An exciting cross over between virtual and physical projects is occurring due to new produsage business models. According to Bruns, produsage is being translated from the confinements of the informational, intangible, digital realm to the produsage of physical products. As Eric Von Hippel notes in his book Democratizing Innovation, the design phase of physical products is made up of an informational layer such as blue prints, images, text or software. Harnessing this realization, it is becoming increasingly common for industry to allow online communities to virtually design their products in this informational phase. In doing so, producers tap into the very wants and needs of their consumers and essentially are designing tailor-made products for their target markets.

There has been a significant shift from traditional industries to industries of Produsage, which has caused major changes to current business models. Produsage has allowed consumers to design and create their own work, and is known as open source software. This concept means that consumers can use designs from companies as a template for their own creations, and means that consumers are able to get exactly what they want in a product. This gives producers an advantage as it allows them to see what consumers want in a product and cater to their individual needs. A popular site that has used a similar model to this is Ebay, which allows users to buy and sell what they want and not have to worry about the traditional mediator in between. This model is successful it caters to the needs of every consumer, and is making good money because of this factor. It is saving money because it allows businesses to only sell what they know will be consumer, therefore there is no wasted money down the drain.

Many of these businesses have been created buy, make, and sell websites to cater for the needs of their consumers. An example of this is Ponoko.com which allows consumers to design the product they want, or alter another, then the manufactures at Ponoko will produce them for you, as well as deliver it for you. The site also provides helpful tips through their design software, where they help you to design your own products as well as giving you a reasonable price before producing it for you. Examples of other sites that use this model include spoonflower.com which allows consumer to customize fabrics, and emachineshop.com where consumers use similar strategies as Ponoko, except they design machinery items such as doorknobs and car parts.

To me, the concept of ‘produsage’ seems largely theoretical. In theory, it is undeniably beneficial to have consumers play a hand in the media that they consume. The possibility for expansion of a global knowledge is increased massively, proportionate to the scale of informed contributors. But what does all of this mean for society? HOW is this knowledge useful, if there is no application for it in the ‘real world.’ Bruns argues that this shared scope of knowledge can be of use in practical fields such as construction. A designer somewhere comes up with a model for a car or a bridge, and a mechanic or an engineer on the other side of the world puts it together. This takes away the costs of bringing the top professionals from their respective fields physically together, and allows for superior products to be assembled at a fraction of the price such a product would have previously cost. Again, in theory, this idea is fantastic. However, it proves to be pretty impractical.

Professional Amateurs have emerged from this historical shift where people who pursue amateur activities to professional standards are becoming an increasingly important part of the society and economy of developed nations. Their leisure is not passive but active and participatory. Their contribution involves the deployment of publicly accredited knowledge and skills retained usually by professionals. This has been described in the book The Pro-Am Revolution: How enthusiasts are changing our economy and society (2004), by Charles Leadbeater and Paul Miller. This report argues that a new breed of demi-expert is evolving, collapsing the distinction between an expert and a tinkerer (2004). Cheaper technology offers amateurs increasingly powerful tools; the Internet allows them to collaborate globally and train themselves more rapidly. Pro-Ams occur in populations that have more leisure time and live longer, allowing the pursuit of hobbies and interests at a professional level. Leadbeater states that “We’re living longer, which gives us more time to grow bored with our cubicle jobs and to hunger for a richer life”. For example, authors of encyclopedia articles have traditionally been paid professionals, but recently amateurs have entered the field, participating in these projects, such as Wikipedia. Leadbeater goes on to state that ”you find people in their 40′s and 50′s going back to the things they always wanted to do in their youth, so they’re becoming musicians, gardeners, astronomers” (2004). Normally, we regard leisure as ‘nonwork.’ But these people treat their leisure very seriously. They want results and outcomes from what they are producing.

The end result is that amateurs are increasingly holding themselves to professional standards and producing significant innovations and discoveries. In today’s world with the evolution in the industry resulting in amateurs creating their own content as often as professionals, a clear divide between folks and experts has emerged. Although the lines between producers and users are blurring (as explained in blog 1), the people involved are competing against each other. A bridge has been made between the two which now allows them both to participate and be heard equally, however the differences in content and style of their information is still clear. Now that the general public have the opportunity to speak, the opinions of the professionals can be questioned as can the credibility of the amateurs. If Leadbetter is right, “the future belongs not to the pros, but to the weekend warriors” (2004).

Despite concerns about the quality of openly editable information, Wikipedia has become one of the most popular online resources, statistics put Wikipedia as the eighth most-visited Web site in the United States, behind sites such as Yahoo, Google, MySpace, and eBay. Each article contains any number of links to other Wikipedia articles or to external resources. Unlike traditional encyclopedias which endeavor to present the current state of accepted knowledge, Wikipedia presents current representations of knowledge based on the perspectives of contributors (Bruns 2008, 114). However, this does not mean that contributors are able to publish anything they wish. Wikipedia content must adhere to three principles. These principles state that the author must have a neutral point of view, the article must be verifiable and no original, unpublished research may be used (Bruns 2008, 113).

