Participatory culture

Participatory culture is an opposing concept to consumer culture — in other words a culture in which private individuals (the public) do not act as consumers only, but also as contributors or producers (prosumers). The term is most often applied to the production or creation of some type of published media. Recent advances in technologies (mostly personal computers and the Internet) have enabled private persons to create and publish such media, usually through the Internet. Since the technology now enables new forms of expression and engagement in public discourse, participatory culture not only supports individual creation but also informal relationships that pair novices with experts. This new culture as it relates to the Internet has been described as Web 2.0. In participatory culture 'young people creatively respond to a plethora of electronic signals and cultural commodities in ways that surprise their makers, finding meanings and identities never meant to be there and defying simple nostrums that bewail the manipulation or passivity of 'consumers.'What a person can accomplish with an outdated machine in a public library with mandatory filtering software and no opportunity for storage or transmission pales in comparison to what person can accomplish with a home computer with unfettered Internet access, high band-width, and continuous connectivity.(Current legislation to block access to social networking software in schools and public libraries will further widen the participation gap.) The school system's inability to close this participation gap has negative consequences for everyone involved. On the one hand,those youth who are most advanced in media literacies are often stripped of their technologies and robbed of their best techniques for learning in an effort to ensure a uniform experience for all in the classroom. On the other hand, many youth who have had no exposure to these new kinds of participatory cultures outside school find themselves struggling to keep up with their peers. (Jenkins et al. pg. 15) Participatory culture is an opposing concept to consumer culture — in other words a culture in which private individuals (the public) do not act as consumers only, but also as contributors or producers (prosumers). The term is most often applied to the production or creation of some type of published media. Recent advances in technologies (mostly personal computers and the Internet) have enabled private persons to create and publish such media, usually through the Internet. Since the technology now enables new forms of expression and engagement in public discourse, participatory culture not only supports individual creation but also informal relationships that pair novices with experts. This new culture as it relates to the Internet has been described as Web 2.0. In participatory culture 'young people creatively respond to a plethora of electronic signals and cultural commodities in ways that surprise their makers, finding meanings and identities never meant to be there and defying simple nostrums that bewail the manipulation or passivity of 'consumers.' The increasing access to the Internet has come to play an integral part in the expansion of participatory culture because it increasingly enables people to work collaboratively; generate and disseminate news, ideas, and creative works; and connect with people who share similar goals and interests (see affinity groups). The potential of participatory culture for civic engagement and creative expression has been investigated by media scholar Henry Jenkins. In 2006, Jenkins and co-authors Ravi Purushotma, Katie Clinton, Margaret Weigel and Alice Robison authored a white paper entitled Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. This paper describes a participatory culture as one: Participatory culture has been around longer than the Internet. The emergence of the Amateur Press Association in the middle of the 19th century is an example of historical participatory culture; at that time, young people were hand typing and printing their own publications. These publications were mailed throughout a network of people and resemble what are now called social networks. The evolution from zines, radio shows, group projects, and gossips to blogs, podcasts, wikis, and social networks has impacted society greatly. With web services such as eBay, Blogger, Wikipedia, Photobucket, Facebook, and YouTube, it is no wonder that culture has become more participatory. The implications of the gradual shift from production to produsage are profound, and will affect the very core of culture, economy, society, and democracy. Forms of participatory culture can be manifested in affiliations, expressions, collaborative problem solving, and circulations. Affiliations include both formal and informal memberships in online communities such as discussion boards or social media. Expression refers to the types of media that could be created. This may manifest as memes, fan-fiction, or other forms of mash-ups. When individuals and groups work together on a particular form of media or media product, like a wiki, then they engage in collaborative problem solving. Finally, circulation refers to the means through which the communication may be spread. This could include blogs, vlogs, podcasts, and even some forms of social media. Some of the most popular apps that involve participation include: Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, Tinder, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Fan fiction creators were one of the first communities to showcase the public could participate in pop culture. Helping change, grow, and alter tv shows during their run times. As well as strengthen the series’s popularity well after the last episode aired. Some fan fiction creators develop theories and speculation about what will happen next. Other fan fiction authors create ‘new’ material, forming a life of its own outside the confines of the original content. Fans expand on the original story, putting the characters they fell in love with in the series through different adventures and sexualities. These communities are composed of audiences and readers from around the world, at different ages, with different backgrounds coming together to develop theories and possibilities about current tv shows, books, and films or expand and continue the stories of tv shows, books, and movies that have come to a close. As technology continues to enable new avenues for communication, collaboration, and circulation of ideas, it has also given rise to new opportunities for consumers to create their own content. Barriers like time and money are beginning to become less significant to large groups of consumers. For example, the creation of movies once required large amounts of expensive equipment, but now movie clips can be made with equipment that is affordable to a growing number of people. The ease with which consumers create new material has also grown. Extensive knowledge of computer programming is no longer necessary to create content on the internet. Media sharing over the Internet acts as a platform to invite users to participate and create communities that share similar interests through duplicated sources, original content, and repurposed material. People no longer blindly absorb and consume what large media corporations distribute. Today there are a great deal of people who are 'prosumers' or consumers who also produce their own media. The reason participatory culture is a high interest topic is due to the fact that there are just so many different social media platforms to participate and contribute to. These happen to be some of the leaders in the social media industry, and are the reason people are able to have such an advantage to participate in media creation. Today, millions people across the world have the ability to post, quote, film, or create whatever they want. With the aid of these platforms, the ability to reach a global audience has never been easier. Social media has become a huge factor in politics and civics in not just elections but gaining funds, spreading information, getting legislation and petition support, and other political activities. Social media makes it easier for the public to make an impact and participate in politics. This was shown in a study that showed the connection between Facebook messages among friends and how these messages influenced political expression, voting and information seeking in the 2010 United States presidential election. Social media mobilizes people easily and effectively and does the same for the circulation of information. This can-do things in politics like get support for legislation to get passed but social media can also greatly influence elections. The impact social media can have on elections was shown in the 2016 United States presidential election. In the 2016 election 115 pro Trump fake news stories were shared on Facebook 30 million times compared to 41 pro Clinton fake news stories shared 7.6 million times. This was very bad considering 62 percent of United States resident adults get news from social media and most people who see fake news takes the information as true, so many people were basing their votes on false information. Social media has gotten more people involved in politics, and this is good but how people monitor and decipher information as well as how they are mobilized politically must be improved to avoid election results being heavily influenced by fake news and misinformation. Not only has hardware increased the individual's ability to submit content to the internet so that it may be reached by a wide audience, but in addition numerous internet sites have increased access. Websites like Flickr, Wikipedia, and Facebook encourage the submission of content to the Internet. They increase the ease with which a user may post content by allowing them to submit information even if they only have an Internet browser. The need for additional software is eliminated. These websites also serve to create online communities for the production of content. These communities and their web services have been labelled as part of Web 2.0.