"Introduction: 'Worship at the Altar of Convergence'"

1) Convergence happens in the communication and media fields because of individual consumers and the way they communicate and interact through social media.

The two conditions that lead to convergence are corporate strategies and consumer’s active participation.

2) The three different kinds of digital convergence discussed in the article are media convergence, participatory culture, and collective intelligence. 

Media Convergence is when every important story gets told, every brand gets sold, and every consumer gets courted across multiple media platforms.

Participatory Culture represents a cultural shift, as consumers are encouraged to seek out new information and make connections among dispersed media content.

Collective Intelligence is when everyone puts together what they know and combine it.

3) The cultural and social impacts that digital convergence has in addition to technological changes are being able to connect with people whenever or wherever you are either good or bad. For example in the chapter the author uses the example of a couples that stay in contact all the time even though they might be miles away. They eat together, sleep together, wake up together, etc. because of their access to technology. Another example the author uses is a bad way that this technology can be used. Like teens using their phones to record people doing bad things while intoxicated and then putting them up on the Internet for everyone to see.

4) The new media does not displace the old media in the history of media development because each old form of media had to coexist with the emerging media. Their functions are shifted by the introduction of the new technologies.

5) The top-down corporate level and bottom-up grassroots level changed the traditional concept of media consumption by building more relationships between consumers and media producers.

6) For journalism professionals it means that they need to adapt to the fast changing technology. One machine can control most jobs, which means fewer jobs for everyone.