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In "Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture," Henry Jenkins & Co. write that "every child deserves the chance to express him- or her-self through words, sounds, and images, even if most will never  write, perform, or draw professionally. Having these experiences, we believe, changes the way youths think about themselves and alters the way they look at work created by others." While I do not disagree with the premise that children deserve the chance to express themselves, what this text does not adequately acknowledge (to me) is the question of what happens when everyone is given free reign to post/share whatever they want. Just as participatory culture can be used to influence that way youths think about themselves, it can also be used by those same youths to negatively impact their fellow students. As cyber-bullying becomes a growing concern in this country, we must be wary of how participatory culture can be taken advantage of for personal gain. And not just by today's youth, but by adults as well.

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Wikipedia: A Reliable Source of Information?

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Wikipedia: A Reliable Source of Information?

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Speaking of barriers for entry, I also wanted to discuss Wikipedia in particular, a source that many students (including myself) often turn to as a starting-off point when gathering information for research papers, assignments, and as a general go-to reference. Although Wikipedia's model is generally accurate and an excellent source for information, their system of allowing anyone with a Wikipedia account to edit articles is both a gift and a curse.

In "Audience, Authorship, and Artifact: The Emergent Semiotics of Web 2.0," Mark Warschauer and Douglas Grimes write, "Much of the discussion regarding the use of Wikis in education has focused

on the suitability of Wikipedia as a source for student research. The founder of

Wikipedia, Jim Wales, provides the most commonsense answer to this, suggesting

that although Wikipedia can help provide an overview of issues and a starting point

for identifying primary sources, students are better off using primary sources as

definitive sources in their research." By Wales's own admission, Wikipedia, although reputable in its own right, should never be used as a primary source when creating original content. While Wikipedia does have administrators and other staff who exist solely to fact-check user submissions, this is not a 100% foolproof system, and it IS possible to slip erroneous material past them.

Of course, it isn't all doom and gloom; in fact, for the average user, it is fairly difficult to put just ANYTHING on Wikipedia. However, the list of hoaxes that have appeared on Wikipedia (and have been there for several years) is actually way longer than you'd think.

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Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia - Wikipedia

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This is a list of known historical hoaxes created on the English Wikipedia. It is not for known hoaxes which are notable in their own right, such as the Piltdown Man. Its purpose is to document hoaxes on Wikipedia, in order to improve our understanding of them and our ability to detect them. For the…

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On a slightly less heavy note than publicly spreading misinformation, having such a low barrier for entry to post/share things online can be harmful in less serious ways. By this I mean that sometimes correct information can be spread through social media sites and blogs that users might not want to experience, but due to how easy it is to share media (especially with Web 2.0 in full effect), we can often be exposed to images and media that we do not realize we're experiencing until it's too late. One example of this is the posting of spoilers online.

Matt Hills addresses this in "Fiske's 'textual productivity' and digital fandom: Web 2.0 democratization versus fan distinction," where he identifies an occasion that the first two episodes of a season of Doctor Who were spoiled online. He writes that Steven Moffatt, one of the showrunners for Doctor Who, "effectively positions fan spoilers as 'mere reproductions; feeble shadows of the text's professional creativity and aesthetics. They spoil because they lack skill, and craft, and good judgment.'"

Clearly, Moffatt was not thrilled that the show was spoiled online. However, he raises a point here that I wanted to highlight; specifically, that the person who posted the spoilers lacked skill, craft, and judgment. While this may sound a bit harsh, and whether it applies to applies to the person who posted the spoiler or not, at the end of the day, there ARE people in the world who lack judgment, and with the barrier for entry being so low, those people are just as capable of posting online as everyone else. Because of this, the internet can be a very dangerous place for those who are unaware of the risks - especially children.