Participatory Culture

According to Jenkins (2006), "The term participatory culture contrasts with older notions of passive media spectatorship. Rather than talking about media producers and consumers as occupying separate roles, we might now see them as participants who interact with each other according to a new set of rules..." (p. 3).

"In the classroom, scaffolding is provided by the teacher. In participatory culture, the entire community takes on some responsibility for helping newbies find their way" (p. 187).

Rheingold (2012) reports that in 2006 Henry Jenkins and his team wrote a white paper called "Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century" which defined participatory culture as having: "1. relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, 2. strong support for creating and sharing creations with others, 3. some type of informal mentorship whereby what is know by the most experienced is passed along to novices, 4. members who believe that their contributions matter, and 5. members who feel some degree of social connection with one another (at the least, they care what other people think about what they have created)" (p. 113). Rheingold (2012) builds on this and states, "Participatory culture is one in which a significant portion of the population, not just a small professional guild, can participate in the production of cultural materials ranging from encyclopedia entries to videos watched by millions. And it is a culture populated by people who believe they have some degree of power" (p. 115).

According to Jenkins, "A politics of participation starts from an assumption that we may have greater collective bargaining power if we form consumption communities" (p. 260)..."The new model is that we are collectively changing the nature of the marketplace, and in doing so we are pressuring companies to change the products they are creating and the ways they relate to their consumers" (p. 261).

Participation inequalities are complicated by race class, and language differences (p. 269).

"New forms of participatory culture how we see ourselves" (p. 279).

Although Rainie and Wellman don't use the term participatory culture, they do use the term participation. Participants are one of four cultures that have shaped the internet (Rainie and Wellman, 2012, p.79). Participants are involved in content creation (p. 198). Creation can range from writing on a social network site to sharing photos, posting comments, remixing online material (p. 199), contributing to Wikis like Wikipedia (p. 201), tagging photos (i.e. Library of Congress) (p. 201), and coordinating protesting (i.e. Arab Spring) (p. 209). Many times this involves interaction with those outside of one's network (p. 200). People also participate to contribute to their identity and branding (p. 216), for self-expression (p. 217); to learn, collaborate, and connect (p. 218); for more empowerment (p. 219), and for popularity in hopes of fame or recognition (p. 220). Ultimately, participation "reshuffles the relationship between experts and amateurs and reconfigures the ways that people can exert influence in the world" (p. 220).

References:

Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York: New York University Press.

Rainie, H. & Wellman, B. (2012). Networked: The New Social Operating System. Cambridge: MIT.

Rheingold, H. (2012). Net Smart : How to Thrive Online. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press.