of […]
- by Maria K AlbertoConvergence, Ahead of Print. This article investigates gaming paratexts related to the popular tabletop roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) as heuristics. Gaming paratexts are accessible communication and media artifacts that influence what new players learn about games as cultural and ludic texts. In this work we examine ‘official' and ‘unofficial' gaming paratexts about drow, D&D’s dark elves. We highlight authorship, circulation, and accessibility as key impact factors, then identify common themes such as insider knowledge, transmission of expertise, and knowledge acquisition. This analysis reveals how – beyond information about the game itself – gaming paratexts can lead players to […]
- by Kun HeConvergence, Ahead of Print. This study examines how socially and culturally ingrained visual semiotic resources are used to demonstrate netizens’ affinities with ‘the people’ and dislikes of ‘the elite’ in expressions of online and bottom-up national populism in China. Using a methodological framework that integrates multimodal discourse analysis with a study of ideology, semiotics, and intertextuality, we study ‘weaponized’ Internet memes that were generated during three Diba Expeditions in 2016, 2018 and 2019. We identify three major social-culturally embedded visual semiotic themes: the Jiong playful style, nostalgia, and the strategic use of colour. These themes reflect the negotiation between populist […]
- by Alessandro CaliandroConvergence, Ahead of Print. In this article, I introduce a novel epistemological approach meant to re-adapt the digital methods paradigm to a fast changing digital landscape. This change was mostly brought about by the transformation of Web 2.0 into a platformized social media environment and the advent of the post-API and platform surveillance era. This approach is premised on the idea of considering the Internet user as a source of methods, rather than an object of study. To this purpose I suggest to ‘follow the user’, meaning to take advantage of the natively digital methods that Internet users employ to […]
- by Lewis TennantConvergence, Ahead of Print. This article presents a detailed overview of podcast production in New Zealand. This is the first broad survey of podcasting in New Zealand, and seemingly the first of its kind globally. It tracks the development and growth of podcasting in New Zealand from a medium pioneered by independent producers to a growing sector of the local media market. Drawing from the New Zealand Podcast Directory – an extensive database of podcasts produced from 2005 onwards – this article categorises and assesses the 722 podcasts listed, before more broadly discussing key characteristics of New Zealand’s podcast sphere. […]
- by Johan JanssonConvergence, Ahead of Print. Modern society is characterized by technological and social acceleration. Digital devices and technologies have been integrated into nearly every aspect of our lives, from the public to the personal, transforming the material, social and mental worlds at an accelerating rate. To deal with the feeling of acceleration, carefully limiting the number of choices and features in the digital devices we use every day is central in order to facilitate and sustain creativity and focus. Under the umbrella term of post-digital artifacts, there are today several examples of ‘alternative’ products that offer limited functionality as a feature […]
- by Ming ZhangConvergence, Ahead of Print. The evolution of social media platforms has provided opportunities for diasporic Chinese individuals and foreigners settled in China to transition into content creators, utilizing their transitional creator identities to negotiate algorithmic visibility and cultivate audiences with an appetite for novel or cosmopolitan interpretations of Chineseness. However, due to the stigmatization of Burmese individuals as cybercriminals, transnational influencers creating content about Myanmar has encountered a complex phenomenon fraught with challenges. In this exploratory study, we focus on the visibility labour among three transnational influencers creating content about Myanmar, examining their strategies for managing digital visibility on Douyin […]
- by Renan Petersen-WagnerConvergence, Ahead of Print. The penetration of social media platforms in the cultural production and consumption circuits of sport mega-events means that organisations like the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) are afforded new and alternative channels to engage with their audiences. TikTok, one of the largest platforms, is characterised by a higher degree of playfulness and humorous content and has been used to mobilise audiences for prosocial political aims. Using TikTok’s Research API access, this article relies on automatically collected metadata from all IPC posts between May 2023 and May 2024. After consolidating and manipulating the data through Python, statistical analyses […]
- by Bei JuConvergence, Ahead of Print. Emotions-as-practices involve an open, embodied, and meaning-making process as digital technologies can shape and transform how emotions are enacted. This study uses the concepts of emotional affordances and affective practice in digital culture to investigate the online emotional experiences of Chinese left-behind women living in a rural location. From an analysis of Douyin (TikTok) video posts and interviews with 18 participants, the study develops a notion of ‘ambivalent positivity’ manifested by overt conviviality and the repressed negativity of distress and separation. Furthermore, rural women are obligated to maintain the norm of positivity that is deeply intertwined […]
