Dagens ungdomar idag präglas starkt av konvergenskulturen och deltagarkulturen och deras medievanor har ökat under åren. Företag som inriktar sig på denna målgrupp behöver anpassa sig till deltagarkulturens egenskaper och krav för att bibehålla sina kunder inom denna målgruppen. Uppsatsens syfte är att undersöka hur ett företag kan anpassa sig till deltagarkulturen och ungdomarnas medievanor. Uppsatsen undersöker företaget SVT och hur de gjort för att anpassa sig till den deltagande kulturen. Genom en observation och tre kvalitativa intervjuer har författaren samlat in allt resultat som kan ställas mot teorin i diskussionen. Resultatet visar att SVT arbetar mot att anpassa sig till deltagarkulturen via deras Projekt Z, där de arbetar med att kommunicera med målgruppen: generation Z, samt samlar in material från dem för att kunna skapa framtida tv-program som är anpassade efter ungas behov och önskningar.Slutsatsen för denna studie visade att om ett företag ska anpassa sig till deltagarkulturen så måste dem först få en förståelse kring vad konvergens och deltagarkulturen innebär och vilka krav deras målgrupp kräver från dem. Företaget måste anpassa sig till det höga deltagandet, uppfylla behoven hos deras målgrupp och fokusera på att arbeta på deras relation med målgruppen. / Today's youth today are strongly influenced by the convergence culture and participatory culture and their media habits have increased over the years. Companies focusing on this target group needs to adapt to the participant culture's characteristics and requirements to maintain their customers within this target group.The purpose of the essay is to investigate how a company can adapt to the participatory culture and the youth's media habits. The essay explores the company SVT and how they did to adapt to the participating culture. Through an observation and three qualitative interviews, the author has collected all the results that can be put against the theory in the discussion. The result shows that SVT works to adapt to the participant culture through their Project Z, where they work with communicating with the target group: generation Z and collecting material from them to create future television programs adjusted to the needs and wishes of young people.The conclusion of this study showed that if a company is to adapt to the participant culture, they must first get an understanding of what convergence and participatory culture means and what requirements their target group demands from them. The company must adapt to the high level of participation, meet the needs of their target audience and focus on working on their relationship with the target audience.

Denna studie utforskar återuppträdandet av stickning som en populär aktivitet och den roll som online-plattformar spelar för att stödja och upprätthålla denna trend. Genom intervjuer med stickare och analys av online-gemenskaper för stickning visar studien att stickning har upplevt en återkomst på grund av dess nostalgiska och terapeutiska drag, vilket främjar kreativitet, gemenskap och en känsla av samhörighet. Resultaten visar att livshändelser som graviditet, arbetslöshet och Covid-19-pandemin har fått människor att återuppta sitt engagemang för hobbyn. Onlineplattformar, inklusive YouTube, Instagram och online grupper för stickning, har spelat en avgörande roll genom att erbjuda läromedel, inspiration och möjligheter till interaktion och att dela med sig med andra stickare. Skapare av stickrelaterat innehåll på sociala medier värdesätter sin koppling till stickgemenskapen och bygger ofta sina egna gemenskaper, drivna av kreativitet, prestation och viljan att göra en positiv påverkan. Dessutom visar studien att stickning innehar värden som sträcker sig bortom den digitala världen, såsom att främja en långsammare, analog livsstil samt främjandet av hållbarhet. Även om online-gemenskaper för stickning uppskattas finns det en stark önskan bland stickare att engagera sig i offline-miljöer och söka meningsfulla kopplingar bortom den digitala världen. Denna studie bidrar till vår förståelse för stickning som en social praktik och betonar behovet av ett holistiskt perspektiv som beaktar både online- och offlinegemenskaper för stickning. / This thesis explores the re-emergence of knitting as a popular activity and the role of online platforms in supporting and sustaining this trend. Drawing on interviews with knitters and analysis of online knitting communities, the study reveals that knitting has experienced a resurgence due to its nostalgic and therapeutic appeal, fostering creativity, connection, and a sense of community. The findings demonstrate that life events such as pregnancy, unemployment, and the Covid-19 pandemic have triggered people to re-engage with the hobby. Online platforms, including YouTube, Instagram, and online knitting groups, have played a crucial role in providing learning resources, inspiration, and opportunities for interaction and sharing among knitters. Knitting content creators in social media platforms value their connection with the knitting community and often build their own communities, driven by creativity, accomplishment, and the desire to make a positive impact. Moreover, the study reveals that knitting holds values that extend beyond the online realm, such as promoting a slower, analog way of living and fostering sustainability. While online knitting communities are valued, there is a strong desire among knitters to engage in offline settings and seek meaningful connections beyond the digital realm. This research contributes to our understanding of knitting as a social practice and emphasises the need for a holistic perspective that considers both online and offline knitting communities.

