We have all used Yahoo Answers at some point in our lives to figure out if your cold is just a cold and not some crazy disease and Andy from Ottawa, who’s had some experience in this field helped you out… Or for just general advice. It’s the perfect example of a content being shaped by its audience. Yahoo Answers was first launched in 2005 and is a blog site to share questions and receive answers from anyone with experience in areas of your inquiry.
On the site, you can rate/vote answers so they are seen first and trusted by most users. The picture below is a screen shot of “Best cures for bee stings”. The first comment is marked “Best Answer” as seen below which ensure the users that this is a good answer.
In each comment, there is a “Source(s):”section to say where you have received your information on a topic, you are more likely to be marked as “Best Answer” if you are a professional with a very detailed response to a question or voted up by other users. However, some questions are best answered with users personal experiences.
In conclusion, I feel like Yahoo Answers is a classic example of audiences participation and shaping of content online, ideas and starting a conversation with one another. Users around the world sharing opinions and helping each other.
Network Society and the Media 
I agree that Yahoo Answers is a fantastic example of audience participation. Someone asks a question and others answer it. There is an interaction between them. Moreover, answerers can communicate with other answerers by adding comments. The audience is definitely deeply involved with creating this website.
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I would also agree that you have provided a really good example. All the content of Yahoo Answers is based on communication between the users, they ask questions and they answer those questions. Simple. Such interaction creates the content for the site, therefore the audience shapes the content.
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Yeah i can definitely say hands down I’ve used Yahoo answers for the questions I’m too embarrassed to even ask my doctor. I think unless you pointed it out i would have overlooked it as being a form of audience participation, but it definitely is. The audience help recreate the content and it can go either way trolling or actually helpful advice.
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Yahoo Answer is a proper audience particpation example. People are shaping the website thanks to their participation as they provide answers. But it’s not shaping as the media doesn’t change according to answers, it’s only participation.
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