Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here for more information on Handbook of U.S. Latino Psychology

Understanding Representation Jen Webb

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
International Journal of Cultural Studies
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Carpentier, N.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

The BBC’s Video Nation as a Participatory Media Practice

Signifying Everyday Life, Cultural Diversity and Participation in an Online Community

Nico Carpentier

Catholic University (KUB) and Free University (VUB) of Brussels, Belgium, Nico.Carpentier{at}vub.ac.be

The Video Nation project is one of the BBC’s recent major contributions to stimulating audience participation within mainstream media. This project (cl)aims to maintain a balanced power relationship between participants and members of the production team. Despite its transformation from a television setting to a web-based ‘online community and archive’ (although Video Nation partially returned to television in 2003), this project still has the ambition to give people the opportunity to represent themselves and their daily life. At the same time, it signifies the multilayered culture of ‘ordinary people’ and the cultural diversity within the British nation. The analysis illustrates the complex nature of audience participation in the mainstream media as, in contrast to community media, it becomes necessary to find and maintain an equal power balance between participants and media professionals in a structurally-biased institutional context. The power play that is seen at work in a highly fluid and contingent context creates the need for constant negotiation and care in order to protect the vulnerable power equilibrium between media professionals and participants. Crucial in this process is the participatory attitude of the media professionals, whose identity is no longer solely built on being a gatekeeper and producer of content, but also on gate-opening and facilitating the creation of content.

Key Words: audience • ordinary people • power • self-representation • television • World Wide Web

International Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 6, No. 4, 425-447 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/136787790364003
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 European Journal of CommunicationHome page
N. Carpentier
Participation Is Not Enough: The Conditions of Possibility of Mediated Participatory Practices
European Journal of Communication, December 1, 2009; 24(4): 407 - 420.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 GazetteHome page
N. Carpentier
The Belly of the City: Alternative Communicative City Networks
International Communication Gazette, June 1, 2008; 70(3-4): 237 - 255.
[Abstract] [PDF]