Participatory Culture and New Media: Between Well-being and Ill-being

This paper addresses the issue of participatory culture from the perspective of new media, which are typically associated with the advancement of information and communications technologies (ICTs) and information technology (IT). These technologies (co-)create the foundation of the network society, also referred to as the information society, and influence the economy and, naturally, the realm of culture. The fundamental research question raised in this paper concerns the reflection upon the participation patterns mediated by new media in the context of mental well-being and its opposite – the state of ill-being. This task requires a redefinition of the concepts of participatory culture and new media, and also the adoption of certain determinants of well-being and ill- -being, which – unlike the psychology of happiness – will be specified through the category of redistribution and recognition.

This paper describes crowdsourcing as a concept of using the knowledge and skills of virtual communities. The analysis focuses on the case study of the polish, cultural Open Monuments Project. The Open Monuments project was initiated in 2012 by Centrum Cyfrowe Projekt: Polska. Its main goal was to encourage Poles to verify and add information on the monuments featured in the Polish national monument register, which often lacks current addresses, exact dates when particular monuments were constructed, or data which was not required in previous years (e.g. GPS coordinates). The effect of the community work became a springboard for the development of a nationwide website. Today, each monument featured on the website has its own separate page, and Internet users can add information, upload photos and documents, and submit “non-encyclopedia” content, i.e. trivia, legends, or anecdotes. The overriding goal of the paper is to shed some light on the factors that motivate Internet users to engage in social crowdsourcing.   

Although crowdsourcing is no longer a new phenomenon, it is constantly evolving and influencing the formation of exchange mechanisms and relations between their participants. To the advertising and marketing industries, which need the perpetual influx of fresh and unconventional ideas, it has become one of the ways to acquire innovative solutions and (often) the content produced at costs below the market price level. Crowdsourcing has also become a tool to get consumers involved and build their brand loyalty. This paper analyses how brands use crowdsourcing platforms to acquire advertising content and sheds light on some of the associated problems. 

This article was prepared on the basis of parts of the unpublished doctoral dissertation entitled Advertisement at the Dawn of the Post‑network Era. Branded Content, a Case Study. SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities 2017

Participatory Budget as an Instrument of Social Participation in the Culture Sector

For the last decades, public management has recorded a dynamic growth, which is manifested by the concepts of new public management and public governance. As part of these concepts, there emerge tools to support the process of public sector management, including a participatory budget – a tool that allows local communities to decide on the allocation of budget resources in their local government units. The aim of the paper is to try to answer the question of whether the participatory budget is an effective instrument of social participation in the culture sector. In order to investigate this issue, the author describes the idea of participatory budget and presents the analysis results on how this tool is applied in public management in the capital cities of 18 Polish provinces. The results show that that the participatory budget is rarely used to its fullest potential. 

Crowdfunding Urbanism as a Challenge for Contemporary Urban Policies. An Outline of the Research Perspective.

The aim of the paper is to present the issue of crowdfunding in relation to urban projects, with particular emphasis on the participation in its latest media dimension. Combined with a critical approach to urban creativity policies, this perspective broadens the scope of the debate on urban communities and the involvement of city dwellers in the bottom-up modification of these policies.

The paper constitutes a commentary on the current state of research on crowdfunding and proposes a holistic approach towards it which is based on the concepts stemming from cultural studies, media studies, and urban cultural studies.

Culture is an important determinant in assessing the development and growth of the individual economies and societies. The culture sector is financed from public and private (patrons of art, sponsors) sources. However the funds for this sector are not enough to cover all the needs. Finding new possibilities of funding culture becomes particularly important. One of the possibilities is to encourage the society to co-finance cultural initiatives that are important and valuable for them. This kind of crowd wisdom can be implemented through crowdfunding. Crowdfunding has enabled large crowds to fund innovative cultural projects. This type of support might tap into the wisdom of crowds who were previously disconnected from the funding process. The aim of this article is to analyze the idea of crowdfunding in the cultural projects. Some successful examples of crowd wisdom in financing cultural projects in Europe are discussed in the article. 

Crowdfunding of cultural projects based on small but numerous amounts of money paid to the initiator via dedicated Internet platforms is an increasingly common phenomenon. The purpose of this paper is to describe the mechanisms of supporting cultural projects on Polish crowdfunding websites and to determine the nature of this type of fundraising. The text presents the results of the preliminary study, which involved the weekly monitoring of 84 projects launched on PolakPotrafi.pl and OdpalProjekt pl. The collected data was analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. The authors arrive at numerous conclusions, including that the success of crowdfunding for cultural projects to a large extent depends on the relatively high donations of more than a dozen funders than on the power of the “crowd” supporting projects with symbolic payments. It was also determined that what is the most crucial to the ultimate success of the collection is the first three days from the project launch on the website. The dynamic increase in contributions during this period significantly boosts the chances of success. According to the authors, the factors with an indirect impact on the success of crowdfunding  initiatives include the donors’ need of being a  patron and maintaining social bonds.

Historical Crowdfunding as a Manifestation of the New Forms of Socialisation of an Individual in Contemporary Culture. The Case Study of PolakPotrafi.pl

In the paper, I pose the question about the type of communities with which we are dealing in the case of historical crowdfunding. The subject of research includes the crowdfunding projects whose goals are related to the past and have been published on the PolakPotrafi.pl platform. I place the answer to the above question in the context of the socialisation of individuals and in the context of the change that takes place in this field in a postmodern society. I arrive at the conclusion that there are new online tribes forming around the registered historical crowdfunding projects. These tribes are always temporary, short-lived communities of supporters. The bond that ties the group together is immediate and intense but precarious.