The Culture Industry and Participatory Audiences

This project offers a new critique of participatory media practices. While the concept of participatory culture is often theorised as embodying the possibility of a potentially utopian future of media engagement and participation, this book argues that the culture industry, as it adapts and changes, provides moments of authorised participation that play out under the dominance of the industry. Through a critical recounting of the experience of creating a web series in Australia (with a global audience) outside of the culture industry structures, this book argues< that whilst participatory culture employing convergent media technologies enables media consumers to become media producers, this takes place through platforms controlled by industry. The emerging architecture of the Internet has created a series of platforms whereparticipation can take place. It is these platforms that become spaces of controlled access to participatory cultural practices.

Emma Keltie is a research officer at the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University, Australia. She managed the Engaging Creativity through Technologies project as part of the Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre, and prior to joining Western Sydney University worked as a lecturer in communication and cultural theory. Her research interests include participatory culture, the role of technology in the mental health and well-being of young people, digital storytelling, and media convergence.