Module II - Participation
From HLWIKI Canada
Learning objectivesAfter completing module II "Participation", you will be able to:
ActivitiesTo begin your exploration of concepts in module II, complete the following: Week I
Scavenger hunt for various uses of 2.0 suffix
Week II
Backgroundto challenge, replace and eventually abandon mass media." Brian Martin - University of Wollongong Participatory Librarianship - http://ptbed.org/intro.php  (see Participatory Spaces)The social web is an ecosystem of participation, where value is created by aggregating contributions made by individual users. In module II, we explore the concept of participation as it refers to engagement with evolving networks and taking part in online discussions and projects. A defining element of this emerging webspace is that as more participants use social media, the better and more diverse its channels of information become. Why some people are compelled to use information platforms such as Facebook and Twitter - and to participate in global conversations - is one part of understanding social media and its many affordances. Historically, the culture of participation has its roots in democracy, socialism and civic responsibility. But more specifically, the most important and influential social tools are used for basic information dissemination and learning. Emerging online communities on the web are typically oriented toward sharing and creating new ideas in a continual loop of uptake, evaluation and refinement. Moreover, socially-mediated tools support broad-based participation in communities at a local level as well as across communities globally. Being social with web media is the access point to discovering a vast network of learning opportunities on the social web. In the context of the information professions, participation evokes the idea of "getting involved" or assuming an active role as a participant in projects. Information professionals are ideally-situated to get involved in community events. Civic participation is often necessary in order to further the goals of communities and institutions. Due to the surge of interest in American politics during the 2008 election, some larger ideas associated with new forms of online media include government 2.0, cyber-democracy and e-participation. Social media saturationSocial media is moving into our lives making even the banal not only amusing but potentially educational. However, keep in mind that one person's educational moment might be another's waste of time. What seems self-evident is that social media is not a fad, and it is firmly entrenched in 21st century culture as a major form of communication and socialization. This will hardly come as a surprise to anyone in LIBR559M - but it bears repeating. Sending tweets, text messages, Facebook updates and e-mail connect us to an evolving network of friends and acquaintances. The Internet and the Web have opened up multiple channels (and networks) for instant access to people and expertise that in previous eras would have been impractical if not impossible. Social media and what is broadcast can consequently be said to permeating even saturating our lives. Marshall McLuhan might say that "Social media is definitely the message". Newer interactive and participatory media (e.g., mobile phones, texting, blogging, etc.) have taken over some of our everyday practical activities. Media in this sense profoundly influence the quotidian, unstructured activities and conversation of modern life; as Sybille Krämer says "Everything we can say, find out and know about the world is being said, found out and known with the help of media" (Krämer 1998, p. 73). In a report entitled Confronting the Challenges of the Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, one of the academic icons of media Henry Jenkins describes a number of applications characteristic of web 2.0 and how they are reflective of society as a whole. Rather than review each technology in isolation, he recommends an ecological approach and suggests thinking about the interrelationships between tools, cultural communities that grow up around them, and the activities they seek to support. Media systems consist of communication technologies and the social, cultural, legal, political, and economic institutions, practices, and protocols that shape and surround them. (Jenkins et al. 2006, p. 8) Quotations - Participation, agentic action and learningDr. Wolff-Michael Roth and Stuart Lee of the University of Victoria assert that until the early 1990s the individual was the 'unit of instruction'. The two observed that researchers and practitioners switched to the idea that knowing is 'better' thought of as a cultural or communal practice. Roth and Lee also claim that this led to changes in learning and teaching design in which students were encouraged to share their ways of learning with each other. In other words, people take part in the construction of consensual domains and 'participate in the negotiation and institutionalization of meaning'. In effect, they are participating in learning communities. The blogosphere can be deconstructed in a variety of ways: as alternative citizen journalism, as participatory media enabling citizens and activists to produce their own content, as a social platform to communicate with friends and family, and as a vehicle for airing (counter-hegemonic) viewpoints, but also as a propaganda instrument, a marketing tool, and a distribution channel. Associated memes
Related concepts
Bowling aloneSeveral years ago Robert Putnam captured the attention of many social scientists,policymakers, and community leaders with one simple observation: membership in bowlingleagues in the United States was declining (Cf., Putnam, 2000). Statistics showed that bowlingremained a very popular leisure activity. However, people were less inclined to participate inthe context of more or less formal voluntary associations we call leagues. When considered inisolation, this observation seems quite inconsequential. However, Putman and others haveskillfully linked it with data that show a steady and rather steep decline in American participationin voluntary associations generally for the past fifty years. Final reflections
Websites
Other exploration
|
