Social media and online communities in the context of participatory culture: A netnographic analysis

Facilities offered by the cutting-edge communication technologies transformed the online context into a living space where daily life is reflected by various aspects. This space or so to say domain is utilized by the users sometimes as an extension of daily life and sometimes as an alternative to the daily life. This aspect of online context is not only valid for the individual use but also use of online communities. Social media platforms serve as a convenient and purposeful communication mean or tool for both existing communities and for the formation of new communities. Internet and particularly the social media platforms contribute to the culture of participation and engagement by means of including the users within the content production process and offering the opportunity to create interaction and form public opinion. From this point of view, the objective of this thesis study is briefly to comprehend how the participatory culture appears on the social media. For this purpose, the social media usage of communities coalesced on social media platforms and the individuals within these communities are addressed from the participation and engagement culture point of view. In this context, for the purpose of achieving maximum diversity by collection more data, five distinctive communities existing on the social media platforms and three distinct platforms used by these communities are preferred to serve as sample. Accordingly, Robert Kozinet's Netnography method is used for this research as it is deemed to be convenient due to its functionality to reveal the culture, facilities offered to the researcher and consonant systematic structure for the research. As a result of Netnographic analysis, significant data was obtained regarding the usage of social media platforms by distinctive communities and this data provides an opportunity to reveal a wide perspective towards the engagement in the social media and in this context, as a result of the analysis, a multidirectional diagram was established for the functioning of engagement and participation on the social media. Consequently, a significant framework was established by the data obtained within this research process for the engagement and participation process including the components and indicators starting from the user which is the subject of the engagement and participation and related to the participation and engagement on the social media. Keywords: Social Media, Online Communities, Participatory Culture, Netnography.