Participation, Remediation, Bricolage: Considering Principal Components of a Digital Culture

Abstract

Within media theory the worldwide shift from a 19th-century print culture via a 20th-century electronic culture to a 21st-century digital culture is well documented. In this essay the emergence of a digital culture as amplified and accelerated by the popularity of networked computers, multiple-user software, and Internet is investigated in terms of its principal components. A digital culture as an underdetermined praxis is conceptualized as consisting of participation, remediation, and bricolage. Using the literature on presumably "typical" Internet phenomena such as the worldwide proliferation of independent media centers (indymedia) linked with (radical) online journalism practices and the popularity of (individual and group) weblogging, the various meanings and implications of this particular understanding of digital culture are explored. In the context of this essay, digital culture can be seen as an emerging set of values, practices, and expectations regarding the way people (should) act and interact within the contemporary network society. This digital culture has emergent properties with roots in both online and offline phenomena, with links to trends and developments predating the World Wide Web, yet having an immediate impact and particularly changing the ways in which we use and give meaning to living in an increasingly interconnected, always on(line) environment. Keywords: citizen mediacybercultureInternet culturenew media theoryradical online journalism Notes 1. Let me briefly state how I define and understand "culture" in the context of this essay. Throughout the literature I draw on for my essay, culture as a concept is used interchangeably with other units of analysis, such as in the ways social systems sustain and reproduce themselves through communication (CitationLuhmann, 1990). I thus see culture as more or less a set of values, norms, practices, and expectations shared (and constantly renegotiated) of a group of people. In this essay, these "people" are those inhabitants of modern societies most directly affected by computerization, such as in going online regularly during the week at home or from work (for example: according to Nielsen/NetRatings, per August 1, 2005, this would refer to over 260 million Americans, roughly 30 million Japanese residents, about 12 million Brazilians, and over 10 million Spanish people). In some ways this group of people represents a distinct elite culture—especially with regard to those people in the world who have yet to make their first phone call or plug in their first radio. On the other hand, drawing a boundary between those surfing the Web and those who do not ignores the spillover between online and offline activities. The fact that some people only read news online while others subscribe to a newspaper does not necessarily mean they live "in" different cultures. Indeed, in this essay I argue that digital culture is both a social phenomenon and a set of values and activities observable online, but also having distinct offline properties and expressions. In terms of contemporary social theorists of globalization—such as Giddens and Beck—I would opt for the hypothesis that "no one is outside anymore"—whether outside of the globalized world or digital culture. Following Baumann, I understand digital culture both as "the collective heritage of a group, that is, as a catalog of ideas and practices that shape both the collective and the individual lives and thoughts of all members" (1999, p. 25) and as something that "only exists in the act of being performed, and it can never stand still or repeat itself without changing its meaning" (1999, p. 26). This recombinant relationship between what Baumann calls an essentialist and a processual understanding of culture guides my way of thinking in this article. 2. See Deuze (1999, Citation2005). 3. See CitationPlaton and Deuze (2003). 4. See CitationDeuze (2003).