Introduction

Mark Deuze (2006) draws from Baumann (1999) to define two aspects of culture - the history or heritage of a group, which shapes its members' lives and experiences, and the evolving performance of that heritage, which is never the same twice (p.73). Deuze suggests that digital culture shapes not only our online experiences and interactions, but also bleeds into offline life, because it so powerfully affects institutions, practices of information creation and sharing, and patterns of communication.

This definition deliberately doesn't distinguish between the concepts of 'high' and 'low' culture which suggest that there are judgements of quality to be made about how we 'perform' culture. Such debates about quality do inform quite a lot of conversation around the value (or otherwise) of the web though, and whether we are being enriched or impoverished by the mass participation and self publishing that is driving this particular moment in the history of digital culture.