This study explores how Chinese ancient cultural memory is constructed, and specifically how it is reconstructed through Chinese Xianxia TV dramas during the past five years. Ancient Chinese culture has become a hit in Chinese popular culture today, in which Xianxia TV dramas draw the biggest audiences. This study focuses on the ways, namely the transformations between cultural memory as storage memory to cultural memory as living functional memory, in which the Xianxia genre reconstructs the past. Bringing together a ritual view of communication, cultural memory and participatory culture, it applies a cultural approach to communication, which refers to the production and the fandom reception of Xianxia TV drama. Meanwhile, the perspective of culture industry provides a critical dimension to look into this highly commercial genre. This study is based on the analysis of content and representations of the theme song lyrics, posters and the general narratives of six selected Xianxia TV dramas, as well as a virtual ethnography of fan-generated videos and their comments. The findings suggest that, the reconstruction of ancient Chinese cultural memory in Xianxia TV dramas is a complex interplay between the culture industry logics of Xianxia production and the passionate participatory fan culture. The limited representations of the past in the series are absorbed and practiced by the fan audiences. Through fan practices, the fans extend the media text with their passion and knowledge of ancient culture, attaching the cultural memory into their present real-life cultural identity and hence vigorously transforming cultural memory from storage memory into functional memory.  This study speaks to the lack of bottom-up perspectives in the studies of the ancient culture revival trend in China, and it contributes to a deeper scholarly understanding of the Xianxia genre.

With the rise of Internet, Web and new media technologies come increased opportunities for audience to recreate media content and influence its flow across different media platforms. The fan as a demanding yet enthusiastic consumer has become a centrepiece of media industries' marketing strategies. On the one hand, this qualitative change often described as participatory culture means a giant leap forward for fans, who can now serve new roles within the media industry. On the other, it represents a potential exploitation of media users, as unpaid volunteers do the labour professionals are paid for. This study investigates this tension in a case of videogame fans. On their official websites, videogame developers encourage fans to contribute with their fan art harnessing fan creativity for their advertising purposes. Convergence culture raises conflicts and compromises between creators of fan art (fan artists), and the owners of the copyrighted works they appropriate (game companies). This study addresses three main issues: (1) the way and circumstances under which game companies are displaying fan art on their official websites, (2) how fans understand the tensions between empowerment and exploitation, how do they address the issue of free labour, (3) how fans view issues concerning intellectual property...

This thesis aims to explore how fans use social media to participate in activities relatedto the idol, and what is the level of participation of different fans in the fan group. Thisthesis used qualitative research methods – online observations and semi-structured indepth interviews to collect the empirical data, through focusing on the fan group of KrisWu. The theories of Jenkins and Carpentier are also applied to explore and describe theparticipatory practices of fans. By employing the theory of Jenkin’s participatoryculture to the first part of the analysis, the research results show that for the fans, socialmedia plays an important role in their participation, providing fans with a newenvironment to communicate and organize activities. Fan activities can be categorizedinto three major types: online consumption behaviors, fan text productions, and onlinesupporting activities. By applying the political and critical approach of participation, aswell as Carpentier’s four-level analytical model to the second part of the analysis, thisstudy finds that there are three sub-processes related to online fan communities – themanagement subprocess, the activity organization subprocess, and the subprocess oftext production and distribution. In each fan group, there are four different roles of fans– leaders, creators, supporters, and less active fans. Besides, through analyzing theidentities and decision-making moments, it can be said that although each fan isrelatively equal in the whole participatory process, there are still certain power relationsbetween each role of fans, especially in the process of fan group management.

This MA thesis is devoted to podcasting, one of the phenomena of new media. It describes its origins and development; in greater detail it deals with the present state and characteristic features of podcasts from the viewpoint of their contents, forms, user practice, ways of financing, and also technological perspectives. Attention is focused on elements which interconnect podcasting with radio and radio programmes and also on their differences. The phenomenon is presented in the context of chosen concepts related to web 2.0. Several chapters focussed generally on the development and present state of podcasting are devoted to the situation in the Czech Republic. The research part then provides insight into the present situation from the point of view of independent podcast creators, with whom half-structured interviews were carried out. On the basis of a qualitative analysis of these interviews, several types of attitudes to podcasting and a number of factors related to production of podcasts were identified - primarily motivations to create them as well as some discouraging aspects. Further results of the analysis concern motivation of the authors to listen to podcasts of other creators, their view of the present state of affairs in the sphere of podcasting in the Czech Republic, and their...

