Transformations In Media Landscape Within Participatory Culture

Originated in popular entertainment of fan culture, social platforms or service which are benefiting greatly from the new generation of Internet technology, quickly spread to other socio-cultural areas, such as politics, news, religion and education and so on. It caused profound transformations in the entire media ecology landscape. Media scholar Henry Jenkins thus proposed the concept of participatory culture in the new media age. Audiences status in the media chain has largely changed, transforming from passive consumers to active producers and grass-rooted creators. Social media has helped ordinary people like you and me to break down monopoly of power media companies. However, when we talk about the power of media companies, which the new participatory culture challenges, what exactly are we talking about? How these social media platforms promote citizen participation? And to what extent it facilitates or constrains users to acquire their own unique identities, stylize their self-expressions? At the same time, how citizen participation and practices reshape media landscape? The aim of this paper is to explore how individuals participate in the media production process and the roles networked communities play in shaping media circulations.This paper will address these issues in successive steps. Concerning with the research question mentioned above, a close engagement with the concept of participatory culture and its relationship with fandom will be elaborated at first. Then I will demonstrate a discussion of the development of the concept. How scholars conceive participatory culture from different perspectives will be presented afterwards. All in all, by means of literature review, chapter one will build theoretical framework of this thesis. However, only from the perspective of theoretical research this study will be oversimplified and problematic. Thus, in chapter two and three, a concrete case study will be introduced. In chapter two, a brief introduction to danmaku video-sharing websites is central. Several typical danmaku websites will be presented, concepts such as danmaku, ACG subculture will be explained. On the basis of chapter two, chapter three will be a more thorough analysis of the most popular danmaku video-sharing website bilibili. The analysis is structured by bilibili’s three typical features: danmaku, ACG fans and its community and UGC. Participatory observations and discourse analysis are the main research methodologies.Conclusion is based on the theoretical analysis of participatory culture and the case of study of danmaku video-sharing website bilibili. To some extent, especially when compared to traditional one-way media, participatory culture model is more democratic because users, consumers and audiences are involved in the creation of culture content. Meanwhile, it breaks down walls among different media structures, leading media contents flow through the entire system. More and more existing and emerging platforms and sites become connected. However, at the same time, it should be noted that participation is not equal, participatory cultures simultaneously empower people and put up new barriers to community membership as a culture produces rules, norms and value system to stabilize its power structure. Moreover, there are always powers intertwined underneath, constantly(re)shaping and(re)defining the meaning of participatory culture.