Producers, User Generated Content and the Emergence of Produsage

With the introduction and development of social software and new media technologies, significant changes have occurred with the way in which audiences consume media. Audiences now have a more substantial relationship with media producers, having more choice and influence over which media they consume and how they consume it. ‘Produsage’ highlights the fact that there is a shift towards user generated content within online media that has increased the cultural and social power of these virtual communities. Axel Bruns, refers to these individuals as the new, hybrid, produser.

With the emergence of social software and the 'Web 2.0 environment’, participatory culture is breaking down the barriers between producers and consumers. Traditionally, there has been no relationship of any substance between media producers and audiences. In fact, this process has actually enabled media audiences to act as users, producers, or both. According to Bruns (2008), this new brand of producers do not engage in traditional content production, but are instead involved in ‘produsage’ or, “the collaborative and continuous building and extending of existing content in pursuit of further improvement”. This process has also changed with the rise of peer-to-peer media forums and has enabled audiences to respond to producers at an unprecedented degree. Bruns (2008) suggests, “As this trend continues and the balance between mass and networked media shifts further in favour of citizens, it is increasingly likely that the traditional model of politics is no longer sustainable”. As such, new media consumers now have the opportunity to delve even further into online participation and increase their cultural power within the ‘produsage’ democracy.

Media producers have also embraced this concept, ensuring that audience loyalty is consistent. Additionally, these networks provide producers with an insight into how audiences feel about the content of the program. This variation of control provides audiences with cultural power over the media they consume, allowing the expression of personal opinions and criticisms of media content, and inturn, a sense of authority over media decision making (see Media Spy). Over the past decade, online communities and user generated content have “granted audiences control over media flows, enabled activists to reshape and recirculate media content, lowered the costs of production and paved the way for new grassroots networks” (Jenkins 2002, 167). By doing so, media producers have given audiences a degree of social control over media by allowing them to produce their own content via mediums such as YouTube. This has also led to various social opportunities and economic benefits. As such, the relationship between media producers and audiences has indeed changed, as the two entities network and overlap responsibilities.

Produsage.org has identified four key principles that can be applied across all produsage environments:

• Open Participation, Communal Evaluation
• Fluid Heterarchy, Ad Hoc Meritocracy
• Unfinished Artefacts, Continuing Process
• Common Property, Individual Rewards

These principles are further explored in the book Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond: From Production to Produsage, and on the accompanying Website Produsage.org.

Some examples of ‘produsage’ include open source software development, citizen journalism, applications such as Wikipedia, and Second Life, alongside a wide range of other sites of collaborative content creation.

References

Bruns, A. 2008. The Future Is User-Led: The Path towards Widespread Produsage

Jenkins, H. 2002. Interactive audiences in Harries, Dan, The New Media Book, London: BFI Publishing, pp.157-170.

Virtual Communities and Social Networking Systems

Virtual communities vary greatly in function and purpose. However, they each entail interaction through an online medium bringing their members together through common interests or situations. One such virtual community is that of news blogging where members of the public sign up to news forums and comment on content of specific news broadcasts (See News.com's official Blog). They comment on the substance of reports whilst discussing with and responding to fellow boggers. This form of blogging is often seen as the direct expression of news audiences providing feedback on which the mainstream media can take on board and make use of (Bruns and Jacobs, 2006).

Other forms of virtual communities are in place primarily as social tools such as MySpace, where individuals give themselves a virtual identity with which they interact with others, sharing files and photos, leaving messages and interacting with new people. This is in essence is a ‘friends’ network, whereby people make form relationships as well as meet people who share similar interests. Aditionally, the expansion and popularity of virtual gaming communities such as Second Life allow for similar interactions between users. Virtual communities and the subsequent online relationships that follow are however blurring the line between real and virtual life.

According to Foth (2006), there are a number of differences that need to be taken into account when building social networking systems for place-based communities as opposed to geographically dispersed communities. As such, Foth has identified that place-based and geographically dispersed communities differ quite significantly. Geographically dispersed online communities are groups of web users who share a common goal, purpose, interest or support need (Foth 2006).  The presence of these unifies the group and motivates users to continually interact. Here the system designers need not focus on why users should interact, but rather how, as a basis of meaningful interaction already exists. This is central to place-based communities, where users live close enough to each other to met up if they wish, but have the immediate common ground of location rather than anything else. The difficulty which must then be taken into account when building social networking systems founded on geographic proximity is fostering interaction not directly related to place but rather interest. Individuals within a place-based environment generally only truly experience meaningful interaction when they find that they share interests, histories, hobbies or jobs etc (Foth, 2006). Without an influential social networking system these meaningful interactions are based on chance rather than intention as roles other than that of neighbour are not obvious in neighbourhoods as they are in geographically dispersed communities.

References

Bruns, A. and J. Jacobs, 2006. Uses of Blogs. New York: Peter Lang.

Foth, M. (2006). Inner-City Neighborhoods: Facilitating Social Networking. QLD: IEEE Computer Society.

Social Capital

What does Flew mean by ‘social capital’ and why does he think it is important for virtual communities?