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T18:13:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Alexandre Alves Sinfronio Odainai.pdf: 437041 bytes, checksum: 070ca194c5aa1af607d18c7fa76e1503 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-06-18 / The aim of this dissertation is to make a reflection on the way to prepare young students from primary and secondary school in a participatory culture where according to Henry Jenkins popular participation supported by the Internet has expanded the possibilities of interference in society. This active collaboration caused profound changes in sensitive contemporary aspects such as intellectual property, the diversification of cultural expression, the development of skills valued in the modern workplace, and a more empowered conception of citizenship. However, it is necessary to reflect on what Jenkins celebrates as participatory culture since this concept is immersed in an order of dromocratic exclusion where the mercantile logic guides the use and the language of media technologies as noted by Trivinho and Orozco-Gomez. Taking into account the prevalence of new technologies in educational and communication field, it becomes essential to criticize the specific modes of technology incorporation within the school system. The hypothesis presented to answer this problem suggests that these various conditions depend on a number of environmental and internal factors to the system, overcoming the illusory idea that only restricted access to the new media technologies is enough. It is required an axiological dimension that involves values and affection. The adopted methodology is based fundamentally on bibliographical research guided by analysis of the paper Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century by Henry Jenkins. The argument structure is divided into: 1) From Individualism to Cooperation 2) Participatory Culture 3) Overcoming the Participatory Culture. The theoretical frame of reference is composed by authors such as Dewey, Maturana Romesín, Franco, Orozco-Gomez, Trivinho, Castells and Ugarte and it is based on the perspectives of Systems Theory, Cultural Biology, Cyberculture Studies, Dromology Studies and Mediatic Civilization / O trabalho aqui delimitado pretende realizar uma reflexão sobre a melhor maneira de inserir jovens dos sistemas básico e médio de ensino em uma cultura participativa, na qual, segundo Henry Jenkins, a participação popular apoiada pela Internet expandiu as possibilidades de interferência na sociedade. Essa colaboração ativa trouxe profundas mudanças em aspectos sensíveis contemporâneos, como a propriedade intelectual, a diversificação da expressão cultural, desenvolvimento de habilidades que são valorizadas pelo mercado de trabalho moderno e de empoderamento, permitindo aos indivíduos tomar decisões e participar ativamente como cidadãos. Porém, é necessário refletir sobre o que Jenkins celebra como cultura participativa, uma vez que ela está imersa em uma ordem de exclusão dromocrática em que a lógica mercantil orienta usos e linguagens dos meios de comunicação, como bem observou Trivinho e Orozco-Gomez. Levando em consideração a prevalência das novas tecnologias nos campos educativo e comunicativo, torna-se fundamental tensionar os modos específicos de incorporação da tecnologia dentro do sistema escolar. Para responder ao problema a hipótese apresentada sugere que essas condições várias dependem de uma série de fatores ambientais e internos ao sistema, superando a ideia ilusória de que o acesso restrito à presença dos novos media de comunicação seja suficiente. É necessária uma dimensão axiológica que envolva valores e afetividade. A metodologia adotada baseia-se fundamentalmente em pesquisa bibliográfica, norteada pela análise do artigo Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century de Henry Jenkins. A estrutura de argumentação divide-se em: 1) Do Individualismo à Cooperação 2) A Cultura Participativa 3) Superando a Cultura Participativa. O quadro teórico de referência é formado por autores como Dewey, Maturana, Franco, Orozco-Gómez, Trivinho, Castells e Ugarte e baseia-se nas perspectivas da teoria geral de sistemas, da biologia cultural, estudos de cibercultura, da dromologia e da civilização mediática

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / Essa pesquisa foi realizada no momento histÃrico contemporÃneo caracterizado pelo alargamento da cibercultura, onde à cada vez mais tÃnue o limite entre os espaÃos geograficamente localizados e aqueles produzidos na rede de alcance mundial, a Internet. Este cenÃrio tem propiciado condiÃÃes favorÃveis para o desenvolvimento de uma cultura participativa. O desafio que se coloca para a escola e suas prÃticas educativas à lidar com essa nova dinÃmica atravÃs da qual o indivÃduo tem amplo acesso à informaÃÃo. Levantou-se a hipÃtese de que hà uma cultura participativa em formaÃÃo, sobretudo fora da escola, nos espaÃos virtuais. A tese à de que essa cultura participativa preenche o significado de prÃticas educativas digitais. A questÃo central a partir da qual se desenvolveu esta pesquisa nos conduziu a investigar o que facilitava/dificultava a formaÃÃo de uma cultura participativa tanto no interior da escola, como fora dela, nos novos espaÃos