Social Media & Participatory Culture
Particularity culture in simple words can be defined as something that is not only consumed or watching and responding as an audience, but also creating and putting your effort into something digitally. Furthermore, it can also be up to producer on how much they want to provide their audience and contribute. In other words, According to Jerkins, Not every member must contribute, but all must believe they are free to contribute when ready and that what they contribute will be appropriately valued (Jenkins, 2010). An example of this would be someone posting their story/post on their social media profiles. Social media made this possible as particularity culture is mostly based on social media.
Reflecting on my own experience of social media participation, something that motivates me and inspires me to be actively posting stuff on social media are social interaction, personal identity, and creativity. Social interaction is something that I love to do as a passion and therefore motivates me everyday to post stuff and be active on social media. My personal identity and what I do everyday is something that I like to share with my friends and followers. Being creatively is something that challenges me to be successful in future. Creating contents not only involves creativity but also time, emotions, and various forms of capital (social, cultural, and sometimes economic) (Hinton & Hjorth, 2013). Jenkins describes a circulator as someone who contributes to the circulation of social media, and for me, posting things on social media and being active is a way I have contributed by being a circulator (Jenkins, 2010).
During this COVID-19 pandemic, I have been trying to post more stuff and activities on social media as I get bored staying home for most of my day. Another reason why I post more often during this pandemic is because we don’t get to meet our loved ones and posting stuff online can help make connections stronger and feel better while you see other people’s likes and comments on your post. COVID-19 has been very tough on each and every one around the world, and social media played a huge role in connecting everyone and helping each other during these tough times.
Some of the examples of the stuff that I share online are my food recipes, exercise tips, photos of me and my closed ones, and sometimes news and recent updates on politics. I share these things because I am interested in most of these things and want my audience to stay updated on me, and learn some of the things that I am good at and want them to try that has worked on me.