Making culture involves multiple levels of participation and creativity. On a global scale, with assistance from digital and networked technologies, the making of culture further expands the production of commodified forms of culture; a feedback loop occurs in the circulation and reception of cultural goods that stimulates new offshoots of culture and creativity.
Another way to think about the ‘making’ of culture, is to consider the intensity and resonance of any activity that contributes to the experience of the everyday, even if only within a personal and private sphere. Volunteers and fans are a good examples of this culture making; the activity and intensity of investment ( in time, money, commitment, etc) exists in a circuit of interconnected relationships to specific commodities and practices, but is not limited to them.
New forms of culture are made in the ‘convergence’ of media content and technology, a phenomenon which Henry Jenkins (2006 pp.2-3) considers to involve the “migratory” behaviours of a mass but non-homogenised audiences across platforms, technologies, and services in the search of a personalised but social entertainment experiences, with the expectation of being able to make new connections between them.
American Media Scholar, Professor Henry Jenkins (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Jenkins)
This view reconfigures making culture in the digital and mobile era, emphasising the role of media production by consumers as participants within interactive frameworks. Fandom’s shared practices nebulises the source text: sharing, liking, linking, collecting, spoiling, etc, each adds to the accretion of cultural formation.
We see how new intersections of the technological, legal, industrial, and social also contribute to making culture and have disrupted previously held boundaries between content creators, owners and audiences.
Jenkins, H 2006, Convergence Culture, New York University Press: New York.