estruturados em redes sociodigitais. Por tudo isso, o objetivo principal do presente estudo foi construir um conceito de prÃticas educativas digitais, preenchendo com o significante flutuante âcultura participativaâ, identificando sua origem, natureza e relaÃÃo com os fenÃmenos educacionais. Em tempos que indicam mudanÃas paradigmÃticas na educaÃÃo, esta pesquisa foi realizada numa abordagem qualitativa, com aporte na etnografia virtual. Uma parte da pesquisa empÃrica foi realizada em Portugal, onde aconteceram entrevistas abertas com os sujeitos envolvidos nas prÃticas educativas formais. Ocorreu tambÃm registro fotogrÃfico do espaÃo escolar. Um segundo momento do estudo se desenvolveu no Brasil, por meio de questionÃrios online destinados a conselheiros escolares e anÃlise de uma comunidade virtual exclusiva para esses sujeitos. Obtiveram-se dados multimodais representados em fotografias, narrativas, grÃficos que mostram o pouco impacto das mudanÃas culturais nos paradigmas educacionais do campo escolar pesquisado. Evidencia, por outro lado, o importante papel da instituiÃÃo escolar na construÃÃo de uma cultura de participaÃÃo, onde todos os atores implicados nas prÃticas educativas precisam exercer sua cidadania de forma mais integrada, coesa, descentralizada e difusa. / This research had been effected in the contemporary historical moment characterized by the cyberculture enlargement, which is increasingly a fine line between the spaces geographically located and those produced in the world wide network, the Internet. This scenery has provided favorable conditions for the development of a participatory culture. The challenge posed to school and their educational practices is dealing with this new dynamic by which the individual has broad access to information. It raised the hypothesis that there is a participatory culture in formation, especially outside schools, in the virtual spaces. The thesis is that this participatory culture fills the meaning of digital educational practices. The central question from which this research had been developed led us to investigate what facilitated/ hindered the formation of a participatory culture both within and outside the school in the new spaces structured in sociodigitals networks. For all that, the main purpose of this study was to construct a concept of digital educational practices, filling with floating signifier "participatory culture", identifying its origin, nature and relationship to the educational phenomena. In times indicating paradigmatic changes in education, this research was conducted in a qualitative approach, with contribution in virtual ethnography. Part of the empirical research had been conducted in Portugal, which open interviews took place with those involved in formal educational practices. Also occurred photographic records of the school apace. A second moment of the study had been developed in Brazil through online questionnaires for the school counselors and analysis of a unique virtual community for those people. It obtained multimodal data represented in photographs, narratives and charts that shows the little impact of cultural changes in educational paradigms of the school field that had been studied. It highlights, on the other hand, the important role of schools in building a culture of participation, where all the actors involved in the educational practices need to exercise their citizenship in a more integrated, cohesive, decentralized and diffuse.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T14:23:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Caio Assis Capasso.pdf: 1551637 bytes, checksum: c0c126f85ced7a9208f93a493d6d39d8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-03-12 / This research aims to verify how videogames allow the creation, sharing and collaboration of user-generated content, and the characteristics of fan communities that are created to such objective. For this work we minimally define videogames as digital games that are dependent of a computational support for its realization. Some useful videogames for the better understanding of the activities of creation and alteration of content by players and the manner they happen, particularly the creation of mods: the name commonly used to refer to the practice of alteration of a videogame s characteristics through the manipulation of files and/or processes that are constitute it, resulting in a different experience from the one originally planned by its developer. With this we try to offer clues and pointers towards a deeper understanding of the manners the roles of producer and consumer, author and user, player and fan are transforming with the ascension of new technologies and now (digital) media. With this intent we give special attention to the players turned modders amateur content creators for a specific videogame -, through the online communities engaged in the creation and distribution of this kind of content. Three author groupings are used as theoretical foundation for this research. The first é composed by authors that helps us to think questions regarding participatory culture and the promises of the internet, among them we can cite Howard Rheingold, Sherry Turkle, clary Shirky, Axel Bruns and particularly Mizuko Ito and Henry Jenkins. In