Culture of civic participation: transmedia mobilization and hacktivism in communities of practice (makers and fans cases)

Abstract

This article presents the results of an ethnographic study on the participatory practices (civic cause-orientated) carried out by two communities of practice in the context of participatory culture. The concept of culture of civic participation is proposed as a way to demonstrate the practices of participation related to civic issues and causes, based on fictional media narratives and discourses and on the maker movement. The methodology develops a strategy that recovers the forms of face-to-face and virtual communicative agency of the members of two communities of practice. A proposal is made to categorize the observed practices based on the transmedia mobilization that incorporates referents of popular culture to the civic involvement of the participants, and a form of fan hacktivism characterized by the creative and alternative use of digital and analogue technology to solve social problems.