Participatory culture describes a culture where people act as active contributors and producers of media and cultural productions. The term has often been described in relation to Web 2.0, social networking and new media technology. Henry Jenkins describes a participatory culture as one: 1. With relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement 2. With strong support for creating and sharing one’s creations with others 3. With some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices 4. Where members believe that their contributions matter 5. Where members feel some degree of social connection with one another (at the least they care what other people think about what they have created). (Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century, 2006)

Online communities and networks produce content and have come to interact also in offline spaces. In this panel we discuss examples of participatory culture and the use Web 2.0 in building networks, on- and offline interaction, Internet activism, and the potentials, challenges and barriers of participatory culture and technology. For more information on participatory culture see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_culture.

Panelists: †¢ Tea Hvala (Slovenia) – Red Dawns festival, blogger and graffiti: http://www.kudmreza.org/rdece/index_eng.html, http://prepih.blogspot.com/ †¢ Alek Ommert (Germany) – Social networking of queer-feminist activism †¢ Sonja Prlic (Austria) – Frontiers, www.frontiers-game.com, 3d online Computer game to the topic of crossing borders

Co-organized by Rosa Reitsamer, Red Chidgey and Elke Zobl within the research projects « Feminist Media Production in Europe » and « Young women as producers of cultural spaces » (www.grassrootsfeminism.net).