Capital meets capabilities: negotiating cultural exclusion in participatory culture
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This document summarizes a research study examining online portfolio curation among visual arts students in Cape Town, South Africa. The study analyzed how students present themselves and their work digitally, and how this relates to their cultural backgrounds and access to resources. A framework combining cultural capital theory and capability approaches was used to understand gaps in students' participation in digital culture. The framework was applied to a case study of one student, finding that he used a mobile-centric approach to curate personas across multiple creative roles, despite limitations to his digital access and experience.
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Capital meets capabilities: negotiating cultural exclusion in participatory culture
- 1. Capital meets capabilities: negotiating cultural exclusion in participatory culture. by Noakes, Walton and Cronj , 2016ẻ 06/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 1 13th International Conference on E-learning www.academic-conferences.org/conferences/icel CHAPTER 7 Inequality in digital personas: e-portfolio curricula, cultural repertoires and social media by Noakes, T. (2009-) 2018
- 2. 06/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 2 Online content curation by emergent visual creatives
- 3. Presentation outline 06/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 3 1. Digital curation as a new media literacy 2. Online portfolio curation as a form of participatory culture 3. Gaps in participatory culture 4. Understand key inequalities in the digital persona of visual arts students 5. Does a ‘Capital meets Capabilities’ framework address gaps in participatory culture for a marginalized student, “Masibulele”? 6. Are there new gaps that it can assist in identifying?
- 4. 06/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 4 Whereas in earlier times, apposite words to describe activities around publication may have been ‘written’, ‘edited’ and ‘produced’, it is quite clear that they are inadequate to capture all the self-representational activities or practices in networked, digital, culture. The word ‘curated’ does so by subsuming all of those practices and adding others that are possible in social media… Curating is about knowing how the different forms you are working with work together to make meaning intertextually and for which purposes and audiences they are successful. (Potter, 2015) Digital curation as a new media literacy
- 5. Digital curation as a core digital and media literacy practice 06/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 5 Cohen, James N. MA and Mihailidis, Paul, "Exploring Curation as a core competency in digital and media literacy education" (2013). Faculty Works: Digital Humanities & New Media. 4. http://digitalcommons.molloy.edu/dhnm_fac/4 (page 16)
- 6. Growthinplatformsforcurating varieddataasinformation Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 606/05/18
- 7. 06/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 7 Image retrieved from: http://modernworkplacelearning.com/magazine/modern-professional-learners-toolkit-for-2018/ (2018-03-12)
- 8. 806/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies A. Collating artworks and inspirations B. Production -Remediating -Editing -Assembling C. Sharing -Moving media artefacts across different stages -Interacting with online audiences Visual creatives’ online portfolio curation process Practices in [digital curation] https://carbonmade.com/portfolios https://www.deviantart.com/daily-deviations/?columns=2 Digital curation framework (Potter, 2015) https://www.behance.net
- 9. Profile description Profile image Portfolio title Contact details Areas of expertise SkillsFooter Artist. Date. Folder Name, Description Artwork Title with description Tags i.e. Client 1 ‘Home’ page template 3 ‘Artwork project folder’ page template 2 ‘About’ page template (artist’s profile) Availability for freelance graphic Creative’s name Portfolio title Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 06/05/18 9 4 ‘Search page results’ template Folders of digitised artworks Digital curation options with Carbonmade
- 10. 06/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 10 Digital portfolios serve as cultural and symbolic capitals that may help justify Tertiary academic opportunities (digital portfolios at CPUT & UCT) Commercial projects (creativemarket.com) Part-time, freelance gigs (www.behance.net/joblist) Contributions to volunteer causes (https://www.volunteermatch.org) Full-time jobs (https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/graphic-designer-jobs?country=za) Online portfolios can support growth in social capital via Understanding the breadth of visual creativity and who is involved in what Platform to first ‘seem’ and then ‘be’ an expert in your area(s) of speciality Develop one’s persona as an expert by sharing ‘know-how’ in affinity groups and showcase examples of one’s work Online portfolios may generate ongoing economic capital Link to online shops and auctions selling one’s visual (re-)productions Enter select works into online competitions Digital portfolios can be exchanged for cultural, symbolic, social and economic capital
