Audiovisual Culture of Participation: The Role of Social Media

Abstract

The purpose of the research is to determine the main features of participatory culture and the role of social media as a determinant of its generation in audiovisual culture. The research methodology involves the use of general scientific methods (analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, generalisation of results, and others), as well as approaches integrated from cultural studies, social communications, and medieval studies. The basis of the methodology is also the theory of information society by M. Castells, the culture of participation by H. Jenkins, which made it possible to formulate an understanding of the main changes in modern culture. The scientific novelty lies in the conceptualisation of the findings regarding the influence of social media on the changes taking place in modern audiovisual culture, in particular in the context of the transition from the culture of consumption to the culture of participation. Conclusions. Audiovisual culture is changing significantly under the influence of social media, in particular, it is axquiring the characteristics of a participatory culture. The latter emphasises the importance of interaction, involvement and activity of social media users in the creation, distribution and interpretation of audiovisual content, and its characteristic features are: co-creation, interactivity, openness, active distribution and popularity of memes, virtual and augmented reality, crowdsourcing. Another feature of modern audiovisual culture is the ability to view, create, and distribute one's own cultural and artistic works by publishing them online: films, videos, podcasts, and the like. YouTube, Facebook or Twitter platforms not only encourage active interaction, commenting, likes and reposts, but also turn the user, who becomes more professional and expert through participation, into a producer. This has destroyed the expert hierarchy and even reformatted the usual "producer-consumer" relationship: the passive consumer has turned into the active creator. The passive user of social media actually no longer exists as such: he or she becomes not just a producer of content, but also a relayer of new socio-cultural meanings.

Keywords: audiovisual culture, social media, new technologies, participatory culture, audiovisual content.