Learning about Participation Culture

 Hello! I know right now you would probably rather be reading the latest Instagram post from your favorite influencer, maybe even look at
TikTok to see the cool new sketch that just dropped. It is totally understandable, go ahead, right quick and we can come back to this in a moment. 

All good? That is the power of participation culture. Addicting is it not? The creators of social media know it is, it is not how the like button looks, or the coloration of it that keeps you coming back. In fact, it is just an innate sense to participate socially, and social media scratches that itch in a quick but almost meaningless way. Sure, social media is great to use to connect with others in a sense of business and quick look-ins on friends, but it is addicting and takes people farther apart than brings them together. How many hours have you spent scrolling through social media? One two? Half the day? 

Do you think that is healthy? For some people it can be that way. However, we are here to talk about the class lesson of the week. Participation Culture and the power that social networks hold, and how they change our pattern of speech and influence our writing. When you spend so long paying attention to social media, the way people in those communities will impact you, whether you realize it or not.

If you have social media then surely you have seen slang, or different forms of words that are universally understood. Anyone know what a “danger noodle” is? In the herp community that's just a venomous snake. How about an “oc”? In the D&D world that is known as an original character. We interact with many different people, and everyone is interconnected in many different communities. The power of their influence on us and our continued interaction shapes how we communicate every day. These communities are known as discourse communities, and they can be participated with through a variety of ways.

In our readings for this week “Writing Spaces” helped to define what discourse communities are, places that have similar goals in communicating with one another and have reasons to have correspondence. Understanding that definition we find that a lot of us have participated in discourse communities in fact it is practically impossible not to have been included in one at one point or another. Having to look through and understand how they have affected my life I see the terminology that I use with friends and family. Without realizing I also switch on and off some areas of my vocabulary. I have found myself having a conversation with people who cannot even begin to understand what I am saying. How many times has that happened to you? Have you found that an area you discuss with others becomes foreign language for others?