What exactly is “digital culture“? Basically, it is the age of information. Yes, yes. We’ve all heard that books hold the power of knowledge. However, in today’s modern world, information is at one’s fingertips through the help of the internet. If we really break it down and analyse the way in which this new digital culture works, we must observe it’s three major componenets: remediation, participation, and bricolage.
Remediation refers to the process of taking something which already exists and providing new views and meanings for them. A good word for describing remediation would be “remix”. We’ve all heard our favorite songs be “remixed” to where the beat is different, additional artists are featured in the song, etc. The same concept is applied to other things which we see offered in today’s media. For example, people who use Twitter to recieve new updates are using a remediated form of new broadcasting to gain knowledge of the latest events occurring in the world around them. Another form of remediation is the use of avatars in games, such as Second Life or The Sims.
Participation, or the contribution of the public audince for a common purpose. Forms of participation include things which we use and do on a daily basis. For example, the use of tagging people on Facebook, writing in community blogs, and adding/updating the information offered on Wikipedia. Remediation and participation are both brought together to create the third part of digital culture which has come to be known as bricolage.
Bricolage can be easily explained in three simple words: Remix, Reuse, and Redistribute. In breaking this down it can be described in a simple process. Let’s use the gossip over a celebrity’s chaotic breakdown in front of the paparazzi. Every entertainment news source will have their own recount of the events that took place. We, as the audience, use different forms of communication to gather all information pertaining to the subject. After gathering information from a number of sources, the reader proceeds to piecing all the different portions of information together into an overall product. Once this is accomplished, the final result is posted and redistributed through multiple forms of media including Facebook, Twitter,WordPress, word of mouth, etc.
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