Community Segregation or Conceptual Difference?

Many participatory cultures are reclusive and insular. I suppose the very idea of finding a common identity creates a defining boundary that excludes those outside that identity. Equally, some cultures are more accessible by mainstream audiences than others. I find this particularly interesting when separate cultures or communities who essentially do the same thing don't have much knowledge of the other. AMVs, vidding and the new propensity for video mashups on youtube all share the same techniques and yet there are very few creators how affiliate themself with or create works within more than one community. Video footage is edited and placed to audio and yet that is not *why* they create what they do. If they were interested in the hobby for its techniques then there would be a lot more cross-pollination. Instead, the creators in these communities are mostly interested in their own audiences and working within a predefined culture. As a result, they often fail to influence one another creatively. 

This can lead to an entirely innocent ignorance of what the other is doing and while press and academia will often categorise them equally there are huge differences between these different fan participations. As such, it's no surprise when someone from one of these clearly defined areas creates something commonly made in a different community they don't know how to define it.

For example, this cutup as advertised in the Vidding livejournal community is one of many of its kind. Colbert famously encouraged his audience to mashup his work and this is a good example of it. This is not, however, part of the vidding culture even if it is part of the vidding technique. It seems that participatory cultures are separated by a common language. You can debate amongst yourselves whether this is a good or a bad thing.