Convergence culture is not only different channels of distribution or platforms connected to each other but it is a process of cultural transformation that impacts the media industry today. This process involves the possibilities of action and participation of the users and the coexistence of new media. Jenkins refers to convergence to the content that flows through the multiple media platforms, the collaboration between media companies and the participatory audience.
Grassroots creativity is reemerging as everyday people take advantage of new technologies that enable them to archive, annotate, appropriate and recirculate media content. As Jenkins explains, this creativity probably started with the photocopier or the videocassette giving public access to moviemaking tools from their own homes. With the rapid web evolution things have changed; nowadays is more fun to create and share your work with others. The web provides an infrastructure that allows sharing things we are creating at home. Some of the stuff that individuals create is relatively good to the point that media companies become interested in the works; their creativity is then polished and become more valuable.
Before, nobody minded if a song or video was copied and shared with friends, today these transactions made on YouTube represent a threat to record companies and other organizations. Today’s law has created confusion in teens who do not know where to draw the lines and even media companies confuse fans because they cannot decide what kind of relationship they want to establish with their fans. Jenkins provides two characteristic responses of media industries to grassroots creations; the prohibitionists who criminalize fans for sharing their creativity on YouTube and the collaborationists who allow fans to become collaborators in the production.