- 11. What is Participatory Culture? 1. ‘Participatory culture’ is one in which in which fans and other consumers are invited to actively participate in the creation and circulation of new content (Jenkins, 2006). North American researchers (Jenkins, et al., 2006; Jenkins, 2013; Jenkins, Ito and boyd, 2015) follow strategies that focus on participants’ resourcefulness, albeit in well-resourced settings compared to those most South Africans experience. 2. Many North American homes can support young people with sharing their artistic expressions online. Participatory culture strongly supports this, albeit typically focusing on digital productions. 3. Participatory culture also includes informal mentorship between the most experienced and novices (Jenkins, Clinton, Purushatma, Robison & Weigel, 2006). 4. In appropriating educational technologies, such creativity may include approaches that a focus on digital divides might miss (Jenkins, Ito and boyd, 2015). 06/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 11 Online portfolio curation in Cape Town as a form of participatory culture 1. Keen visual creatives tend to be fans of, and involved in, particular domains and genres. 2. Emergent visual creatives in Cape Town share work from their different roles online (Venter, 2015. Noakes, Walton, Venter & Cronje, 2014. Walton & Donner, 2012). 3. Such creatives may also interact with peers with similar interests offline and learn from experts online (Venter, 2017. Noakes, 2018). 4. Many visual creative roles do not necessarily involve digital practices and can be accommodated by participatory culture’s focus on young people’s resourcefulness.
- 12. Digital divides as a participatory gap Participatory culture in the US (outlier) 06/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 12 Participatory culture in Cape Town (better than average) Case study for Zalas, a digital information virtuoso. (Media Ecologies, Horst, Herr-Stephenson & Robinson in Hanging Out, Messing Around, Geeking Out. Ito et al, 2010, p 68 -69, ) Case study for Sbu, an aspirant animator. (Public Access, Private Mobile. Walton & Donner, 2012, p 24-25,)
- 13. The participation divide/participation gap(s) 06/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 13 Chapter 3. Gaps and Genres in Participation in Participatory Culture in a Networked Era by Mimi Ito, danah boyd and Henry Jenkins, 2016. Section of page 68. A participation gap is the unequal access to the opportunities, experiences, skills, and knowledge that will prepare youths for full participation in future society. In addition to ICT access and ownership, these also include: 1.self-confidence and empowerment (Jenkins, Ito and boyd, 2016) 1.participation in consumer culture (Jenkins et al. 2016) 2.knowledge and skills (Jenkins et al. 2016) 3.mentorship (Jenkins, Ito and boyd, 2015), 4.links between academic and informal repertoires (Jenkins et al. 2016) 5.language (Jocson & Rosa, 2015) 6.and opportunities linked to online sharing and work (Jenkins et al. 2016)
- 14. A framework for gaps 06/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 14 Builds on insights from: Education Journalism Cultural anthropology Communication studies Lacks a framework for participation gaps: [ Bourdieusian cultural sociology + Sen’s capability approach ] Understanding gaps/divides in participatory culture using cultural sociology and a capability approach. Travis Noakes’ research notebook(2017). Chapter 3. Gaps and Genres in Participation in Participatory Culture in a Networked Era, page 82.
- 15. 06/05/18 15 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies See Phone to Photoshop: Mobile workarounds in young people’s visual self-presentation strategies (Noakes, Walton, Venter & Cronje, 2014) Participation in art, design or ICT as “formal privilege” Illustration by Anja Venter, 2014.
- 16. 06/05/18 16 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies Illustration by Anja Venter, 2014. School computer centres and art/design subjects as Capetonian “luxuries”
- 17. Reproduction of Cape Town’s ‘creative class’ {from mostly middle- and upper class origins} 06/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 17 Social reproduction in trajectories linked to the visual arts or visual design. Graphic by Travis Noakes, 2016.
