What do the participants do with the media content? Advertising and “guerilla semiotics” in the participatory culture

Abstract

Creating contents and distributing it in the Internet by the media recipients/customers is one of the determinants of the participatory culture. Amateur creativity takes different forms: from entries and comments, to reviews and common content editing, to the short videos posted on YouTube. With regard to the advertising industry, the contents created by the users may be both promotional (strengthening the attachment to a brand) and countercultural (undermining the sense of communication). The article discusses, on the example of the advertising spot Evolution (made by Dove) and related amateur videos posted on YouTube, the users’ actions which undermine, ridicule and consequently devalue the meaning of the original text