Henry Jenkins

Henry Jenkins, a media scholar, has been a prominent figure in propagating participatory culture pedagogy. Alongside fellow colleagues Ravi Purushotma, Katie Clinton, Margaret Weigel and Alice Robison, he authored a paper describing participatory as the antithesis to consumer culture (Henry Jenkins), stating that participatory culture is one:

with relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, with strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations with others, with some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices, where members believe that their contributions matter, and where members feel some degree of social connection with one another (at the least they care what other people think about what they have created) (Participatory culture).

Jenkins’s definition of participatory culture encapsulates a movement away from consumerism. Instead of millions of individuals consuming and operating within a culture created, distributed, and controlled by corporations, there is now a movement to create culture, rather than passively consume it.

Participatory culture follows from the replacement of the supposedly passive media consumer with a new active media user in an online sphere, no longer governed by the unidirectional dynamic of traditional mass media but by the two-way dynamic of interactivity. (Henry Jenkins)

This movement away from monopolistically or oligarchicaly controlled culture seems almost a societal evolution. The distinctions between producers of culture and consumers has become ambiguous and, more importantly, irrelevant. This is the result of the interactive elements brought about by technology. The ability to share, remix, and repeat has become the modern mechanism for creating culture. The technology that has made this new societal model possible is the internet.

Although the internet is the engine behind this societal evolution, oligarchical elements still remain.

In an age of filter bubbles, search algorithms, sponsored content, and endless aggregators trying to personal and define our information needs, I think it’s an imperative that we teach ability to organize, sift, sort and continuously recreate the type of content diets that we want and need. (Henry Jenkins)

Anyone can now post whatever content they want. This issue becomes, now that everyone has the metaphorical, “license to speak,” the question is, “who gets heard? (Felix, 2014). Apparently, it is the individuals that pop up first when searching Google. This seemingly benign concept may have uncomfortable later consequences. For instance, Websites offering search engines more money to advertise their sites may begin to control the directionality of culture. Although this concept is a bit frightening, “Producers of media are forced to pay more attention to the needs of consumers who can turn to other sources for information” (Henry Jenkins). Individuals can search multiple pages of Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other engines to find various types of information. Although corporations may have the ability one day (or perhaps presently) to control what society sees first, the response becomes to simply dig a bit deeper. If everyone has a voice, the goal is to find the cultural, instead of capitalistic, voices influencing society.

The goal of participatory culture is to envision a society where everyone has a voice. However, Jenkins envisioned problems with this ideal, including issues of access, transparency, ethics, and others.

The main problem concerns access to the information, tools, and technologies needed to participate in the creation of culture. The participation gap embodies the issue of equal, quality access. It is:

the concern with providing access to technology for all learners. The movement to break down the digital divide has included efforts to bring computers into classrooms, libraries, and other public places. These efforts have been largely successful, but as Jenkins et al. argue, the concern is now with the quality access to available technologies (Participatory Culture).

The idea of participatory culture cannot survive without participation. Individuals who lack access to quality internet or software packages (such as Adobe and Microsoft) cannot effectively participate in a culture based on interconnectivity. Denying (reasonable) access to the tools used to create and distribute culture ensures certain groups will not be heard, rendering them unable to carve out their own place in a society based on interaction.

Professional products, such as Microsoft and Adobe, are usually only available to individuals who have access to a university. Individuals who wish to access academic, literary, or scientific journals typically need to be a member of a scientific organization, or enrolled in a university. Limiting access to these tools ensures a stagnation of participatory culture, allowing consumer culture to thrive.