The concept of social capital is recognised by Flew as being multifaceted, entailing “features of social life–networks, norms, and trusts–that enable participants to act together more effectively to pursue shared interests” as identified by Putnam (cited in Flew, 2004, 75). These are quite simply social connections which harbour an interactive environment. Flew has deduced that social capital is an integral part of a functional virtual community as it engages members and harbours interactivity (Flew, 2004).

Flew sees virtual communities and social capital functioning as a ‘two way street’ where the need for virtual communities is attributed to by the lack of opportunities for democratic involvement in existing communities in today’s society. Therefore the existence of such virtual communities creates a framework in which social capital can be realised and developed (Flew, 2004). On the other hand social capital is a vital feature of a successful virtual community as it fosters innovation and information sharing as well as prevents social problems in tangible life, whilst potentially increasing economic outcomes (Flew, 2004). Evidently the benefits of social capital are much the same in both real world and virtual communities.

Flew, T. 2004. New media: an introduction. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

The difference between web 1.0 and web 2.0

Web 2.0 was often refered to as the 'future goal' of online development, but the fact of the matter is the change from web 1.0 to web 2.0 is in many ways indefinable. As such, i belive the shift is very much a gradual segway from one platform to another, with various online businesses and communities showing what can be done with the new software.

This being said, it is possible to highlight 10 key differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0:

1. Open standards Base: Ensure service connectivity is reliable

2. Ubiquitious Broadband: The infrastructure is now available to support web 2.0 models.

3. Less investment required: Companies can get far without a massive investment meaning companies can quickly be incubated to spread the risk.

4. Better Browsers: New format support, RSS etc enriches the user experience

5. Powerful development environments: AJAX is young but powerful and holds the promise of being easier to use compared to J2EE

6. Device convergance: Ability to access the web from a multitude of devices means on-demand services are more functional for real everyday use.

7. More Innovation: The de-skilling of the technological requirements mean more people get involved in trying to create, often from a more creative user-base.

8: Change in Use: The focus of the web and web 2.0 is firmly on usefuleness and in many cases commercial basis.

9. Maturity: Resiliance and Scalability are easier to provide with cheaper hardware and better understanding of how to achieve this.

10.History: Lessons from the dot com crash are noteasily forgotten…

See: Jana Technology Services

Like many important concepts however, web 2.0 doesn't have a clearly defined boundary, but rather, a gravitational core. You can visualize Web 2.0 as "a set of principles and practices that tie together a veritable solar system of sites that demonstrate some or all of those principles, at a varying distance from that core" (O'Reilly 2005).

Merci Pierre

Pierre Levy offers us an intriguing insight into what might emerge as citizens more fully realise the potential of the new media environment. Levy primarily explores the theory of collective intelligence and how the web’s fragmentation of knowledge may enable “greater participation in decision making, new models of citizenship and community, and the reciprocal exchange of information” (Jenkins 2002, 158). An interesting aspect of Levy’s philosophy is that he draws an important distinction between “organic social groups” (family), “organised social groups” (institutions), and “self-organised groups” such as virtual communities. He links the emergence of the new knowledge space to the evolutionary changes in communication, the breakdown of geographic constraints and the accumulation of ‘cultural memory’.

According to Levy (2000), the future for knowledge communities will be voluntary and defined by “intellectual enterprises and emotional investments”. Levy’s theories are particularly useful as an example of how members may shift from one community to another as interests and needs change. At the same time, he also tells us increasing amounts of people belong to more than one community at the same time. As such, these individuals are held together through a mutual production and exchange of knowledge (Jenkins 2002, 159). Levy’s book Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace is also relevant resource in relation to participatory cultures; this is due to the fact that he simplistically highlights the transformation that is continuing to occur throughout the world across online cultural platforms.  

The Community Dictates the Communities

"The site is not the community. At the end of the day, it is up to the people in the community to build the community. The site should support community-building activities. It is a vehicle for people to travel to centrally located sources of information and to be able to add/edit/delete information whether it be text, images, video clips, panorama images or sound files. Communities are built by people for people with shared desired outcomes. The vehicles and tools aid in the processes of achieving the outcomes." (David Potter)

Online Communities; the new virtual phenomenon?

Terry Flew frequently refers to continuing technological changes and his analysis on the influences they bring to a culture within a society gives answers as to why multitudes of users are drawn to participate in online communities. In his writings regarding technological convergence and virtual communities, he notes that "the tendency of many Internet users is not to passionately commit themselves to single online communities, but rather to participate in a multitude of such communities" (2005, p. 68). 

The many characteristics that online communities possess such as flexibility, immediacy and low-barriers to entry, are key driving factors behind the success and permeation of online communities into a person's life. This, coupled by the fact that audiences can select and become part of groups and communities which are relevant to them, means that the desire to belong to multiple online communities is often experienced. The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins gives many examples of how online communities are becoming central to problem solving, sharing ideas and managing resources through the collaboration of like-minded individuals.

Examples of online communities which have grown to have worldwide recognition are:

• Friendster
• Live Journal
• Facebook
• MySpace
• Flickr
• YouTube