Is Facebook a Good or Bad Example of Participatory Culture - Research Paper Example

Is Facebook a Good or Bad Example of Participatory Culture? Explain by connecting these Ideas to your own Arguments. Develop and justify your own view Name Course Date Is Facebook a Good or Bad Example of Participatory Culture? Explain by connecting these Ideas to your own Arguments. Develop and justify your own view Introduction In the year 2005, it was reported that a third of all teenagers that had utilized the internet had shared with other users what they had made up. This in itself is a type of participation, a participation in sharing.

When Jenkins came up with the term participatory culture, he wanted us to think along a line that led us to the true meaning of participation. He used this term throughout his life. Hence the question, what is a participatory culture. A participatory culture can be defined as a culture that has quite low hindrances in regard to civil commitment and artistic expressions. In simpler terms, it is easily accessible. This definition brings about what is termed as participatory media. Participatory media encompasses virtual communities, video blogs just to name but a few.

In this paper, one type of a participatory culture or media which is a part of social network services shall be scrutinized. Its good and bad sides as a participatory culture will be examined. The participatory culture to be looked at is Facebook (Delwiche, 2013) What makes a thing to be regarded as good? Something is regarded as good if it falls into the morally accepted or the generally accepted ideas in a society. Since its development, Facebook has been a hit in the participatory media world.

It has withstood the test of time and competition. What has made Facebook a giant as a participatory culture is its good. Jenkins note that good participatory cultures are regarded good as they avail virtually low hindrances to artistic expression and civil engagement. Facebook is a good participatory culture as it provides a platform where artistic expression and civil engagement are easily expressed to a large number of people. It does this through its rather simple user interface whereby people can easily understand how it is controlled.

Also, Facebook has a sharing option (Jenkins, 2013).The advantage of such an option is that people on the social networking site can easily share it with other persons. It is through this sharing that artistic expression and civil engagements are easily expressed to a large group of people. Facebook also allows one person to have as many friends as possible provided they know each other through friends as such. This lack of limitation as to the number of friends one can have on Facebook allows for easier expression of artistic expression and civil engagements.

Facebook is also a good participatory culture in cases where its members believe their contributions matter. This is quite true for Facebook users as they constantly post on their walls on certain issues they feel they matter. It is a platform where by its members feel their contributions matter (Delwiche, 2013). However, Facebook is not an all good participatory culture. Certain features about it make it bad. The ability of Facebook to spread ideas is very enormous. It is in these that its bad aspect lies.

Many a times, negative views, propaganda are easily spread over Facebook. These negative views can have negative impacts on the psychological wellbeing of individuals. It is also easy to spread hatred among persons due to its easy spreading of artistic expressions and civil engagement. This is especially true that in case of tribalism where one community may rise up against another resulting to death. Thus, in such case scenarios, Facebook can easily be used as a fuel to instigate clashes (Giccardi, 2012).

In conclusion, it can be seen that Facebook is both a good and a bad participatory culture. It can be termed as a hybrid. It joins up these good and bad traits. Hence, it cannot be classified precisely as a bad or as good participatory culture due to its broad and diverse uses as stated by Jenkins (Jenkins, 2009). References Giaccardi, E., 2012. Heritage and Social Media: Understanding Heritage in a Participatory Culture. Routledge. Jenkins, H., 2009. Heritage and Social Media: Understanding Heritage in a Participatory Culture.

MIT Press. Jenkins, H, Kelley, W., Clinton, K., McWilliams, J. & Pitts – Wiley, R., 2013. Reading in a Participatory Culture: Remixing Moby-Dick in the English Classroom. Teachers College Press. Delwiche, A. A. & Henderson, J. J., 2013. The Participatory Cultures Handbook. Routledge.