- by Federico PilatiConvergence, Ahead of Print. Should fanfiction forums be considered an instance of Digital Heritage Communities? Departing from the mainstream approach according to which Heritage Communities relate to intangible goods or material collections of Cultural Heritage Institutions (CHIs), we rather focus on the creative and cultural participatory assets enhanced by the advent of digital media (such as fanfictions) and the online communities (resp., fandoms) that support them. Here, we study by means of computational techniques the case of the Archive of Our Own (AO3), an Internet forum created and managed by fanfiction writers willing to share their work with a global […]
- by Martina Skrubbeltrang MahnkeConvergence, Volume 30, Issue 6, Page 1859-1870, December 2024. Ongoing societal datafication and, most recently, the widely noticed launch of ChatGPT, continue to raise the “user question”: what role(s) does the user play in datafied, artificial, and automated environments? Recent technological advancements have begun to challenge fundamental assumptions in media and communication theory and, thus, urge scholars to (re-)visit and (re-)examine the interrelations, dynamics, and entanglements of (human) users with datafied environments. Two rapidly expanding but still largely distinct bodies of research are addressing these topics: critical data and platform studies, primarily focusing on structural approaches, and user-centered perspectives anchored […]
- by Ri Pierce-GroveConvergence, Volume 30, Issue 6, Page 2059-2074, December 2024. In this paper, we present a transnational case study on binge-watching and media habits. The contributions of this paper are two-fold. The first contribution is methodological, proposing ‘data-prompted interviewing’, a variant of trace interviewing. Participants’ own trace data is used to help them recall their own behavior in more detail, which in turn enables them to identify gaps or flaws in trace data records. This case study, which includes sixty interviews in platform logs from YouTube, Netflix and a large self-tracking service, provides evidence that ‘data-prompted interviewing’ yields robust results. Using […]
- by Hannah DitchfieldConvergence, Volume 30, Issue 6, Page 2025-2041, December 2024. This paper explores how non-experts reflect on and come to understand ‘data uses’, a phrase we used to refer to data collection, analysis and sharing. In recent years, research into what people think and feel about data uses has proliferated, whereas this paper focuses on how they do their thinking and feeling. We argue that imagining – that is, building or creating a mental image of something that is not present – is an important aspect of reflecting on data uses. We challenge the proposition that imagining takes place when there […]
- by Ying HuangConvergence, Volume 30, Issue 6, Page 1959-1973, December 2024. Using the concepts of data reflectivity and user reflexivity, this paper explores the intricate interplay between human users and algorithms through the lens of domestication. Through the metaphor of yanghao on the Chinese digital platform Xiaohongshu (RED), this paper posits that three failure types relating to data reflectivity result in dissatisfaction with RED’s algorithmic outputs and a perceived loss of control over algorithmic identity. In response, users reflexively feed six specific types of data into the algorithm to shape its understanding of themselves. Ultimately, by strategically curating data and interacting with […]
- by Tingting HuConvergence, Ahead of Print. The censorship of Boys’ Love (BL) content in mainland China is marked by inconsistencies in both its intensity and scope. Amid these shifting regulatory boundaries, this study analyzes the systematic removal and occasional reappearance of visual BL content from the public sphere. We found that as visual channels are most susceptible to suppression, audio – though still monitored – emerges as a crucial medium, leveraging the agentive power of sound and media remediation to sustain fan engagement with BL narratives. Focusing on Miss Evan, a Chinese audio streaming platform, we explore how it navigates state censorship […]
- by Gitte BallingConvergence, Ahead of Print. During the COVID-19 pandemic, TikTok quickly became an important source for connection and entertainment, as people made creative videos and participated in TikTok challenges. The app’s affordances contributed to the emergence of sub-communities, including BookTok, which connected readers across a sociotechnical landscape, and launched backlist titles onto best-seller lists. Using interviews with publishers and booksellers in Denmark and the United States, observations of booksellers’ in-store BookTok displays, and analysis of content created by publishers and online influencers on BookTok, this study examines how BookTok disrupts Darnton’s (1982) Communications Circuit and its subsequent revisions. It explores the […]
- by Martina Skrubbeltrang MahnkeConvergence, Volume 30, Issue 6, Page 1974-1991, December 2024. Following the widely noticed launch of ChatGPT 3.5 in November 2022, an unprecedented number of users have started to experiment with generative AI for communication purposes. Prior studies have shown how users are commodified by platforms, and the unprecedented development of generative AI raises hence once again questions of platform dynamics vs user agency. In this study, we argue that platformized generative AI (GenAI) actively ‘talks back’ to their users, prompting them to act accordingly. Theoretically, we develop the concept of data reflectivity as a critical lens, showing that users exhibit […]