From zine to podcast. Rethinking participatory culture from a comparative analysis of alternative media

Abstract

The advent of Web 2.0 entailed a surge of numerous participatory theories that heralded the advent of citizen communicative empowerment and the decentralization of the media discourse, nowadays potentially led by amateur creators, or “those who were formerly known as the audience”. This essay poses a comparative analysis between the zine and the podcast as alternative media catalysts for media empowerment and the spread of counterculture narratives by studying their defining aspects, such as funding, distribution/circulation, project longevity, their features as media that is personalized, instrumental, and social, in addition to their creative rationale. From this analysis, the present study engages in a theoretical inquiry into the false novelty of participatory culture and the few possibilities of liberation that citizens can find in digital media, urging a discerning approach to utopian visions regarding digital communication.