Participatory media

Participatory media is communication media where the audience can play an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating content.[1] Citizen / participatory journalism, citizen media, empowerment journalism and democratic media are related principles.

Participatory media includes community media, blogs, wikis, RSS, tagging and social bookmarking, music-photo-video sharing, mashups, podcasts, participatory video projects and videoblogs. All together they can be described as "e-services, which involve end-users as active participants in the value creation process".[2] However, "active [...] uses of media are not exclusive to our times".[3] "In the history of mediated communication we can find many variations of participatory practices. For instance, the initial phase of the radio knew many examples of non-professional broadcasters".[4]

Marshall McLuhan discussed the participatory potential of media already in the 1970s but in the era of digital and social media, the theory of participatory culture becomes even more acute as the borders between audiences and media producers blurred.[5]

  1. ^ Bowman, S., Willis, C. "We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information." 2003: The Media Center at the American Press Institute.
  2. ^ "How we work". Archived from the original on 2009-10-01. Retrieved 2012-11-13.
  3. ^ Ekström, A., Jülich, S., Lundgren, F., Wisselgren, P. "History of Participatory Media". 2011: Taylor & Francis Group.
  4. ^ Carpentier, Nico. "Participation Is Not Enough: The Conditions of Possibility of Mediated Participatory Practices" 2009: European Journal of Communication 2009 24: 407-419.
  5. ^ Jenkins, Henry. "Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide" 2006: New York University Press.