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Social Media & Participatory Culture

The information that y'all will be able to take away from my post today is a better understanding of what the Participatory Culture Theory is and how it is important. So you are all probably thinking, what even is the participatory culture theory and how does it relate to social media? The Participatory Culture Theory focuses on how there is a shift in focus from an individual level to a community level involving social connection (Jenkins, Puroshotma, Clinton, Weigel, & Robison, 2009). This theory is what helps us point out and understand, at a deeper level, why/how digital media with online technologies have grown substantially and continues to grow everyday. First of all, I think that definition shows already how important this theory is (without being able to define and understand the digital media/online technology growth, well we would all be a bit lost). 

The Participation Culture Theory relates to social media in the aspect of changes in the techniques of posting to our social media pages and reflecting on our peer’s social media posts. Participation Culture involves a strong support for creating and sharing your creations with other people, involves people believing that their post and comments are important not just to themselves but others as well, involves people feeling a social connection to others and much more (Jenkins, Puroshotma, Clinton, Weigel, & Robison, 2009). This theory relates to social media on such a high level. Now, instead of individual expression, the Participation Culture Theory puts emphasis on community involvement with the use of online technology. People that may not have been able to be socially connected using a digital media platform on an individual level, is supported by their community and gains more opportunities. 

For me, my participation on social media definitely fluctuates on a weekly basis. Some weeks when I have a lot going on in my life, my participation on social media lacks and I barely engage with others (on a digital level). This last week was a stress heavy week and my participation on social media was kept to a minimum. I did not post anything on instagram or twitter or vsco. On snapchat, I did not get to posting anything myself but I enjoyed a couple stories posted by my friends and would reply back to them describing why I like their post. I also did this on Instagram. There were multiple posts by my friends that were exciting and I wanted to connect with them a bit deeper. For example, one of my good friends got married last week and she shared some videos/pictures from the whole wedding day activities. I loved what she had to share and I connected with her by commenting my thoughts on her wedding dress and overall wedding. I think what motivates me to get active and engage with the bigger community on social media is when my peers post videos/pictures/quotes that are intriguing to me and have a deeper connection to me, personally. 

When my week is not as busy and I have the time to engage with social media, the social media platforms I use are Instagram, Snapchat, vsco and occasionally, Twitter. I am involved with these because my friends and family are involved with them as well. On Instagram, I share posts mostly about what I did with friends or family. For example, my most recent post was a picture of my dog and I at an apple orchard. I shared this because my dog means a lot to me and I was able to share with my friends, an exciting day of being with my dog and my parents. On snapchat, I mostly share random, exciting, or funny events that happen in my everyday life activities. I share these because it is fun to share experiences I go through with my friends and then I am able to connect with what they are doing as well. Vsco is my favorite social media platform. On vsco, you are not able to necessarily comment on peoples posts or see the number or likes/reports it receives (which is the reason it is my favorite). With this social media platform, you are able to share pictures and/or text and you are also able to repost/like the post that other people share. I think that this is such a fun way to connect with others because I am able to see fun pictures of friends and quotes that deal with their lives. 

Overall the Participatory Culture Theory is associated with social media because it involves connected with others at a higher level. Instead of individually posting, it is socially connecting on a community level-- which is so much fun (if you ask me)!! The way the participation has changed and is certainly not done changing. Participation is a central element when understanding social media (Hinton and Hjorth, 2013). Participation and the way that it is seen on social media is continuing to change. We are able to connect with others and participate in a community conversation by being able to comment or repost other people’s posts. People are able to feel socially connected with others by the growth in participation techniques. “Great power comes with great responsibility” (Jerkins, 2010). This quote is so very important. With the growth in participation on social media, I think that it is very important to remember that with such power we need to make sure that we are connecting with others responsibly. We need to make sure that we are respecting ourselves and others, remembering that words speak loudly.

Sources:

Hjorth, Larissa, and Sam Hinton. “Chapter 4.” Understanding Social Media, SAGE Publications, 2013.

Jenkins, Henry, et al. “Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture.” Building the Field of Digital Media and Learning, 2009, doi:10.7551/mitpress/8435.001.0001.

“TEDxNYED.” Performance by Henry Jenkins, YouTube, 2010, youtu.be/AFCLKa0XRlw.