Defining

Participatory Culture

In the introduction of Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media

Education for the 21st Century (Jenkins et al 2009), Participatory Culture is defined as a
new culture where there are no barriers and one can learn as freely as they wish from each
other by sharing, interacting, producing, and disseminating their products. Among other
things, it is referring social media networks such as YouTube, Tumblr, Twitter etc.
American media scholar Henry Jenkins, along with many others, wants for this notion of
participatory culture to be accessible by the masses: not every member must contribute,
but all must believe they are free to contribute when ready and that what they contribute
will be appropriately valid. (Jenkins et al, 2009). He also promotes the idea of collective
intelligence and media convergence is his book Convergence Culture: Where Old and New
Media Collide (2006).

Jenkins (2009) distinguishes five characteristics to Participatory Culture. To start with, this
movement is about having relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic
engagement. Then, a strong support for creating and sharing ones creations is
important. There is also some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the
most experienced is passed along to novices. And finally, the members of Participatory
Culture believe [that] their contributions matter and feel some degree of social connection
with one another. (Jenkins et al, 2009).

On a recent interview with the authors of The Participatory Cultures Handbook, Jenkins
(2014) defines three primary kinds of participatory cultures:

- Consensus cultures: These could easily be subdivided into expert cultures where people
with specialized knowledge join together to leverage the power of collective intelligence
and democratic cultures where average citizens do the same thing.
- Creative cultures: participants are encouraged to create, share, and comment all within a
safe and supportive environment. Which can be associated with remix cultures or Fan
cultures etc.
- Discussion cultures: a topic rather than an outcome is at the heart of participation
() Sports fandoms, news sites, and food blogs.

Other supporters of the idea of participatory culture will define it as 'an expansion of
creativity, scientific knowledge, civic engagement, and activism' or 'a spiral into incivility,
passivity and exclusion' (Delwiche & Henderson, 2013).