Use of the site is pervasive, both within and outside the academic community. Wikipedia has become a primary research tool of college students; many students begin researching a topic at Google, and Wikipedia. Traditional encyclopedias undergo stringent review. Wikipedia forgoes the review requirement in favor of timeliness and the ability to include anyone who wants to contribute. Topic selection and coverage more accurately reflect community interest than academic value. Although Wikipedia’s ability to evolve as information changes is beneficial on one level, it also means that even if an article is deemed reliable, citing it as a source is problematic because it could change at any time.

Wikipedia puts control into the hands of users, who decide what topics are covered and at what depth. An emergent term or an obscure idea not found in a dictionary or a traditional encyclopedia can easily show up in Wikipedia, and the length of an article indicates community interest in the topic. For any wiki to be worthwhile the community of participants must work on a foundation of trust and openness; Wikipedia is an example of what can be accomplished by a disparate group of individuals, with a shared interest in a topic, working on such a foundation. Wikipedia offers extremely timely and always changing information, the site can reflect the current scholarship on a topic or, as in the case of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, can present a nearly up-to-the-minute account of an unfolding event (discussed in Citizen Journalism, Week 2 blog). Wikipedia blurs the line between consumption and creation of knowledge, giving motivated students the opportunity not only to use but also to generate knowledge and see themselves as members of a community of learners. Wikipedia offers students an opportunity to hone their research skills, by evaluating its content against other information sources, and to engage in a global community of collaborative content development.

New Media theorists such as Dan Gillmor, Henry Jenkins, Jay Rosen and Jeff Howe have recently touted Citizen Journalism as the latest innovation in 21st century journalism (2008). Citizen journalism has been developed through an intersection of the Internet and digital media technologies. As the lines between producers and consumers blur, the communications network itself will become a medium for everyone’s voice. Also known as “participatory journalism” and “user-driven journalism”, citizen journalism has evolved to be considered a highly reliable and informative source providing countless takes on events and issues.

As mentioned by Flew (2008, 52), journalists were often idolized by citizens and regarded as heroes within the public sphere. Today, this idolization has changed dramatically as citizen journalism has emerged through the increasing disappointment towards the reliability and quality of modern journalism. Conventional ‘big media’ treated the news as a lecture, whereas new models of citizen journalism in a Web 2.0 environment involve evolution towards journalism as a conversation or seminar. Examples of citizen journalism can be found on websites such as OhMyNews, Indymedia, Kuro5hin and Slashdot. “Citizen journalism embraces and embodies aspects of produsage and offers a multiplicity of perspectives on issues” (Bruns 2008).

Collaborative media gives us the power to contribute to that evolution, to all be part of the reporting of news, just like we’re all part of making it (Foster in Bruns, 2008, 81).

 Citizen journalism has proven itself a highly relied upon source providing immediate coverage and information about real life encounters they may have been apart of. This proves extremely useful in situations when mainstream professional journalists could not be apart of a situation first hand. Without citizen journalism we would not have been provided with coverage of such events as the September 11, shared through the youtube video “Bob and Bri – what we saw 9/11”. This coverage, which provides live footage of this tragedy, captured on camera by an everyday citizen from a unique perspective overlooking the north tower from a building 500 yards away, 36 floors high. Another citizen journalism encounter was during the 2004 Indonesian Tsunami where a wedding photographer perched on a rooftop in Banda Aceh, got a startling view of the tragedy unfolding.

Due to the number of ordinary citizens, that were eyewitnesses to these unforgettable events, who shared their stories, captured images and live footage, people worldwide were receiving this information online the day the events unfolded, beating any paper based news distribution to the post. Without these ordinary people, in extraordinary situations this amazing footage and real life encounters would not exist, and we would be waiting and waiting for that morning newspaper to arrive.

Journalism is often considered the “fourth” estate of society, designed to expose the inner dealings of the first three estates, government, courts and clergy, in an attempt to keep society’s leaders honest and the public informed (The News Manual, 2008).

Is it possible that citizen journalism could take over the role of the fifth estate? Providing more and more amazing encounters with worldwide news first hand. I truly do hope so, don’t you?

It is evident that ‘Produsage’  is considerably different to later traditional models of media production. Traditional media worked on a ‘top-down’ structure, where those who were wealthy and educated were given the power to control media content and its distribution. This made it next to impossible to encounter a diversity of contributions to online media and therefore no common user was able to participate in the construction of the media that they were consuming. The hierarchical distribution method of this time has changed dramatically, through the introduction of Web 2.0.

Through the introduction of Web 2.0, the only requirements for the participation of online content, is access to a computer and an Internet connection. The production value chain is no longer recognisable as a hierarchical method, but instead this power has been given to a series of unknown users, all contributing to the continuous cycle of online content. This convergence has enabled everyone to access a greater range of content produced by a worldwide contribution from users. Therefore not only are more people producing information, but these same people are receiving access to knowledge and content published by peers and other members of the general public worldwide.

At this stage of new media development the future of ‘Produsage’ is unknown. Where will ‘Produsage’ go from here? When the guidelines of ‘Produsage’ are discussed it is evident that anybody with the right knowledge and resources can become a creator of content. With more and more data and content being produced and distributed everyday, how is anybody looking for substantial, academic resources for research information, supposed to filter through and find what they are looking for. How are we to distinguish right from wrong when there are so many sources telling us otherwise?

Reference:

Bruns, A. 2008. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage.  New York: Peter Lang