- 18. #1 Action research fieldwork 2010 - 2013 06/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 18 12 government school volunteers 17 independent school students ‘View of independent school from pool ’. Illustration by Travis Noakes, 2015. ‘View of government school from parking lot’. Illustration by Travis Noakes, 2015. Three research contributions #2 Longitudinal study Up to three years of digital curations at school #3VERY different levels of resourcing i.e. contrasting media ecologies in schools {BUT much greater differences @ home!} Screenshot of “Hui”’s Carbonmade ‘homepage’, November, 2010. Screenshot of Hui’s Carbonmade ‘homepage’, May, 2012
- 19. Research questions and theoretical lenses to research choices and contexts 06/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 19 A COMBINATION OF THEORETICAL LENSES RQ1. What digital self-presentation and organisation choices do visual arts students make in their e-portfolios? RQ2. How do visual arts e-portfolios and visual culture repertoires relate to individual habitus and spaces of production? Inequality approach Infrastructure studies Analysis 1.Innovative multimodal content analysis of screenshots. 2.Case studies referencing sources 1 to 7. SOCIAL INTERACTIONISM SOCIAL SEMIOTICS DIGITAL MATERIALISM CULTURAL THEORY
- 20. 06/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 20 Relationship of an individuals’ habituses to social semiotic spaces and repertoires Habitus and social semiotic spaces. Graphic by Travis Noakes, 2018. The habitus is, ‘a system of durable, transposable dispositions which functions as the generative basis of structured, objectively unified practices’ (Bourdieu, 1977). Habitus is socialised subjectivity; the way society becomes deposited in persons in the form of lasting dispositions, or trained capacities and structured propensities to think, feel and act in determinant ways, which then guide them (Wacquant 2005). Affinity spaces are common for customers in high- technology, capitalist environments (Gee, 2000, 2001, Riffkind, 2000). Typically, the customers of businesses in these spaces share a common endeavor and support each other in developing and dispersing knowledge about their shared passion.
- 21. Four key dimensions of inequality evidenced in young people’s e-portfolio styles 21 A digital hexis for developing a templated self Differing opportunities to draw on cultural and leisure repertoires Legitimated practices Differentiated practices Affinity spaces - Class (Race) - Gender 1 REMEDIATION 3 NEGOTIATING POSITIONS 06/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 2 LIFESTYLES 4 RISKS WITH ONLINE VISIBILITY negotiating digitally disciplined personas Free home internet access Mobile-centric No internet access outside the computer lab - Class (Race) - Sex/GenderWhite, middle class cultural capital - Class - Race Sharing one’s real name as male privilege
- 22. The Capital meets Capabilities framework 06/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 22
- 23. 06/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 23 Masibulele’s e-portfolio Four thumbnail page examples Anonymised table of thumbnail webpages images for Masibulele (Noakes, 2018, p.163)
- 24. The Capital meets Capabilities framework applied to Masibulele’s case 06/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 24
- 25. 06/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 25 Under-connected: -Mobile internet -Computer use in computer lab and on home PC. • Disciplinary: traditional mixed-media • Fan of the ‘art industry’ • Sought publicity: contact details • Facebook and Black Berry Messenger (BBM) groups for his fashion label Black male with working-class parents • Observational drawing in pencil, illustrator, portrait drawer, oil and normal pastel work, painter, mixed- media sculptor, relief tiler and collages. • Initially only disciplinary, but did add fashion label • Did not share traditional mixed-media Background • Fashion entrepreneur • Music and movies fan • Socialiser • ‘Explorer’ • Fashion entrepreneur • Socialiser • Music fan • Explorer Masibulele aspirant designer and fashion entrepreneur Digital information habitus Other leisure personas E-portfolio curation Other habituses Related rolesPrimary habitus Vocational habitus A fashion entrepreneur, who used a mobile digital information habitus in presenting his classroom and aspirant designer personas. Visual creative personas • Fashion entrepreneur • Surface designer • Architect
- 26. Being where it’s at online 06/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 26
- 27. Credits + Thanks National Research Foundation. Procedural literacy, digital media and curriculum grant. University of Cape Town, Department of Film and Media Studies. S.A.M.E. South African Multimodality in Education research group. Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Faculty of Informatics and Design. T.E.R.P.S. Technology in Education Research Postgrad students. 06/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 27 Illustration | Design | New Media Research w: www.nannaventer.co.za c: anjaventer@gmail.com IllustratIONS by
- 28. Thank you! 06/05/18 Designed by @travisnoakes Honorary Research Associate, UCT Centre for Film and Media Studies 28
Notas del editor
- Welcome to this presentation for Marion, Travis and my paper on ‘Capital meets Capabilities’. Its drawn from Travis’ PhD thesis on ‘Inequality in Digital Personas’.
