Henry Jenkins Quotes & Sayings

Humans do not engage in activities that are meaningless. If you think you see people doing things you find meaningless, look again and try to understand what the activities mean for them. — Henry Jenkins

That changes your whole perception of the film, your perception of the ending ... The challenge for us, especially with the Lord of the Rings is how do we deliver that one piece of information that makes you look at the films differently? — Henry Jenkins

Just as we would not traditionally assume that someone is literate if they can read but not write, we should not assume that someone possesses media literacy if they can consume but not express themselves — Henry Jenkins

When politicians like Sen. Joseph Lieberman target video game violence, perhaps it is to distract attention from the material conditions that give rise to a culture of domestic violence, the economic policies that make it harder for most of us to own our own homes, and the development practices which pave over the old grasslands and forests. Video games did not make backyard play spaces disappear; rather, they offer children some way to respond to domestic confinement. — Henry Jenkins

Although we've used the concept brand communities a couple of times, it's important to reiterate that communities aren't created, they are courted. Most brands will need to court a range of different communities and travel across pools, webs, and hubs if they want to reach the full range of desired consumers. — Henry Jenkins

Hello. My name is Henry. I am a fan. Somewhere in the late 1980s', I got tired of people telling me to get a life. I wrote a book instead — Henry Jenkins

The worst thing a kid can say about homework is that it is too hard. The worst thing a kid can say about a game is it's too easy. — Henry Jenkins

In a hunting society, children play with bows and arrows. In an information society, children play with information — Henry Jenkins

Fandom, after all, is born of a balance between fascination and frustration: if media content didn't fascinate us, there would be no desire to engage with it; but if it didn't frustrate us on some level, there would be no drive to rewrite or remake it. — Henry Jenkins

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Reports on Digital Media and Learning, published by the MIT Press, present findings from current research on how young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life. — Henry Jenkins

From American Idol to The Matrix participatory media - where old and new media converge by involving fans - is influencing our culture by creating new forms of interactive storytelling. Yet by enabling people to participate in such various media they can converge as a crowd to alter the story to create new modes of engagement, some not necessarily endorsed by the creator - or the brands that back them. — Henry Jenkins

If old consumers were assumed to be passive, then new consumers are active. If old consumers were predictable and stayed where you told them, then new consumers are migratory, showing a declining loyalty to networks or media. If old consumers were isolated individuals, then new consumers are more socially connected. If the work of media consumers was once silent and invisible, then new consumers are now noisy and public. — Henry Jenkins

We want to raise a generation of kids who have a mouse in one hand and a book in the other, — Henry Jenkins

Piracy often reflects market failures on the part of producers rather than moral failures on the part of consumers. — Henry Jenkins

Our focus should not be on emerging technologies, but on emerging cultural practices. — Henry Jenkins

The key is to produce something that both pulls people together and gives them something to do. — Henry Jenkins

Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment experience. Ideally, each medium makes its own unique contribution to the unfolding of the story. — Henry Jenkins

Participatory culture shifts the focus of literacy from one of individual expression to community involvement. — Henry Jenkins

When I first started you would pitch a story because without a good story, you didn't really have a film. Later, once sequels started to take off, you pitched a character because a good character could support multiple stories. and now, you pitch a world because a world can support multiple characters and multiple stories across multiple media. — Henry Jenkins

Anthropologist Mary Douglas (1991) examines the very thin line separating a joke from an insult: a joke expresses something a community is ready to hear; an insult expresses something it doesn't want to consider. — Henry Jenkins

Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of owned by the folk. — Henry Jenkins