The following article is based on the keynote lecture which Henry Jenkins (Provost’s Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California) presented a few years ago at the National Media Education Conference in Saint Louis.
Jenkins is the principal investigator for Project New Media Literacies (NML), a group which originated as part of the MacArthur Digital Media and Learning Initiative. Jenkins wrote a white paper on learning in a participatory culture that has become the springboard for the group’s efforts to develop and test educational materials focused on preparing students for engagement with the new media landscape. He also continues to be actively involved with the Convergence Culture Consortium, a faculty network which seeks to build bridges between academic researchers and the media industry in order to help inform the rethinking of consumer relations in an age of participatory culture. And he is working at USC to develop a new research project focused on young people, participatory culture, and public engagement.
In this article, he explores Wikipedia and its role in today’s information society, and what it can teach us about the new media literacies.