TY - JOUR
T1 - The History of Participatory Practices
T2 - Rethinking Media Genres in the History of User-generated Content in 19th-century Travel Guidebooks
AU - Alacovska, Ana
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - This article charts the historical stability and continuity of participatory and crowdsourcing practices. Theoretically, it suggests that the blurring of the boundaries between audiences and producers, with the ensuing result of user-generated content, is by no means solely the upshot of new media technological affordances but largely a function of relatively stabilized, genre-specific formal and functional properties, or ‘genre affordances’. Certain referential and performative genres enable interaction between audiences, texts and producers independently of new media technologies because these genres constitute what matters for both producers and audiences in specific historical circumstances. Genres make available shared cultural, social and pragmatic resources for appropriate and desirable being, doing, feeling and thinking. Empirically, this article builds upon an archival study of co-production related to the specific genre of travel guidebooks. It investigates (a) audience feedback in the form of handwritten letters sent to John Murray, a venerable 19th-century British publishing house, and (b) the ways in which John Murray’s yesteryear guidebook producers actively solicited and implemented reader-authored content in professional production practice.
AB - This article charts the historical stability and continuity of participatory and crowdsourcing practices. Theoretically, it suggests that the blurring of the boundaries between audiences and producers, with the ensuing result of user-generated content, is by no means solely the upshot of new media technological affordances but largely a function of relatively stabilized, genre-specific formal and functional properties, or ‘genre affordances’. Certain referential and performative genres enable interaction between audiences, texts and producers independently of new media technologies because these genres constitute what matters for both producers and audiences in specific historical circumstances. Genres make available shared cultural, social and pragmatic resources for appropriate and desirable being, doing, feeling and thinking. Empirically, this article builds upon an archival study of co-production related to the specific genre of travel guidebooks. It investigates (a) audience feedback in the form of handwritten letters sent to John Murray, a venerable 19th-century British publishing house, and (b) the ways in which John Murray’s yesteryear guidebook producers actively solicited and implemented reader-authored content in professional production practice.
KW - Crowdsourcing practices
KW - Genre
KW - Genre affordances
KW - History of digital technologies
KW - History of participation
KW - New media history
KW - Participatory practices
KW - Travel guidebooks
KW - User-generated content
KW - Crowdsourcing practices
KW - Genre
KW - Genre affordances
KW - History of digital technologies
KW - History of participation
KW - New media history
KW - Participatory practices
KW - Travel guidebooks
KW - User-generated content
UR - https://sfx-45cbs.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/45cbs?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&url_ctx_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info:sid/sfxit.com:azlist&sfx.ignore_date_threshold=1&rft.object_id=954925479561&rft.object_portfolio_id=&svc.holdings=yes&svc.fulltext=yes
U2 - 10.1177/0163443716663642
DO - 10.1177/0163443716663642
M3 - Journal article
VL - 39
SP - 661
EP - 679
JO - Media, Culture & Society
JF - Media, Culture & Society
SN - 0163-4437
IS - 5
ER -