To Conclude

Over the past five weeks I have blogged about five aspects of new media. Produsage, Citizen Journalism, Wikipedia and amateur’s versus pro’s. Throughout this blogging process I have focused on how easy it is for users to become producers, and the different ways of this happening in each of these situations.

 

When discussing this final blog entry in the tutorial this week, one aspect intrigued me. The idea that this notion of produsage draws similarities with communism and channels a Utopian vibe. Axel Brun’s uses Douglas Rushkoff’s quote in his book Blogs, Wikipedia, Second life and beyond (Bruns 2009): “the rise of interactive media does provide us with the beginnings of new metaphors for cooperation, new faith in the power of networked activity and new evidence of our ability to participate actively in the authorship of our collective destiny”. This quote dips into the idealistic socialist views linked heavily with communism, Rushkoff suggests the idea that society is beginning to work more collaboratively. Communism is frowned upon quite seriously in a capitalist society but Rushkoff puts forward a decent argument. Maybe we are forming new ways of cooperation and beginning to rely more on networking with each other in order to create, which may just be affecting our collective destiny as we boundaries between producer and consumer are being broken down. In saying this, of course communism stretches far beyond the simple idea of ‘every one being equal’ and Rushkoff is not saying that we are going to reform into a communist world; he simply invites some exploration into the similarities.

 

So clearly the idea of society collaboratively working together is a change that has been brought about with the emergence of produsage. However it can also be argued to an extent that this has always been the case, verbal and written feedback and contribution has always been able to be accessed by the general public. If an artifact was being created surely the creator would not just keep his or her ideas to themselves, often they ask others for advice and opinions. So the idea of collaborative work and produsage is not brand new information to society, web 1.0 was even a way of networking. Admittedly, with the development of web 2.0 it is occurring on a much wider scale as humans are no longer geographically constricted and can provide input to projects all over the world.

 

So really, the fundamental ideas are the same, just occurring on a much larger scale than ever seen before. So what are the benefits or consequences of this? No one really knows what the future holds when it comes to produsage and the development of new media, but for now I believe that anyone can create products and artifacts, the benefits of this aspect lies in the creator themselves. A band called the Arctic Monkeys were discovered on myspace, simply from uploading their music and they now have a solid music career ahead of them. In my opinion though, I believe that the fact that anyone can create has diminished the status of creative individuals. They are not as unique as they used to be and are therefore not as idolized as they should be, are the true creative genius’s being marginalized by the amateurs who are utilizing the new media technologies to get a break? Will the average standard of content be lower than before? All these questions I would love to answer, however I do not have the word limit to do so. So please feel free to contribute your opinion.

 

Reference’s

Bruns, A. 2008. Blogs, Wikidepia, Secound Life and Beyon. From Production to Produsage. New York, Peter Lane Publishing, Inc.

Folks and Experts, Bridging the Pro/Am Divide.

Following my previous blog on Wikipedia I aim to address the ongoing debate on the role of Experts and Amateurs in relation to their contribution to online resources. The development of web 2.0 has clearly enhanced user contribution and networking on the internet and this has resulted in the rise of Amateurs or ‘Folks’ as online personalities.

In my first blog on produsage, I used an example of a short home made mocumentary by two sisters living in Brisbane, their situation is going to be brought up again. Georgia Cranstoun can be considered an online amateur; she has no formal qualifications yet has created an online presence for herself that is constantly gaining popularity. Her website www.wheresgeorgie.com, contains all her comedy skits and home made videos and while written in informally the site has a professional air about it. Georgia also has a youtube channel that has 88 subscribers and 190 friends, and while this may not seem like great figures in the big picture I’ll just let you know that I noticed one of her subscribers currently lives in Greece (http://www.youtube.com/user/imfar2busybeingdelic), clearly her creative product is already reaching an international audience. However, her online activity doesn’t stop there, she also has facebook and myspace fan pages, again solidifying her role as a perfect example of an amateur creating an online personality for themselves, through video production and networking.

