Web 2.0 a concept of the modern society, one could describe it as websites which emphasize user generated content and usability. Such websites can for example be social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram they can also be sites like Youtube and Wikipedia. One of the things that these digital platforms do is help create the notion of participatory culture. Participatory culture and especially criticism raised towards it by different media scholars is what todays blogpost will be about. Especially the critics raised by Christian Fuchs aimed at Henry Jenkins notion of participatory culture but the work of Van Dijck and Nieborg who raise several points of critique towards this concept will also be addressed.
Participatory culture can be defined as a term for describing the involvement of users, audiences, consumers and fans in the creation of culture and content. In this model consumers are considered grassroot advocates for spreading media content which are socially and personally meaningful to them. What this means is that they play a key role in the distribution and spreading of online content. Scholars positive to the notion of participatory culture talk about for example social media resulting in the wiring of humanity which allows us to treat our spare time as a global recourse and lets us design new kinds of participation and sharing that take advantage if this recourse. It has also been argued that social media combines production and use of media content creating a new term called produsage. What this essentially means is the merge of producers and users into one democratic unit where top-bottom hierarchy is no longer a fact. It is said to be the emergence of a new economic democracy where everyone has a leading role (Fuchs, 2014).
However as long as there are advocates there will always be critics and this business model/utopian notion is no stranger to scrutiny. In his book, Social media: A critical introduction Christian Fuchs (2014) raises several issues regarding the arguments presented by acclaimed media scholar and known participatory culture advocate Henry Jenkins. One of Fuchs’s main issues with Jenkins way of thinking is the fact that he is ignoring the aspects of ownership, class and capitalism. Fuchs argues that Jenkins has a culturalistic understanding of participation and ignores the notion of participatory economy. For Jenkins participation is all about people meeting on the net forming collectives while creating and sharing content. Apparently, his interpretation of participatory culture ignores several key aspects that should be taken into account. For example, it overlooks questions concerning ownership of platforms and companies, collective decision making, profit and distribution of goods and materials. According to Fuchs participation involves people having the right to be part of decisions and to govern and control the structures which affect them and that a truly participatory media democracy must also be an ownership democracy. An aspect clearly overlooked by previous media scholars such as Jenkins.
Jenkins is also very concerned with fan communities and the impact he views them to have on political protest and resistance, he sees fan communities as “preparing the way for a more meaningful public culture” (Fuchs, 2014, p. 58). According to Fuchs (2014) he tends to idealize the political potential of fan communities but lacks an explanation as to why these communities should be more politically active than others. Jenkins mistakes politics for popular culture and sees micro politics taking place within it. According to Fuchs an example of this is the Arab spring which is said to have been made possible by social media for forming communities however, these were not fan communities but political communities which implies a big difference. The riots weren’t caused by social media only supported by them. This is yet again an example of how Jenkins and his fellow utopian scholars raise participatory culture to the skies without assessing it critically enough. Fuchs (2014) also critiques Jenkins for missing the central economic relevance of money in this model and for arguing that digital labor and exploitation is no problem as long as the users gain social benefits from platform usage. Basically, according to Fuchs Jenkins celebrates participatory culture without really considering and engaging with the downsides of the internet such as the economic crisis, user exploitation, privacy violations, surveillance and e-waste.
Another work which criticizes the notion of participatory culture was written by José Van Dijck and David Nieborg in which they critically analyze the web 2.0 and its business manifestos. Manifestos talking about a brave new world utopia of co-creationism and communal creativity which according to Van Dijck and Nieborg (2009) is simply accepted as absolute truth by scholars and society without the necessary scrutiny regarding for example socio-economic consequences. The manifestos assume that all users who contribute content are equally creative and articulate the same expressive desires. Both scholars such as Jenkins and the manifestos overlook the relevance of passive spectators versus the relatively small number of active creators – a disregard which creates the notion of all users as contributors to culture which is simply not the case and it also overlooks the individual and different interest for various kinds of users. Both Fuchs (2013) and Van Dijck and Nieborg (2009) share the conclusion that participatory culture and web 2.0 are in dire need of further scrutiny and criticism, the utopian aspects of it as in users and producers becoming one is not the reality we see today. It’s a system still driven by socio-economic forces and agendas combined with the fact that far from every user is an active contributor to creating content, spreading it is perhaps more common but it is still not a case of equal power between all involved as it claims to be.
Sources:
Fuchs, C. (2014) Social Media: A Critical Introduction. London: Sage.
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.