Participatory Film Production as Media Practice

Abstract

This article uses a practice theory perspective to study new media creation through the case of participatory film production. Although a growing body of practice-related literature addresses user-generated content or online creative communities, the engagement of collectives in the development of complex long-term creative projects like movies or transmedia has received less attention. Sometimes these are commercial projects generating communities for profit, sometimes actual cocreative or community-generated projects; either way, practice theory proves useful for observing and identifying expectations, motivations for engagement, intrinsic rules, tacit normativity, and routinization as well as innovation, compromise, and negotiation between the creative agents involved, particularly in a project’s early stages. This article presents an overview of practice theories connected to media production and discusses them in relation to actual cases of participatory filmmaking.