According to Jenkin’s theory of participation (2006), participatory culture is defined “as a way in which different people or the society act both as consumers and contributors of meaning and further play a major role in shaping content”. Research shows that people traditionally created and produced their own content before the 19th century. However, the evolution of social media around the 19th century brought about a drastic change in how information is shared and consumed. Looking at the pervasive use of social media platforms in today’s world, participatory culture could refer to a social environment where individuals actively engage in creating, sharing, and collaborating on content, often facilitated by digital platforms. This culture contrasts with traditional media models, promoting democratic participation and collective intelligence.
The use of social media platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and many others has actually reshaped how knowledge is translated and disseminated in education. In the book History of Intellectual Culture, the authors explained how participatory culture allows diverse voices to contribute to knowledge, challenging traditional hierarchies in education. The authors further argued that The World Wide Web, in particular, has helped to make knowledge “promiscuous, and Wikipedia grows by leaps while research faculty in traditional humanities disciplines remain ambivalent about technological changes. I remember back in my secondary and university days when we only depended on what the teachers handed over to us in the classroom and recommended textbooks. However, this has changed over time as people can easily turn to YouTube for several videos to enhance whatever they have been taught in the classroom.
I have also realized that most educational content and knowledge shared on social media platforms are sourced from several origins and I see this as a great way of providing a more dynamic understanding of the learning process to individuals. I came across a digital textbook on Teaching and Creating with Generative AI around last year. The book was produced as a result of work submitted by students registered in an EdTech program at the University of Saskatchewan. I think this book exemplifies how the participatory culture in that program gave students the opportunity to collaborate among themselves and come up with ideas that were translated into open educational resources that are useful for people navigating that space of AI strategies and applications that can be used for teaching. I think this participatory culture can help teachers integrate new media tools into the curriculum they teach, and this could possibly help improve teacher’s strategies for teaching certain topics or subjects.
https://robe1481.medium.com/social-media-participatory-culture-4e05752ccbf5
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In the article Participatory Culture and Open Educational Resources, the author explains how social media encourages the sharing of resources, enhancing accessibility and fostering a community of learners who contribute to and benefit from collective knowledge; and can also be used as open educational resources to respond to the youth culture based on openness, on social connections, and on networking. Engaging in participatory culture could also be another way of helping students cultivate foundational skills needed to thrive in a digital environment, more like equipping them with digital citizenship skills.
I have learnt a lot through YouTube, and I think the participatory culture on this platform has to do with the ability of experienced people or experts to provide guidance for novices. This could foster a sense of belonging to novices. So, I can say the impact of collaborative culture through social media on education is profound, as it fosters collaborative learning, which caters for diverse educational experiences and enhances student engagement and knowledge construction.
Its interesting you brought out the past and how we used to use only Text books because Websites like Wikipedia could not be trusted. I couldn’t agree more with that statement. My mind went on a little rabbit hole theory about the fact that although those resources like text books and other peer-reviewed articles and sources may have been seen as the end-all-be-all. I find myself thinking about who decided those were the stories and theories we should believe. I’m thinking about a subject like social studies for example. Some of the “so-called history” in those texts are inaccurate depictions of what truly happened, they are however what the powers that be want society to learn about and understand. We are now in this era of reconciliation with First Nations people, and these TRUE stories of how history really went down are starting to come to be known. It makes me wonder about literally everything! I ask myself: Who is the intended audience of this work? What might they have to gain to state this opinion or so called fact? Where are they getting their sources from? What is their personal background that could have shaped their opinion or theory? There is just so many questions to consider while viewing these works. Making me wonder if what we were taught previously about text books being one of the best ways of learning to be completely false or misleading.
Thank you for sparking this thought!
I know my experience as an instructor with textbooks, is that they are outdated by the time we get them The process to publish a new textbook takes so long. I find textbooks frustrating also in that they often add a new chapter without updating previous content. We use one textbook in Radiation Therapy that is actually a fairly good foundational textbook, but there is an error in one of the chapters that has carried through at least the last 5 versions. And you are correct, who gets to create a textbook and decide what goes into it? However, I think the actual answer is that we need to curate our content better, and not purchases these ‘resources’.
I do hold peer reviewed articles to a different standard than textbooks….
I really appreciated the video of Henry Jenkins. I also talked about his work, but to hear it from him is more impactful. There is a lot to be said for the what a sense of belonging in a collaborative culture can do for learner motivation
Hello Ayodele, well done with this insightful piece. I liked the videos you added in your post, it made it more appealing to read…hahaha.
I agree with you on Jenkins’ (2006) concept of participatory culture where individuals are active contributors of knowledge production rather than consuming information. but are there not any challenges of being an active contributor of knowledge? furthermore I think considering how educators can leverage these digital platforms in a formal learning settings would also enhance the participatory culture.
Hello
Thank you for sharing your insightful thoughts. According to my understanding digital platforms are the best way to enhance knowledge.