Participatory Culture, Community, and Play

What does online community look like in the age of social networking? How do participatory culture platforms reflect both their designer's intentions and the desires of their users? This book discusses how culture is created and challenged on Reddit.com, the self-proclaimed "front page of the internet." Reddit enables the sharing of original and reposted content from around the web, and provides a platform for like-minded individuals to commune around topics of interest. Also explored is the ways in which community on Reddit if formed and solidified through play and humor, and the complex ways in which Redditors come together, which demonstrate a deep capacity for altruism and charitable giving, but can easily lapse into mob action. It also explores the community's troubling gender and racial politics and how some Redditors are carving out their own space on the site to fight back. -- Publisher description