Participatory Culture on the Internet
Participatory culture is becoming the rage in the Internet medium. Website owners, editors and writers want the “user” or the person reading their content and viewing their site to be able to comment on it, and have their voice heard. Some sites such as Digg.com have allowed the users to have full control of the site, basically determining what stories are on the front page and what stories are the most read.
This is a great way to get people coming back to your site, because it makes them feel involved, like their voice really matters. It can however backfire on you if you are a website owner.
A prime example of this is the website I wrote for, Lebcosports.com . The site has forums for every sport, where you could register as a user and comment on which teams you think are the best in Lebanon County. This idea backfired in a big way. We did not have restrictions on language that could be used, so there were instances where profanity was used, and racial slurs were used as well. This is not something high school kids and their parents want to see. Also, there were no restrictions on who could be a user, so spammers were creating accounts to advertise their pornography websites. All in all, not a very successful jump into participatory culture.
A website that does it the right way is sportingnews.com. You can create an account and comment on the stories that are written, but there is no profanity, and they clearly have restrictions on who can be a user and who can’t because there are never any spam messages. This I would consider a great attempt at creating an atmosphere conducive to participatory culture.