In a podcast given by Axel Bruns regarding the pro/am relationship, he states that “Amateurs are challenging expert knowledge and becoming increasingly prominent in online communities” (Folks and Experts KCB202, 2008). This quote applies to the given example, but can also address the idea of ‘online communities’. When Brun’s mentioned this I took it to mean sites such as fan pages, and as embarrassing as it is, I immediately thought of the Harry Potter fan site: Mugglenet.com. Mugglenet was started by Emerson Sparks at the age of 12, he started it as a leisurely project, but it has now developed into his own business. On the website Emerson states that “MuggleNet was born a month after I began homeschooling as a 12-year-old in the fall of 1999. I had too much time on my hands and I thought it would be fun to make a website. I had no idea what I was getting in to.”(Mugglenet, About us. ND) Mugglenet now has approximately 20 paid staff, is visited by millions each year and has therefore made a successful transition from an amateur online community to a professional one. This perfectly outlines the idea of how amateurs can utilize new media in order to create a career for themselves as Emerson has done through his creation of Mugglnet.

Regarding the debate on the developing online relationship between folks and experts Axel states that “Media experts need to cooperate with an audience and their users” (. As it has been made clear that amateurs can easily break into the online media industry with the proper circumstances and networking skills, so I have to agree with Axel, experts need to accept that this is happening and to not ignore it. While I still agree that there will always be a place for experts online, as there will always be people who want traditionally ‘reliable’ sources. But people also want information that they can relate to and understand, which is also where amateurs come in as the content created is usually an easier standard of vocabulary and easier to understand (mugglenet is a good example of this).

I am pointing out once again that it is easy for amateurs to become professionals these days, this seems to be a recurring theme in all my blogs, probably because it is the central idea of produsage.

References

Mugglenet, About Us. ND. http://www.mugglenet.com/aboutus.shtml. (accessed on the 27.05.09)

Folks and Experts. 2008. http://www.slideshare.net/Snurb/folks-and-experts-kcb202-week-7-podcast-presentation (accessed on the 17.05.09)

Wikipedia

Prior to University, my experience with Wikipedia was fairly broad, I would use it to find information on topics that interested me such as famous actors, movies and books. Earlier on in my education I found that I was being told not to trust Wikipedia and that most of the information on there could be incorrect.

Wikipedia is most commonly compared to Encyclopedias, the central difference between these two sources is that Wikipedia is an open product and Encyclopaedia is a closed product, however some people can still find similarities between the two. Wikipedia is open to collaborative feedback and contribution as any user can edit the sites and the information on there is constantly editable.

Being open source software, Wikipedia has come under the fire with the possibility of false information being posted.

“John Seigenthaler Sr. was the assistant to Attorney General Robert Kennedy in the early 1960′s. For a brief time, he was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John, and his brother, Bobby. Nothing was ever proven.”
— Wikipedia
Seigenthaler wrote an article about how he felt about these false claims being made against him on USAtoday.com, the article can be found here http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-11-29-wikipedia-edit_x.htm. In this article Seigenthaler clearly establishes his frustration with the fact that someone can post a “malicious ‘biography’” (Seigenthaler. 2005) such as this. Clearly the open source product has negative aspects of it that is evident in Seigenthalers story. It is stories like this that prompt Wikipedia to aim to enhance its reliability as a source for information; Wikipedia has attempted this by requiring sources and citations on all the pages. However, it will always have its many flaws, with no professional editor many pages are poorly written with many errors. “But it is not the case that errors creep in on an occasional basis or that a couple of articles are poorly written… There are lots of articles in that condition. They need a good editor.” (The British journal Nature. 2005). So when it comes down to it, as much as Wikipedia tries, it will never be perfect. I personally think this is part of the charm of Wikipedia, knowing that users can read articles in there and they are most likely written in everyday terms.

I used to be told not to trust Wikipedia at all and to never go there for information or resources. My use of Wikipedia currently is predominantly leisurely; however I am finding that I am using it more and more often as a beginning research area for assignments and educational reasons. Most of the time it can provide a basic knowledge of the topic in question and includes a list of references and in text references that can help for further more reliable research. I have noticed a clear change in my opinion of Wikipedia and I think this is due to Wikipedia trying to get rid of their ‘unreliable’ tag that they previously had and that I had been made aware of.

Citizen Journalism

Right now I would like to address Citizen Journalism and how it relates to me professionally as well as personally. When researching Citizen Journalism I found out that there is no specific definition that can be used to describe the idea, After looking through many of the offered definitions, I understand Citizen Journalism to be way for anybody to write and publish whatever they desire, over the predominant source of the web.

