The notion of ‘participatory culture’ is used to refer to the participation of consumers, audiences, users, and fans, to the formation of culture and the creation of content. Participatory culture may be contrasted and opposed to the archetypical way of producing information where only one sender shares information with many receivers. Examples of participatory culture practices are the uploading of pictures on Facebook, the publishing of messages on Twitter, the uploading of videos on YouTube, or the collaborative editing of an article on Wikipedia (Fuchs, 2014). Henry Jenkins considers the activity of media users as a positive aspect of our increasingly participatory culture. Indeed, he believes that as a result to our participatory culture, and to the increasing liberty given to users on the internet, society became more democratic. He gives an overview of participatory culture which is completely positivistic (Fuchs, 2014).
In Social Media: A Critical Introduction (2014), Fuchs opposes and criticizes most of Jenkin’s positive observations on participatory culture in the context of media by raising issues such as user exploitation, free labor, and commercial data utilization. Fuchs considers Jenkins as a utopian thinker for his analysis does not envisage the aspects of exploitation and ideology. He reproaches Jenkins to associate the concept of participation to culture only, while not touching upon the concept of participatory democracy and the consequences of that broad concept for the web 2.0. Besides, contrary to Jenkins, Fuchs holds that in the context of participatory democracy, an internet that is overwhelmed by organizations that make money by exploiting their users can never be considered participatory. What is more, Fuchs reproaches Jenkins not to pay attention to aspects of class and capitalism, and to neglect that ownership is an important part of participation. Fuchs also argues that Jenkins is wrong when he makes an inevitable link between fandom in popular culture and political protest. Furthermore, Fuchs accuses Jenkins of cultural reductionism and determinism, for he associates social media with the producers of participatory culture. By doing this, Jenkins ignores the structural limits of human behavior and the rules of structure and agency. Lastly, Fuchs argues that Jenkins totally fails to understand the economic importance of capital in the economy. He thinks that Jenkins is wrong when he says that the exploitation of internet users is not problematic. On the contrary, Fuchs holds that social benefits are not sufficient to justify the exploitation of the internet users who deserve real recognitions. Indeed, he believes that if users are to make benefit to a company, they should be thanked by earning money. Otherwise, he considers this as exploitation, which is, according to him, a real problem (Fuchs, 2014).
In their article Wikinomics and its discontents: a critical analysis of Web 2.0 business manifestos (2009), Van Dijck and Nieborg investigate the way marketing experts rely on concepts such as “collectivism”, “participation”, “creativity” and “prosumption” to substantiate the mechanisms of the Web 2.0 economy. The claims that they establish in this article somewhat echo the ones raised by Fuchs five years later. The two authors do not aim at discrediting participatory culture. However, they believe that the new concept of participatory culture requires a critical awareness of the consequences implied by the new strategies of cooptation. In the same way as Fuchs claims that participant users of the internet are exploited, Van Dijck and Nieborg hold that the position of the users, who are contributing to the creation of content should be reconsidered. They are not appreciated for their true value, and for the benefits they bring to some companies. While Henry Jenkins has been entirely positive about the way participatory culture is working on media spaces, scholars such as Fuchs (2014) or van Dijk, and Nieborg (2013) have thus raised concerns considering the position and the poor value accorded to the internet users.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh_1966vaIA
The concerns raised by Fuchs, Van Dijck and Nieborg may be illustrated by the example of a YouTube video that became viral in 2016, namely ‘YouTube Heroes’ (https://www.youtube .com/watch?v=Wh_1966vaIA). In that video, YouTube introduces a new program which allows users to contribute to the company by providing subtitles to videos, by moderating comments, or by reporting videos that do not match with the site’s Terms of the company. As a reward, the YouTube heroes are promised to receive points and to pass four successive levels. The various levels are promised to allow the user access to features such as exclusive workshops, the taking part in hero video chats, the unlocking of ‘super tools’, the capacity of mass flagging videos, the capacity to contact YouTube staff directly, or even the capacity to test new features before their release.
This video has received many criticisms and has been parodied in many ways. One of the major criticism has been the potential exploitation that the company of YouTube would make of the YouTube heroes. The critics claimed that the YouTube heroes were encouraged to work hard in order to make YouTube function successfully, but that they would not be correctly rewarded for their contribution to the website. This echoes Fuchs, Van Dijck, and Nieborg’s earlier criticism on participatory culture. They would also definitely dismiss this initiative, by arguing that the heroes are exploited, and not given the real reward that the company owe them.
References:
Fuchs, C. (2014) Social Media: A Critical Introduction. London: Sage.
Journal du Geek (2016). Youtube Heroes, le système de modération communautaire que tout le monde attendait? Retrieved from http://www.journaldugeek.com/2016/09/22/youtube-heroes-le-systeme-de-moderation-communautaire-que-tout-le-monde-attendait/, on 30/05/2017.
Van Dijck, J., & Nieborg, D. (2009). Wikinomics and its Discontents: A Critical Analysis of Web 2.0 Business Manifestos. New Media & Society, 11(5), 855-874
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