Photoshop for Democracy: The New Relationship between Politics and Pop Culture

In his chapter about the media convergence in the 2008 Presidential election, Jenkins turns from popular culture to public culture. he gives the example of the "Trump fires Bush" video, in which Donald Trump directs his notorious "You're fired!" slogan at then President George W. Bush. The video was created by a progressive grassroots group called True Majority, hoping to increase voter participation in the upcoming election and promote their leftist leanings. Given the widespread distrust of major news networks (often accused of bipartisanship and questionable business interests), voters felt better served by grassroots media groups like True Majority. Normal citizens, not professional journalists, took on a new responsibility for educating the public and inspired them to vote. Jenkins uses the example of the 2008 Presidential election as an example in which citizens were doing the work of the campaign.

Jenkins introduces the concept of "serious fun" - grassroots internet users' ability to use humor in order to make a political statement and reach large numbers of people. Anyone with an internet connection can now voice their political opinion and in turn shape the voting decisions of other citizens as well. The inability, or failure, or corporate media to interact with citizens this way emphasized the power of grassroots media. Traditional networks can't post a clip of Donald Trump firing someone - but they can report on the story of True Majority's video going viral and reaching citizens around the country. In the 2008 election, we began to see the grassroots media and traditional media interact in new ways - while grassroots media lack the professional journalistic credibility and serious tone, corporate media outlets deal with business interests and growing partisanship. One media platform did not eliminate the other the work together to provide the public with more information. In deciphering this vast amount of information, consumers create their own "personal mythology" and form decisions on who to vote for. The participatory culture Jenkins describes allowed for a convergence between these two kinds of media and allowed more voices to be heard in the public sphere.