The black box fallacy according to Henry Jenkins is a concept that in the future there will not be one single black box that holds all the operations that everyday technology has. Within Jenkins reading he calls the concept, “… a fallacy because it reduces media change to technological change” (pg.15). By thinking of all the “little black boxes” a person might have in there house it is astronomical amount: cell phone, Xbox, play station, computer, desktop, television, and etc. To put all of these together would be a surgery-like task that only the top techies could achieve. To detail the mess of all the black boxes Henry Jenkins said, “The mass tangle of cords that sits behind your “home entertainment” center reflects the incompatibility and dysfunction that exist between the various media technologies” (pg. 15). The pile of black boxes is ultimately not going to converge into one singular “black box,” but is more simply a technological shift. The technological shift can be called, media convergence, which modifies the connection between existing technologies.
As technologies continue to advance it is hard not to believe that one big black box could fix everything. Henry Jenkins black box fallacy seemingly is correct but, with smart phones becoming more capable of doing computer-like operations it is hard to believe. In an article from mnsbc.com, McAfee security has made an all-access security system which involves smart phones within its plan. Having the ability to put a security system on your phone makes it more like a computer. For another example, wired.com posted, the military has always wanted a computer out on the battlefield for its mapping capabilities. Instead of wearing eight pounds of equipment, the army is now reconsidering using a smart phone, which would weigh a couple ounces, for its mapping. Smart phones aren’t the only black box starting to collaborate with other technologies. Look at the Sony play station 3, it incorporates a blu-ray player along with it videogame ability. The technological world has yet to come up with just one black box but, with some of these examples it does not seem hard to believe that there will be one device one day.
Jon, I really think that the examples you've presented in your blog post effectively communicate the Black Box Fallacy that Jenkins discusses in his essay. However, you can sharpen your reading of his argument by perhaps talking about media convergence in more depth. Media convergence modifies the connections between old and new media. It is more than just technological change, it has social, cultural and political forces at play here as well. Your media examples drive home the important point about Jenkins' primary argument in that different factions of society are learning how to incorporate new media into the preexisting ways of doing things.
ReplyDelete