In his blog post, which can be found here Critical Information studies for a participatory culture (pt 2) , Jenkins discusses topics -
The Only Thing We Have to Fear is Fear Itself: -
How the media influences our opinions and the need for education to generate our ethical responsibility and civic awareness regarding unnecessary worries about their fears, safety and well-being.
From Digital Divide to Participation Gap: -
The author addresses the current digital divide amongst the education and work place sectors. Equal access to networked computers is important for everyone to be able to have an equal participatory culture experience where a current unbalanced system is in place and hidden curriculums being addressed.
Remaking Schools: -
“reinvent public institutions (schools, libraries, museums) in order to reflect this alternative understanding of participatory culture” and met its needs... Such as addresses limited access to certain sites which are very important (i.e. Key platforms) to a participatory culture and where new forms/practices do emerge.
Rethinking Collective Intelligence: -
This addresses the need to better understand and aim for alternative platforms, practices and opportunities of collective intelligence, such as ethical, educational, and political values, where people can share there expertise and experiences, which will assist in finding new forms of citizenly engagement.
Promoting Diversity: -
Whilst access to the web enables the possibility of cultural production and distribution to flourish much of the boundaries that already bound us regarding diversity and its promotion in the real only seem to extend and crossover into cyberspace according to scholars - danah boyd and S. Craig Watkins. Dominant groups and majoritarian principles continue to cement its power intimidating the minorities. An issue that has yet been overcome in the real suggesting it will unlikely be overcome in cyberspace.
Reasserting Fair Use: - Touches on the struggles over intellectual property and the future of participatory culture, where fans and companies battle of copyright, intellectual property and fair-use issues within a new participatory culture.
Critiquing Free Labor: - "we produce all the content, they make all the money."
Conflicts between grassroots media producers and the commercial platforms. Where Grassroots (creation of "user-generated content") wants to be recognized more of a form of creative labor then just a form of just playing…
Designing Civic Media: - Looks at changes in media amongst a new participatory culture. The author believe it is profoundly misleading to think professional journalists will be replaced by a citizen journalists… Though citizen may utilize new technologies to inform their community the author feels that media with professional journalist is like “horseless carriages.” However a citizen journalist gives the possibility to work around censorship.
“Huma Yosuf's study of the use of civic media in Pakistan during the recent national emergency suggests that citizens can use these tools to work around censorship, to organize in the face of oppressive regimes, and to alert the outside world about what was happening in their country.” –
Henry Jenkins
Thinking Globally: -
The author looked at new platforms for media sharing and how social networking represents alternative models for thinking about the politics of globalization. These new platforms enable the possibility for many young people (U.S. Bush era) to consume media created from other countries and often through illegal/semi illegal channels of distribution connecting them to people around the world.
Restructuring Activism: -
The author acknowledges that most of the conflicts and struggles are fought by grassroots groups structured on new models of citizenship and activism which stem from participatory culture. He uses a book by Stephen Duncombe (Dream:Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy) as an example of a new model of social change - “channels what we know as consumers as well as what we know as citizens, and embraces a more widely accessible language for discussing public policy.”
Jenkins uses the HP (Harry Potter) Alliance as an example of a new model of activism through examining their movements.
Jenkins states there is a need for many changes and are better understanding these new models and new kind of political discourse looks like such as -
· strength and weaknesses and whether it can effect meaningful change
· How do we build a bridge between participatory culture and participatory democracy?
· In each of these debates, there is a need for critical theory which asks hard questions of emerging cultural practices.
· There is also a need for critical utopianism which explores the value of emerging models and proposes alternatives to current practices.
· There is a need for theory which deals abstractly with these shifts in cultural logic
· There's a need for interventions which test the value of that theory through practice.
· There is a need for academic scholarship which trains the next generation and there's a need for conversations which overcomes the isolation between the various groups which are struggling over these issues.
· There is a need for people who stand outside the system throwing rocks
· There's a need for people who can move into the boardrooms and engage in conversation with those in power. Jenkins says, “It is too easy to draw false divisions between these various causes, too hard to identify the common ground.”
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