Tis the Season

Participatory culture is a direct opposition to consumer culture. Participatory culture is the concept of creating something to add to current culture, often from something else which previously existed. Rather than just buying or using something that was already there.

Our Society has a similar concept with presents given from children to parents at Christmas. Kids are encouraged to make their own gifts. Partially because they have neither money, nor private access to stores; partially because of the sentimental value attached, but nonetheless the thought of creating rather than consuming is still inherent. It’s funny that such a present making relationship isn’t reciprocal. I suppose kids are a bit too overwhelmed with consumerism to fully appreciate a created item as equal.

Participatory culture takes a number of forms. A common one is people making remixes, a creation of new music from a combination of older music. Though any cultural creation counts. My class has a wiki, which is like a personal sharing space where the whole class can make pages and contribute, similar to Wikipedia. The wiki, even Wikipedia itself are both participatory culture. They contribute to a knowledge base.

Blogs can also count, in a similar respect to remixes. Blogs take old knowledge and information, and create and propagate new ideas. Good blogs, blogs that really seek to make changes in the world, blogs that move beyond the occasional rants about what bugs the author about society, those blogs are participatory. A true blog, one which is not merely used as a proliferation medium, uses analysis and critical thinking in its posts. For this reason all blogs in this course are graded for such. I believe these are the grade determiners because without those elements of refinement, a medium such as this loses its worth. For a blog to truly be participatory culture it must present something that is not already disseminated everywhere else.

Like in all other participatory media, a blog author such as myself must strive to create something unique, something that gives the reader new ideas and forces them to re-examine previous beliefs. That is my contribution to participatory culture.