 Welcome to a brief explainer on participatory culture in the context of digital relations. The terms Web 2.0 and cyberspace are linked, but they're not synonymous. Web 2.0 is used in reference to the current technical configuration of the internet, whereas the term cyberspace is used as a conceptual apparatus by which one can imagine a system of interactions that this architecture produces. Cyberspace is a liminal space which emerges as a result of the use of technology in the mediation of human communication in which the body is absent. The platform of Web 2.0 technology produces a unique incarnation of cyberspace, largely as a result of its user-friendly configuration. Culturally, we are coming to terms with what this space is. It cannot be said to be physical, but it is no less real than any material space. Tim O'Reilly and John Betel coined the term Web 2.0 at a summit on internet technology in 2004 to refer to the second wave of user-friendly technical features developed for internet technology which enables anyone to be able to upload and share material. And how does this affect the media we consume? In Henry Jenkins, Sam Ford's and Joshua Green's 2012 text, Spreadable Media, Creating Value and Meaning in a Network Culture, the authors describe new media as a hybrid of top-down and bottom-up forces that determine how information is shared and how it proliferates across different cultural boundaries. Top-down structures include corporate producers, governmental agencies and other broad institutional regulating bodies, whereas bottom-up forces are social and cultural trends that organically determine the flow of media. This model is dynamic and acknowledges the messiness of how content becomes shared, reconfigured and circulates in loops. As the authors imply, the social tendency of humans is as long as recorded history and now individuals can express their need for connection, belonging and community using even grander and more dynamic models. In doing so, radically new forms of building community and connection through sharing content are manifest and that's something to get excited about. Thank you for watching.