the second grouping Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman and Jesper Juul offer the concepts that allow us to take into account the expressive dimensions od videogames. The third grouping, with a special emphasis in the works of Olli Sotamaa, David Nieborg and Julian Kucklich that offers us empirical study cases for us to study the questions related to modding as a productive practice. We attempt to operationalize a theoretical perspective that deal with the expressive potential of videogames and how the interventions characterized as mods are one of the most intriguing ways to subvert the author/user and producer/consumer relationships. We also attempt to suggest similarities and differences between videogames and other media. Other objective is to enrich the debate regarding online participation and the artifacts it produces, trying to think participatory culture and the media convergence in the contemporary consumption and production practices through videogames / Nesse trabalho discutimos videogames, definidos como jogos digitais dependentes de um suporte computacional para sua realização, que nos ajudam a entender melhor as formas que as atividades de criação e alteração de conteúdo por jogadores se dão. Atenção especial é dada à criação de mods : termo comumente utilizado para denominar a alteração de características de um videogame através da manipulação de arquivos e/ou processos que o constituem e que resultam em uma experiência diferente da originalmente pretendida. A intenção dessa pesquisa é verificar como os videogames permitem a criação, troca e colaboração de conteúdo criado por usuários e as características das comunidades de entusiastas que são formadas para tais fins. Os videogames, e o modding em particular, são objeto de estudo valioso num período onde a crescente agência de consumidores sobre objetos midiáticos pode ser percebida tanto como estratégia de libertação quanto de exploração, pois se encontra na interseção entre atividade lúdica e trabalho, produção amadora e indústria. São fornecidos pistas e apontamentos na direção de um entendimento mais profundo das maneiras como os papéis de produtor e consumidor, autor e usuário, jogador e fã vêm se transformando com o desenvolvimento das novas tecnologias e das mídias digitais, a partir de um ponto de vista sociológico e historiográfico. Também damos atenção especial e aos modders jogadores que se tornam criadores amadores de conteúdo para videogames. Utilizamos três grupos de autores na fundamentação teórica. O primeiro é composto por autores que ajudam a pensar questões referentes à cultura participativa e as potencialidades da internet, especialmente Mizuko Ito e Henry Jenkins. No segundo Katie Salen e Eric Zimmerman e Jesper Juul oferecem os conceitos que permitem considerar as dimensões expressivas dos videogames. O terceiro grupo, com ênfase especial a Olli Sotamaa e Julian Kucklich, oferecem os casos práticos utilizados para estudar as questões relativas ao modding enquanto prática produtiva. Nossa intenção é operacionalizar uma perspectiva teórica que trabalhe o potencial expressivo de um videogame e como as intervenções que classificamos como mod são uma das maneiras mais intrigantes de subversão das relações autor/usuário e produtor/consumidor. Pretendemos também apontar semelhanças e diferenças entre videogames e outras mídias e enriquecer o debate a respeito da participação online e dos artefatos que ela produz, e pensar a cultura participativa e a convergência midiática nas práticas de consumo e produção da sociedade contemporânea através dos videogames

<p>Abstract</p><p>Title: Interactivity and participation - a qualitative study about the making of machinima with</p><p>World of Warcraft (Interaktivitet och och deltagande – en kvalitativ studie kring skapandet av</p><p>machinima med World of Warcraft)</p><p>Number of pages: 68 total, 50 without appendix</p><p>Author: Peter Brandberg</p><p>Tutor: Else Nygren</p><p>Period: Autumn 2006</p><p>Course: Media and Communication Studies C</p><p>University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University</p><p>Purpose/Aim: The aim of this study is to take a closer look at the phenomenon machinima by analysing a number of specific movies from the site worldcraftmovies.com. This analyse is focusing on how the content of these movies relate to the wider game culture of the MMORPG World of Warcraft, what specific elements in the movies is referring to and if there is differences or similarities between different genres (or categories).</p><p>Material/Method: The method used in analysing the movies is a combined method inspired by hermeneutic, semiotics and discourse analysis.</p><p>Main results: Instead of answers this study raises many questions about the diverse content of the movies. A general division can be seen between movies focusing on the games rules and movies that are trying to present a fictive world. But the study also shows how there are many movies moving between these two points. The study also suggests that further studies need to focus on the emotional investment players put into the game.</p><p>Keywords: cultural studies, participatory culture, convergence culture, fan culture, new media, game studies, machinima, MMORPG, World of Warcraft</p>