In my opinion, Citizen Journalism is another example of the idea that ‘users can become producers’ as discussed in my previous blog. I explored produsage by relating it specifically to youtube and how anyone can produce film and upload it to the web. When looking into Citizen Journalism I found out that this is an aspect of produsage in which many similarities seen when comparing it with the new technology of youtube.

A major aspect of Citizen Journalism is blogging, anybody can have a blog on the internet where they can write on whatever they like with no strings attached and as a result of this very diverse pieces of work can be found on the internet. Users can spend a whole month blogging about the fact that their roommate keeps eating the barbeque shapes from the cupboard, simple blogs like this are quite common on the we (http://lisajalocha.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/happy-birthday-mum/ – a blog on a mothers birthday). However on the other end of the spectrum, elaborate blogs on politics and world issues are also very prominent EXAMPLE. Clearly, this aspect of Citizen Journalism is very similar to the idea of youtube as an avenue for producing both amateur and professional work. However Citizen Journalism stretches beyond the idea of users blogging over the internet, there are other aspects of Citizen Journalism such as online websites where serious aspiring Journalists can gain experience and feedback on their work.

I found a site called News Unlimited, this is an online news website set up by aspiring journalists. News Unlimited can be considered an example of Citizen Journalism as it the writers don’t have professional experience, it can be considered interactive as comments and feedback is encouraged “we have an open contribution policy – if you’d want to read about it, we want to hear about it” (News Unlimited. 2009). This site personally interested me purely because of the content, I enjoyed the articles written and even made a comment on one of them.

Over all, I suppose the point of this blog was to identify with Citizen Journalism and make the connection it has with produsage. I decided to write this blog more informally than my previous blog because my interest in Citizen Journalism is more casual as apposed to professional. I look forward to reading more articles on News Unlimited, I think I might actually bookmark the site!

Blog 1: Produsage

Georgia and Victoria Cranstoun are the two girls featured in this video, they have no professional experience in the film or telivision production industry however have created a series of videos and posted them to Youtume. Being distantly connected to the Cranstoun sisters through a friend I am aware that they are both aspiring to enter into the television industry and hope to pursue careers together. They have already accumulated many fans through their videos on Youtube and have started their careers in their own backyards.

I begin this blog with the aim of addressing the new media term ‘Produsage’ which has been developed by Axel Bruns. When defining Produsage, Bruns addresses the idea that produsage allows collaborative communities to break down the boundaries between producers and consumers (A Bruns. 2007) This quote supports the idea that new media technologies such as web 2.0 are narrowing the gap between producers and consumers through the formation of collaborative networking and file sharing. Produsage essentially has lead what used to be a hierarchical structure in which the producer, consumer and users being clearly defined, to become a more even structure known as ‘heterarchy’.

Bruns has also written a paper called “Reconfiguring Television for a Networked, Produsage Context”. This paper addresses the idea of produsage and how networking or file sharing affects the television industry. An online copy can be found at this link : http://snurb.info/files/Reconfiguring%20Television%20for%20a%20Networked,%20Produsage%20Context.pdf.

When scanning through this reading, I became more aware of how produsage can affect me as a creative practitioner. Bruns addresses Youtube, and how producing and sharing video affects the media and film industries. At one point it is suggested that Youtube can result in quality and popular content to “rise to wider attention” (Bruns. n.d) allowing an avenue for amateur ‘users turn producers’ to get their work out there. Much like the Cranstoun sisters featured above, their work is out there and are becomming more and more popular as they create more videos.

Produsage directly affects me as my professional interest in the film industry and film production is openly affected. Youtube, is one clear example of how produsage is breaking down the boundaries between producers and users. At the moment, I am not certainly decided that a career in the film industry is my designated profession, however I have a keen interest in it. This is where Youtube helps me, as currently I can explore video and film production as a leisurely exercise as apposed to a proffestional one (this is where I stumble upon entertaining videos like the featured). To put it quite simply, when researching this term of ‘produsage’ I have been able to find a way in which it relates to me personally through Youtube. My case is a simple example of how Youtube channels the idea of produsage within the creative industries.

The film industry is a very tough industry to break into and make a reasonable living or career out of. However with these new developments and the idea of produsage becoming more and more prominent in society, alternative avenues of getting your creative work out into the world are becoming more available to the average user. Admittedly, the film industry is still a very refined industry but this idea of produsage makes it a little more accessible to users and amateur creative practitioner’s like me.