Participatory culture is a new phenomenon that is at the
core of Burguss and Green’s argument for the positive effect of YouTube on
society. With YouTube at the forefront, user-led
content is leading the charge to combat the struggles of authority over online
industry. Participatory culture is
described by Burguss and Green (2013) as “the apparent link between
user-created content and the shift in power relations between media industries
and consumers” (p.10). YouTube, the site
itself, has changed to embrace this new culture and further show the importance
of this new medium of media in our growing information society. For example, the shift from its original
byline, “Your Digital Video Repository” to the now notorious “Broadcast Yourself”
matches the idea surrounds the user-led Web 2.0. Web 2.0, as described in Where Web 2.0 Went Wrong,
by Henry Jenkins (2013), “entices audience members to join in the building and
customizing of services and messages rather than to expect companies to present
complete and fully formed experiences” (p.49).
By embracing this idea, YouTube helps to facilitate the relationship
between consumers and industry.
In van Dijk’s
article, Social Structure (2006), he states, “This phenomenon also creates new
and improved opportunities for communication between private senders and public
receivers. In contemporary computer
networks, people can talk and exchange text, audio and video almost
simultaneously while everybody that has ben granted access watches, listens,
reads and gives feedback” (p.170). This
is essentially the essence of participatory culture in relation with
YouTube. By uploading videos of
themselves and their own opinions, YouTube creators invent a culture that can
interact at a different and necessary level in the new Web 2.0
environment. The comments section, and
the previously used video responses, brings audiences into the discussion
around how information is received and sent.
In the book, Burguss and Green describe the importance of YouTube has a result from West Coast counterculture, that later articulated to US individualism and technoculture to produce “digital utopianism”. Burguss and Green (2014) state, “digital utopianism surfaces repeatedly as part of the DIY ideology of participatory culture, the valorization of amateur and community media, and the hopeful ideas about the democratization of cultural production” (p.12). This digital utopianism spreads the idea that ordinary people can create as much influence as companies and larger Internet presence can. Participants in the new media revolution can hold others accountable for their actions as a “moral economy is created, as described by Jenkins in Where Web 2.0 Went Wrong (2013). “The moral economy describes the social norms and mutual understanding that make it possible for two parties to conduct business”(p.52). The importance of the moral economy and digital utopianism, led by participatory culture, is key to mediating the struggles of control and authority.
In the book, Burguss and Green describe the importance of YouTube has a result from West Coast counterculture, that later articulated to US individualism and technoculture to produce “digital utopianism”. Burguss and Green (2014) state, “digital utopianism surfaces repeatedly as part of the DIY ideology of participatory culture, the valorization of amateur and community media, and the hopeful ideas about the democratization of cultural production” (p.12). This digital utopianism spreads the idea that ordinary people can create as much influence as companies and larger Internet presence can. Participants in the new media revolution can hold others accountable for their actions as a “moral economy is created, as described by Jenkins in Where Web 2.0 Went Wrong (2013). “The moral economy describes the social norms and mutual understanding that make it possible for two parties to conduct business”(p.52). The importance of the moral economy and digital utopianism, led by participatory culture, is key to mediating the struggles of control and authority.
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