Making Media Participatory

Abstract

In 2002, Media International Australia published a special issue on Citizens' Media (no. 103). It profiled new academic work that was reinvigorating research into alternative and community-interest media. Contributions to that issue explored new possibilities for community media policy and argued that critical participatory media provided a crucial link between media studies and broader agendas in political theory and democratic debate. In this issue, we refresh this debate with a collection of articles from new and established researchers that consider the use of critical perspectives in participatory digital culture, which has flourished with the growth of consumer markets for digital media technologies.