Rethinking Participatory Culture

摘要

I present my research on new organizational forms driving user-based digital media production. I compare the culture of modders-end users who develop software extensions to commercial products-in the U.S. and China [4,5]. I studied modders who create mods for the popular online multiplayer game World of Warcraft. I argue that participatory culture as it is currently formulated in the literature is non-universal. My research findings suggest that core teams are a common organizational form for producing digital media in China. As digital media research becomes globalized, attention to varying cultures of media users will serve us well.