Participatory Culture in a Networked Era: A Conversation on Youth, Learning, Commerce, and Politics

by Henry Jenkins, Mizuko Ito, Danah Boyd

In the last two decades, both the conception and the practice of participatory culture have been transformed by the new affordances enabled by digital, networked, and mobile technologies. This exciting new book explores that transformation by bringing together three leading figures in conversation. Jenkins, Ito and boyd examine the ways in which our personal and professional lives are shaped by experiences interacting with and around emerging media.Stressing the social and cultural contexts of participation, the authors describe the process of diversification and mainstreaming that has transformed participatory culture. They advocate a move beyond individualized personal expression and argue for an ethos of “doing it together” in addition to “doing it yourself.”Participatory Culture in a Networked Era will interest students and scholars of digital media and their impact on society and will engage readers in a broader dialogue and conversation about their own participatory practices in this digital age.

Genres: Nonfiction, Education, Sociology, Academic, Cultural, Psychology, Politics

220 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 7, 2015

Reviews

[Diz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is presented in a discussion format. Three scholars from different generations talk about various facets of participatory culture. There are some interesting ideas presented. In particular, I like that the authors put an emphasis on the connections between people as a key factor in participatory culture rather than on technology. In fact, they stress that participatory culture existed in fan culture before the advent of the Internet.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a briskly paced and compulsively readable discussion between the three authors, edited into an edifying and wide-ranging reflection on ways of approaching, understanding, and responding to participatory culture. I found the sections on commercial culture and activism the most rewarding, and while the format yields less actual debate than I had hoped for (Ito, boyd, and Jenkins mostly seem to agree with each other), the dialogic form makes a comfortable fit for the topics under discussion.

[Rona Akbari · Rating 4 out of 5]

theory you can actually understand and it's *literally* written conversationally v nice

a lot of what was covered wasn't entirely revelatory to me because I experienced / am experiencing it first-person (finding empowerment in digital fandoms when you're estranged from certain communities, working around 'red tape', online activism)

putting them into concepts like 'connected learning' and 'participatory culture' ... this was new and interesting and makes me think differently about opportunities to expand learning and build community

I really like this part: "Aren’t we fundamentally social beings who thrive when our communities and people we care about and connect with thrive as well? How can we possibly succeed as individuals without contributing to shared culture and goals? Doesn’t systemic reform require collective commitment?"

and also: "neoliberalism is very much bound up with the notion of every person for themselves but if we go back to fan culture, it's about collective ownership of stories, about sharing economies, about forming collective identities"

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Books for me are often conversations as a means of informing. They are a bit one-sided, but for me they work in this manner. But, for me they can also trigger things I've heard before, or conversations I have been a part of, or remind me of things I have known and do know presented in a purer state (not interwoven with other truths or realities or placed tightly beside them).

Participatory Culture took me straight back to conversations and deep dives to the mid-2000s. Resurfacing those mindsets, conversations, and discoveries have been difficult. They were difficult to resurface in conversation not because they were wrong or out of date, but many people dealing with the same domain took more popular and easy paths to understanding, which only truly frame partial actual understandings. Participatory Culture gives the honest good solidly founded framings and perspectives.

Participatory Culture is like sitting down to the middle of my favorite conversations, as I have had conversations with two of the authors and covered some of this ground. But, the whole of the book resurfaces the authors past writings and discussions a fresh, but also weave them into a current light. The underlying foundations still stand solid five, ten, and fifteen years after having been fortunate to have been able to have some of these conversations live.

[Travis Wagner · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the individuals authors make some wonderful ideas known, they are doing lip service to one another more than pushing their respective ideas forward. You would do better to just take the extra time to read the stand alone texts rather than this over simplification of their ideas.

[Nicole forttes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es un libro interesante, pero sólo me sirvió el capítulo que habla sobre democracia, civismo y activismo. Es una referencia a las multitudes inteligentes de Rheingold (mi libro de cabecera) pero con una reflexión de una década posterior.

[Mary · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was incredibly boring. I only skimmed through each chapter, using quotes about the topic of participatory culture when necessary for class assignments.

[Cassey · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting conversation between boyd, Ito and Jenkins.

[camila gonzalez simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Leer a Henry Jenkins siempre es un placer. Para pensar y repensar.

[rosana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read it for my dissertation, it was good for what I needed.

[micah · Rating 2 out of 5]

THEY HAVING A MID OFF

[Dominik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Conversational and accessible, almost as if the reader were on a couch overhearing a trialogue between close friends who care deeply about both the Internet and about society, especially for those left behind by cultural or economic progression. Much food for thought here, particularly for those readers who have been steeped in the Internet growing up and for whom the structural biases inherent in the technology are almost invisible.

Or, to put it another way:

Imagine if the Internet felt like a foreign land to you.

What would that be like? How would that change how you use it... how you participate in online culture?

This book addresses that, because the Internet _does_ feel like a foreign country to many, many people, and, well, if it's truly meant to be the network for everyone, that shouldn't be the case.

[Ellenup · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interessante cambio di paradigma

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many things to mull over after reading the book. Asks a lot of really good, insightful questions, ones that doesn't necessarily have answers but are worth thinking about. Another thing I appreciated this was the optimistic tone of the whole book. A lot of books exploring the anthropological side of technology are all doom and gloom and this book, refreshingly, was not. It is, however, very careful to enumerate that while participatory culture is good and growing, it's still not accessible to everyone.

[Mills College Library]

004.67808 J524 2016