Participatory Culture

The term participatory culture is applied to the production or creation of some type of published media. "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Our public policy is getting anxious about cultural change. It is the gender dimension which contributes to the politics of fear. Nowadays, we fear about everything; media effects on people and our children. They are exposed to various forms of media. They have access to social networking sites where they are at risk to sexual molestation or sexual exposure through content sharing. These fears arose because of recent  efforts by the Internet Safety Technical Taskforce to shift terms of debate about youth's digital access. Before taking any steps on most policy issues, we need to develop strategies for decreasing the role of ignorance and fears in public debates about new media. For the past decades, it has been insured that every American child has access to networked computers. the struggle of technological access has brought some real changes. The participation gap refers to other social. cultural and educational concerns which block full participation. not having enough free time outside school or workplace make it harder  for some to contribute content or participate in online communication then others. The MacArthur foundation's Digital Media and Learning Initiative has brought together hundreds of researchers around the country who are seeking to reinvent public institutions to reflect this alternative understanding of participatory culture. They have taken the initiative to provide a large scale of ethnographic of many different sites through which young people connect to the world. Social networks which involve young people are blocked by federal and local educational policies. Wikipedia or Alternative Reality Games offer real examples of the ways that social networks may pool their resources and solve many problems that we cannot imagine. We should encourage alternative platforms and practices to explore the potential of collective intelligence to get a better understanding of ethical, pedagogical and political principles which must be in place before any new forms of citizenly engagement. Through expansion, it is known who has access to the means of cultural production and distribution and who has the power to widen the range of stories and ideas in circulation. Most of the model for user-moderation of content stars=t from the majority principles with no commitment to diversity. The struggle of the intellectual property can be the most important on the battleground to get the future of participatory culture. American newspapers are becoming extinct and news media are tightening their budgets and recovering  their coverge and journalists turning jobless because of economic crisis. Journalists are being replaced by a volunteer army of  "citizen journalists."