- Overall, Travis’ research explores young adults’ productions as online content creators, their strategies… and how the particular repertoires they curate reflect very different situations in Cape Town.
- Travis likes to design dense slides, so please read them while I talk around them. Our presentation comprises six sections: It starts by introducing the growing importance of digital curation Then describes what participatory culture is and its links to online portfolio curation It lists gaps in participatory culture that the research literature has already described And defines how my research into digital personas informed the ‘Capital meets Capabilities’ framework This framework is tested for local case study of Masibulele… to see whether the framework covers participatory gaps previously identified in the literature and if it can help with identifying any new gaps, too.
- Travis’ PhD focused on older teens’ digital curations, This follows Potter, who defines digital curation as an overarching concept that covers varied production practices. This concept also addresses intertextual meanings and strategies for varying audiences.
- Cohen and Mihailidis argue that the growing use of digital technologies should result in digital curatorship being taught as a core digital and media literacy. The related pedagogical approaches and outcomes are illustrated here.
- As this infographic suggests, the current opportunities for digital curation online in (and across) multiple roles are very broad. It’s now difficult to imagine a role that cannot be digitally curated. And in many of these roles, individual’s online curations may serve as a record of achievement- a digital CV for their roles.
- Digital curation is increasingly considered a norm for contemporary professionals, who are expected to use highly personalized information spaces. This is part of a broader demand that digitally connected individuals should construct a public, mediated persona for their cultural work (see Marshall, 2015). As a recent phenomenon, there are many opportunities for pathfinder research into people’s digital curation practices.
- Travis’ thesis focused on visual arts students’ creative appropriation of online portfolios. Such services emerged from 2003 and are widely used for presenting roles in creative industry. Tens of thousands of professionals and hobbyists use sites like Behance, Carbonmade and DeviantArt. Of course, curation also takes place on other platforms, ranging from chat groups to Facebook fan pages. Regardless of the platform that creatives may choose, Potter’s digital curation framework for steps A. to C. at the bottom of this slide, moving from collation to production and into sharing, still applies.
- In Travis’ research, visual arts students used Carbonmade Their artworks were digitized and uploaded into their Carbonmade folder’s artwork projects. Student were also expected to full-in their profiles by completing the fields on the top right.
- Individuals may have very different purposes when curating e-portfolios, as theirs can be exchanged for very different forms of capital: Cultural and symbolic capital for securing academic and vocational trajectories. Social capital through interacting with portfolio producers for feedback, advice and influence. Economic capital through marketing creative productions and services.
- Online portfolio curation can be considered to be a form of participatory culture. This is one in which fans and other consumers participate in creating and circulating content. Creatives’ online portolio curations may reference and circulate varied domains and genres of visual creativity. These run the stratification gamut from low- to middle- and even highbrow cultural fandoms. Digital curation, like participatory culture also provides opportunities for mentorship. Participatory culture is helpful for explaining differences in participation that a digital divide approach might not (such as skills & knowledge).
- That said, digital divides still strongly shape opportunities in participatory culture. For example, a digital information virtuoso (on the left) from the States who uses a fast home internet and four computers to be part of an anime fandom elite has very different opportunities for engaging with this culture than an aspirant South African animator using mobile-centric internet and public library access. In participatory culture, digital divides are considered to comprise gaps or missing layers of participatory culture.
