Participatory Culture, Community, and Play: Learning from Reddit

by Adrienne L. Massanari, Steve Jones (Editor)

Overview

What does online community look like in the age of social networking? How do participatory culture platforms reflect both their designers’ intentions and the desires of their users? In this incisive and timely work, Adrienne L. Massanari discusses how culture is created and challenged on Reddit.com, the self-proclaimed «front page of the internet». Reddit enables the sharing of original and reposted content from around the web, and provides a platform for like-minded individuals to commune around topics of interest – everything from the joys of drinking beer in a shower (/r/showerbeer) to celebrating the pleasures of tidy penmanship (/r/penmanshipporn). Massanari’s ethnographic work provides a detailed examination of the contradictions that shape Reddit’s culture and how they reflect its role as an epicenter of geek culture. The book explores the ways in which community on Reddit is formed and solidified through play and humor, and the complex ways in which Redditors come together, which demonstrate a deep capacity for altruism and charitable giving, but can easily lapse into mob action. It also explores the community’s troubling gender and racial politics and how some Redditors are carving out their own space on the site to fight back.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781433126772
Publisher:	Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers
Publication date:	02/27/2015
Series:	Digital Formations , #75
Pages:	215
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Adrienne L. Massanari (PhD, University of Washington) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is co-editor of Digital Ethics (Peter Lang, 2012) and Critical Cyberculture Studies (2006).

Table of Contents

Contents: Why reddit? – Defining reddit – Cynicism, altruism, and hating everything, including ourselves – Reliving the past [REPOST] – Playing seriously – Open platforms, closed discourse.

Editorial Reviews

«Adrienne L. Massanari has written the definitive primer on Reddit, in all its contradiction and complexity. This accessible book provides an invaluable contribution to the ongoing debate over ‘Web 2.0’, what it is, what it isn’t, and what we might reasonably expect from platforms that rely on user-generated content.» (Douglas Rushkoff, Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics, Cuny/Queens)
«Adrienne L. Massanari takes us on a deep dive into Reddit’s complex ecosystem of memes, bots, drama, and ‘karma’ illuminating the local norms and technical algorithms by which it both functions and malfunctions. Her book is a valuable contribution to the literature on Internet culture and its discontents.» (Julian Dibbell, Author of My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World)

«Adrienne L. Massanari has written the definitive primer on Reddit, in all its contradiction and complexity. This accessible book provides an invaluable contribution to the ongoing debate over ‘Web 2.0’, what it is, what it isn’t, and what we might reasonably expect from platforms that rely on user-generated content.» (Douglas Rushkoff, Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics, Cuny/Queens)
«Adrienne L. Massanari takes us on a deep dive into Reddit’s complex ecosystem of memes, bots, drama, and ‘karma’ illuminating the local norms and technical algorithms by which it both functions and malfunctions. Her book is a valuable contribution to the literature on Internet culture and its discontents.» (Julian Dibbell, Author of My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World)

From the Publisher