User:Abbyjayne2/sandbox

Participatory culture has been around longer than the Internet. The emergence of the Amateur Press Association in the middle of the 19th century is an example of historical participatory culture. During that period, people in the community were hand typing and printing their own publications. These publications were circulated throughout a network of interested parties and resemble what we now refer to as social networks.The evolution from zines, radio shows, group projects, and gossips to blogs, podcasts, wikis, and social media groups has impacted society greatly. With online services such as eBay, Blogger, Wikipedia, Photobucket, Facebook, and YouTube, access, availability and popularity participatory culture has grown and evolved. The implications of the gradual shift from production to produsage are profound, and will affect the very core of culture, economy, society, and democracy.[3]

Participatory culture has been around longer than the Internet. The emergence of the Amateur Press Association in the middle of the 19th century is an example of historical participatory culture. During that period, people in the community were hand typing and printing their own publications. These publications were circulated throughout a network of interested parties and resemble what we now refer to as social networks.The evolution from zines, radio shows, group projects, and gossips to blogs, podcasts, wikis, and social media groups has impacted society greatly. With online services such as eBay, Blogger, Wikipedia, Photobucket, Facebook, and YouTube, access, availability and popularity participatory culture has grown and evolved. The implications of the gradual shift from production to produsage are profound, and will affect the very core of culture, economy, society, and democracy.[3]

"What a person can accomplish with an outdated machine in a public library with mandatory filtering software and no opportunity for storage or transmission pales in comparison to what [a] person can accomplish with a home computer with unfettered Internet access, high band-width, and continuous connectivity.(Current legislation to block access to social networking software in schools and public libraries will further widen the participation gap.) The school system's inability to close this participation gap has negative consequences for everyone involved. On the one hand,those youth who are most advanced in media literacies are often stripped of their technologies and robbed of their best techniques for learning in an effort to ensure a uniform experience for all in the classroom. On the other hand, many youth who have had no exposure to these new kinds of participatory cultures outside school find themselves struggling to keep up with their peers. (Jenkins et al. pg. 15)"

"The difference between students' access to older technologies with limited capacites that are being phased out and will soon become obsolete to newer, updated home based systems that offer unlimited, uninterrupted and speedy access. Without access, the participation gap is widening and many of the students are falling behind. Having access inside and outside of the classroom levels the playing field and standardizes the level of competency that students should have attained. (Jenkins et al. pg. 15)"

The smartphone is one example that combines the elements of interactivity, identity, and mobility. The mobility of the smartphone demonstrates that media is no longer bound by time and space can be used in any context. Technology continues to progress in this direction as it becomes more user driven and less restricted to schedules and locations, for example the progression of movies from theaters to private home viewing, to now the smartphone that can be watched anytime and anywhere. The smartphone also enhances the participatory culture by increased levels of interactivity. Instead of merely watching, users are actively involved in making decisions, navigating pages, contributing their own content and choosing what links to follow. This goes beyond the "keyboard" level of interactivity, where a person presses a key and the expected letter appears, and becomes rather a dynamic activity with continually new options and changing setting, without a set formula to follow. The consumer role shifts from a passive receiver to an active contributor. The smartphone epitomizes this by the endless choices and ways to get personally involved with multiple media at the same time, in a nonlinear way. The smartphone also contributes to participatory culture because of how it changes the perception of identity. A user can hide behind an avatar, false profile, or simply idealized self when interacting with others online. There is no accountability to be who one says one is. The ability to slide in and out of roles changes the effect of media on culture, and also the user himself. Now not only are people active participants in media and culture, but their imagined selves are as well.

The smartphone is one example that combines the elements of interactivity, identity, and mobility. The mobility of the smartphone demonstrates that media is no longer bound by time and space can be used in any context. Technology continues to progress in this direction as it becomes more user driven and less restricted to schedules and locations. For example, the progression of movies from public theaters to private home viewing using video, dvd and blue ray, to now the access and availability on apps on smartphones that can be viewed anytime and anywhere. The smartphone also enhances the participatory culture by increased levels of interactivity. Instead of merely watching, users are actively involved in making decisions, navigating pages, contributing their own content and choosing what links to follow. This goes beyond the "keyboard" level of interactivity, where a person presses a key and the expected letter appears, and becomes rather a dynamic activity with continually new options. Smart phone users can access a variety of programs to edit images, videos and posts at their fingertips. The typical consumer role evolves from a passive receiver to an active contributor. The smartphone epitomizes this by the endless choices and ways to get personally involved with multiple media at the same time, in a nonlinear way. The smartphone also contributes to participatory culture because of how it changes the perception of identity. A user can hide behind an avatar, false profile, or simply idealized self when interacting with others online. There is no accountability to be who one says one is. The ability to slide in and out of roles changes the effect of media on culture, and also the user himself. Now, not only are people active participants in media and culture, but their imagined selves are as well.

Article Review
The article I read was Communication studies. It was a relatively short article that did not include much information. To be more informative, it could have included such information as the classes that would be required in a communications program as well as the career possibilities that might be available to a person who earned a degree in communication studies. The article was neutral in tone. There was nothing that made it seem like there was any hidden agenda beyond presenting the facts. The history of communications studies was not adequate and didn't include much background. The sources and links worked and represented what was there but there seemed to be quite a long list of professional communication associations and I'm just not sure where exactly that was supposed to fit it. The talk pages did not include much input and the effort in general seemed lacking in content and participation. Overall, it was not a helpful or informative article. It looked like it was possibly the beginning of an effort to write an article but fell short. Abbyjayne2 (talk) 04:55, 20 October 2018 (UTC)