- A participation gap is ‘the unequal access to the opportunities, experiences, skills, and knowledge that will prepare youths for full participation in future society’. In addition to digital divides, the literature describes how its gaps also can include: self-confidence and empowerment (i), participation in consumer culture (ii), knowledge and skills (iv), mentorship (Jenkins, Ito and boyd, 2015) (v), links between academic and informal repertoires (vi), language (Jocson & Rosa, 2015) (vii) and opportunities linked to online sharing and work (viii).
- Although such gaps have been contextualized as missing layers of participatory culture, no framework has been proposed for a comprehensive account of these layers. In reading ‘Participatory culture in a networked era’, left and middle, Travis was struck by how ideas in the chapter Gaps and Genres in Participation overlapped with Bourdieu’s key concepts (as tagged on the left), but did not draw on them. Bourdieusian cultural sociology and Sen’s capability approach seemed to offer a complimentary perspective to disciplines that researchers into participatory culture have drawn on. This paper proposes that gaps in participatory culture (on the right) can be framed using key insights on the relationship between capital and the development of capabilities.
- In Cape Town, social inequality (Seekings, 2011; Schenk, 2015) contributes to visual creative students from a range of backgrounds having very different opportunities (Donner & Walton, 2013; Venter, 2014; Noakes, Walton, Venter & Cronje, 2014). Locally, just doing ICT, visual arts or design subjects is a rare privilege. In 2013, the Department of Education’s technical report on the National Senior Certificate reveals that a low percentage of students do subjects likely to support access to creative industry.
- In 2012, Equal Education reported that Cape Town’s schools offering art or design until grade 12 (Matric) are predominately those serving the middle- and upper-classes. There are seven different tiers of government school and only the best-resourced of these are likely to offer visual art, design or computer studies.
- Such inequality contributes to the process of cultural reproduction illustrated here. Teens from middle- and upper class homes are well positioned to develop portfolios, study in creative industry and search for work in a precarious market. By contrast, few working class teens will develop portfolios formally or have the home support and funding needed for accessing creative studies or potentially precarious work opportunities. Such teens are likely to seek alternate routes into creative industry versus traditional academic ones.
- Travis’ fieldwork took place at two local schools that were privileged in being able to offer art, design and ICT. The resultant research made three contributions: Firstly, as an action research project it supported 29 arts students with curating e-portfolios: Seventeen students were at an elite, all-boys, independent school. Twelve volunteers came from a less well-resourced, mixed sex, government school. This Arts and Culture focus school was chosen for being better able to support the creative appropriation of e-portfolios than other government schools. The second contribution was as a longitudinal research project, which is unusual in media studies. The independent school’s Class of 2012 was taught by their arts educator from grades 10 to 12. ICT broadband failure delayed the bulk of my government school lessons to grade 11 in 2013. I also followed select students’ progress after matric. My third contribution was addressing VERY different levels of resourcing at schools and home.
- Travis’ analysis followed Potter’s example, who researched digital curation through a combination of Social Semiotics and Cultural Theory. Given the potentially strong role of ICT infrastructure and capital resources for digital curation Travis added insights from Digital Materialism (especially Infrastructure studies) and also Social Interactionism. He also adopted Sen’s inequality approach. The content analysis for of all students’ e-portfolio styles by site was followed by 12 case studies. Five explored varied reproductions of the visual arts student identity And seven described young people who foregrounded informal (or “unofficial”) personas.
- To situate how inequalities were evidenced in e-portfolio curation, the analysis linked teens’ habituses to the repertoires they shared in varied social semiotic spaces. For visual creatives, their individual habitus is shaped through passage via four types of habitus: The secondary school, the home, the vocational and digital information habituses. The school habitus links directly to the legitimated repertoires in the arts classroom. By contrast, the repertoires accessed at home, in the vocational and informational habituses tended to relate to informal repertoires.
