New media, new participation?

Participation has been perceived as a key concept to democratization and the balancing of inequalities in society, dating back to the civil revolutions and rebellions of the 18th century and the structural transformation of the public sphere (Habermas 1962/1990). After political participation had been primarily claimed by those who already had economic power, the bourgeoisie-participation was formulated in the more contentious terms of class struggle, calling for access to means of production. The rising mass production of consumer goods and the increasing prominence of mass media witnessed participation claiming access to media production and its means of distribution. Socio-political critiques aimed at the media and its ownership structures criticized its inherent ideology. The legacy of the civil claim to participation is very much embedded in current media practice and the understanding of participatory culture.

The many recent publications on participation emphasize clearly that consumers are increasingly accessing the apparatus of production, not only by adopting, consuming or modifying industrial goods but also by establishing an amateur culture on a global scale; consumers are expanding their own skills and increasing their technological capital, improving opportunities for social organization, and focusing on gaining political influence (e.g. Bruns 2006; Jenkins 2002, 2006b; Leadbeater and Miller 2004; Raessens 2005, Uricchio 2004a; Benkler 2006; Lessig 2008; Shirky 2008; Schäfer 2009). The significant shift emerging from these accounts is that audiences are turning from interpreting to actually producing media texts. The participation of mass media audiences as examined by Stuart Hall, John Fiske, and others was limited to reading media texts and engaging with them simply through interpretation (Hall 1980; Fiske 1995). Critiques frequently took the form of reviews, an activity that in itself was conducted in a highly professional manner. Consequently, the diffusion of the Internet and the WWW as mainstream technologies was accompanied by a discourse of critique as well. Especially the Nettime mailing list, founded in 1995 by Pit Schultz and Geert Lovink, and the Next5Minutes conferences in the 1990s formulated a critical commentary referred to as ‘netcritique’.