The Culture of Convergence in the Framework of the Anglo-Saxon Debate between Political Economy of Communication and Cultural Studies

Abstract

During the 1990s, a controversy developed within communication studies in the English-speaking world between representatives of Cultural Studies and referents of the Political Economy of Communication field. In 2014, in the Spanish-speaking world, this debate returned to the academic scene through Christian Fuchs, who developed a questioning of three books ascribed to the Cultural Studies. The purpose of this paper is, first, to systematize the original debate and then, to carry out the same operation with its most recent version. Finally, to project both controversies on Henry Jenkins' approach to the "culture of convergence". It is understood that the significance of this analytical operation resides in the fact that this category assumes in an extreme form the proposals of Cultural Studies that are the object of the questioning of the Political Economy of Communication. These issues highlight the importance of analyzing communication and culture from this perspective.