Participatory Culture

Participatory culture has its roots in fan culture (Jenkins, 2006). It moves away from the idea of disrupting the flow of media to actively shaping it – from culture-jamming to blogging (Jenkins, 2004: 36). The fundamental idea behind participatory culture is that audiences are no longer merely active or interactive consumers. Rather, due to the prevalent use of new media, audiences are now able to annotate and circulate content from mainstream media. Audiences are no longer simply consumers of media. They are also engaged in the text, actively producing, selecting and distributing texts based on media products which they find to be important or interesting (Jenkins, 2006: 240). This culture, while having roots in popular culture and fan culture, has had the effect of politicizing audiences in two ways: it has re-engaged citizens and democratized the public sphere.