Hashtags and Community, Zoe Manalo (Post #10)

 

Hashtags and Community



Zoe Manalo, Post #10

    This week's focus on social media and community made me think about how hashtags operate as more than simple metadata. They're a means of participation. On platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and X use hashtags like #BookTok allows users to organize conversations and can even point to shared identity and similarities. Through these small digital gestures, people can connect across the world and institution, forming what Henry Jenkins (2013) describes as participatory culture, spaces where audiences aren't just consuming content, but actively creating, curating, and shaping it together. 

    In this sense, hashtags function as entry points into participatory networks. They encourage users to remix trends, respond to others, contribute to collective storytelling. What starts as a tag becomes a self sustaining community built on engagement and visibility. 

    At the same time not all hashtags are equally inclusive. The openness that defines participatory culture can also reproduce exclusion depending on whose voices are amplified or ignored. Still, hashtags continue to represent on of the most accessible ways to see participatory culture in action, where a single symbol (#) transforms isolated posts into community. 

    How might we design or moderate spaces to strengthen participation without losing authenticity. 

Comments

  1. Lauren MesleyNovember 10, 2025 at 11:35 AM

    It's so fascinating how language and symbols change, because it wasn't that long ago that # was just the number sign! I thought #BookTok was a great example to use here because communities are often built around books (think book clubs) and I think it's such a reflection of life that #BookTok became an online community.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousNovember 10, 2025 at 12:31 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blogging through Social Platforms- Lizzy's First Blog Post

 There are many forms of blogging especially in today's social media world. What started as the world wide web in 1991 turned into many other social media pages to be created. If we truly think about it, all of these social media platforms are different ways of blogging. X  (Twitter) is short blog posts, Facebook is daily updates blogging, Instagram is picture blogging and Zoom is video blogging. That is basically all that these social medias are about. Sharing news, updates in our lives or telling the world news. This world of social media has completely turned our online resources around. The problem is we cannot believe everything we read on the internet, especially with social media platforms. There are many outside sources or fake news that can spread very fast. Fact checking is a new thing now on Facebook. It says that this page was fact checked. But was it really? Social media is widely becoming a major tool in our lives. This does not mean it should consume us. In a wo...
Read more

"Anonymous Member" (Lizzy Sblendorio Post #5)

Image
  The Anonymous Member on the social media app, Facebook, has become a new feature that many like but others do not. With this feature, members of Facebook can comment or post into a group anything under 'anonymous member'. Is this privacy setting too much or is it a good thing. One thing to remember is to never believe everything you read on the internet. What is a puzzle in itself is whether or not that person with a cute profile is actually the real person. What I mean by that is anyone can create a profile on Facebook, how do you know that all of their information is correct? You simply do not. Privacy has become a little too common in my opinion. There are not enough steps to verify your real information. That is why I do not like the anonymous feature on Facebook. What if someone says something hurtful or a threat and they are listed as a anonymous member? Yeah it can trace back to their normal profile but what if that person does not exist. Being invisible is all over so...
Read more

Users of the World, Unite! Review (Zoe Manalo Post #3)

  Users of the World, Unite! What Kaplan & Haenlein Teach Us About Social Media Zoe Manalo (Post #3) For this week I wanted to focus on one of the readings. When we think of social media today, it may feel like it's been around for awhile. Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and the list goes on. But back in 2010, Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein published an articled titled Users of the World, Unite! that helped define what social media is and why it matters. Now it's 2025 and their article still shapes how we think about online platforms.  Kaplan and Haenlein described social media as a group of Interned based applications built on the Web 2.0., where users create and share information. They don't just consume what they come across. This shift from doom scrolling, or passive to active participation is what makes social media a tool. Kaplan and Haenlein broke social media into six categories: collaborative projects, blogs and microblog, content communities, social network...
Read more