More than a desire for text: Online participation and the social curation of content

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Authors

MACEK Jakub

Year of publication 2013
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Convergence. The Journal of Research into New Media Technology
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Social Studies

Citation
Web
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1354856513486530
Field Mass media, audiovision
Keywords everyday life; online participation; audiences; social networking sites; social capital; cultural capital; spectacle; narcissism; social curation of content
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Description Why and on what bases do people choose content and share it in an online environment? At the centre of Henry Jenkins’ theory of convergence culture lie in the transforming links between active, participative audiences, media content and media corporations. However, the ‘textually motivated’ desire to participate in the circulation of and control over texts is just one among other key motives for the dissemination and recirculation of content. Ethnography-based research con- ducted at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic suggests that when exploring participation in textuality, performative self-exposure and self-presentation must be taken into account as well as the context of audiences’ everyday life. Thus, I propose to approach participation as based not only on a ‘will to text’ but also on a dialectical relationship between a ‘will to self-performance’ and a ‘will to conformity’. These three factors then impact on the social curation of content – a reflex- ive process in which members of the audience construct texts for consumption and recirculation.
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