Abstract
This paper discusses the changing relationship between texts, producers and audiences andtries to understand user-generated audio-visual content or to be more precise, intertextuality inuser-generated videos in relation to distribution formats, cultural form and genres.Continuing on from the work of John Fiske and the notion of vertical and horizontalintertextuality this paper tries to develop Fiske's original ideas so that his model incorporatesthe changing relationship between producers and their audiences, the text generated bymainstream media and the text generated by ordinary people, in particular user-generatedvideos uploaded and shared in social media networks online.Finally we are informed by Paul Ricoeur's work on hermeneutics and self as another, weexplore the role of user-generated content as a specific kind of mediated sociability we suggestthat user-generated content may be seen as a collaborative effort to navigate the meaning oflife. Hence we address questions of mediated sociability, offering a critical perspective ontextual self-expression and self-identity.