Participatory Culture, Community, and Play ― Learning from Reddit

This study investigates the participatory culture on the link/news-sharing platform reddit, the politics of participatory culture platforms, and the tensions and contradictions in the community. It considers reddit as a kind of carnival, performance, play, community, and platform, and how it is related to and different from other participatory platforms like Twitter, 4chan, and YouTube; the way members relate to themselves and the community inside and outside of reddit, focusing on altruism and cynicism; how novice members become “redditors” and how this membership changes their relationship with the community; how members engage in different forms of play as a primary mode of expression, from memes to reaction GIFs; how reddit discourse marginalizes voices as it creates a “male gaze” and excludes women and people of color; and broader platform politics and participatory culture. Annotation c2015 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)

Adrienne L. Massanari (PhD, University of Washington) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is co-editor of Digital Ethics (Peter Lang, 2012) and Critical Cyberculture Studies (2006).