"What holds a collective intelligence together in not the possession of knowledge, which is relatively static, but the social process of acquiring knowledge, which is dynamic and participatory, continually testing and reaffirming the group's social ties" (54).
In Jenkins' chapter on the reality TV show Survivor, he examines a spoiler website ChillOne. Dedicated followers of the show go to great lengths to try to reveal what will happen in the next episode. This is a particularly good example of Jenkins' theory of convergence because it involves a group of active consumers who pool their knowledge to try to figure out what will happen on the show before it airs. Each individual fan, brings their own "personal mythology" to the site in order to contribute to a collective intelligence. The community of fans forms around their shared interest in the show. The quote above expresses the extent to which these fans create a knowledge community. Despite their lack of expertise on the subject - these are ordinary people - they come together to try to understand the information, or show, they love to watch.
Jenkins' Survivor example works so well because we see consumers taking a role in the franchise. As a result, corporate producers of the show struggle to maintain the mystery of a cliffhanger, and design the show around grassroots fan response. The ChillOne community became so good at predicting what would happen in future episodes, that Survivor's corporate producer worried that they were taking the away the right of other consumers to have a so-called "first-time experience" watching the show. The participatory culture of fans on the internet is both a result of the success of the show (it's ability to attract an extremely enthusiastic fan base), but also challenges its creators and producers to rethink the way they do their job.
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