- Overall, teens’ e-portfolio styles evidenced four key dimensions of inequality: Firstly, their opportunities for internet access influenced the extent to which they could curate digital personas. Secondly, they had different connections to the legitimated repertoires of fine arts at home and at school. Thirdly, they also had different opportunities for negotiating cultural capital valued at home. Fourth, the risks associated with online visibility meant that most young women did not use their real names. Class background was prominent in three of the key dimensions, which suggests the importance of economic and cultural capital for digital curation.
- Travis proposed a ‘Capital meets Capabilities’ framework in his thesis’ conclusion. This framework was intended to contextualise how young people’s access to capital in the social structure is important.. for their development of formal capability sets and those recognized in other contexts. Brake (2013) describes how few people become online content producers; it is generally done by privileged minorities. Schradie (2011) points out that the affordances for online content creation are only taken up by a few internet users in well-resourced contexts. Such research resonates with mine in suggesting how complex interactions of capital are involved in online content curation. Which brings us to Sen’s capability approach (1979, 1990) on the right The habitus lens provides limited scope for defining people’s agency (Brons, 2014) which is important to consider for motivated and resourceful teens. Sen’s capability approach compliments a habitus lens by detailing the processes that can frame each agent’s development of functionings and capability sets linked to development of individual habitus as shown on the right Understanding the capital available and capabilities that young people are keen to develop would seem a useful combination for exploring gaps in participatory culture i.e. what ‘opportunities, experiences, skills, and knowledge’ are poorly supported for agents’ development of capability sets in it?
- To test the framework’s relevance, Masibulele’s case is used. It may be unusual for participatory culture, but seems relevant for most South Africans As a black, government school student who faced varied forms of exclusion, his example provides an interesting counter-point to the many better resourced cases that participatory culture researchers have tfocused on.
- For ease of reference, the capabilities that Masibulele developed are shown in (curved brackets). By contrast, the participatory gaps that he confronted are in [rectangular brackets]. Our paper describes how the Capital meets Capabilities framework proved very useful for addressing the varied types of exclusion in Masibulele’s case Each gap previously identified in the literature[see ii-viii] was addressed or was covered as a capability [i].
- For example, as a first-language isiXhosa speaker, Masibulele chose to use English instead for an international audience. The framework enabled important new gaps to be identified that related to cultural exclusion [ix-xii]. He faced challenges from: [ix] the desirability of high status, academic cultural capital shaping his parents’ preferences for their son’s career. His negotiating position [x] was also weak in coming from a non-dominant background. He did not share traditional mixed-media productions as he perceived that these productions were not what was expected in arts class. For the same reason, he also did not initially share his fashion labels’ creations. Despite his educator’s inclusive approach, exclusion of traditional and fashion repertoires shows how students might conceal cultural capital from home. This suggests strategies of assimilation in respect of the predominately taught Western fine arts canon and observational drawing and painting studio practices. His case also highlights how particular types of visual culture (surface, media and genre) embody social distinction, albeit moderated within “multi-cultural” repertoires. Masibulele also could have potentially benefited from being able to grow his economic capital by [xi] making online sales and being able to commit the resources necessary for developing an [xii] international following.
- While Masibulele experienced several gaps in participatory culture, he did make highly resourceful use of his digital networks for pursuing a market-driven persona in creative industry. Although his Facebook page and BBM groups were helpful for promoting his clothing label, he did not use other networks that might have greater impact For example, Instagram and Pinterest have far greater engagement for fashion than Facebook (Mizobe, 2014) Both support innovation in local fashion marketing and business growth (McCarthy, 2013), The fashion entrepreneur, Thabo Khumalo, also described the importance of using Tumblr and Vine for sharing visual images in this magazine piece. Although Masibulele could not use such platforms, he was highly resourceful in leveraging the available ones to launch a fashion design label and through being a good student, he was able to curate an e-portfolio that successfully supported his application for studying surface design at a local university. We trust that researchers focused on participatory culture will find Masibulele’s example instructive. Likewise, we hope that researchers will use the Capital meets Capabilities framework for achieving holistic portrayals of all the gaps in participatory culture.
- Thank you for your time: I appreciate any feedback, questions and suggestions...