creative industries
The Future Is User-Led:
The Past towards Widespread Produsage
Dr Axel Bruns
Creative Industries Faculty
Queensland University of Technology
Brisbane, Australia
a.bruns@qut.edu.au
creativeindustries.qut.com
creative industries
User-Led Content Production
‒
emerging in various domains:
•
•
•
•
•
•
open source software development
online publishing:
∘
∘
blogs
open news – e.g. Slashdot, Indymedia,
OhmyNews
knowledge management
∘
∘
∘
wikis – e.g. Wikipedia
social bookmarking – e.g. del.icio.us, digg
geotagging – e.g. Google Earth, Frappr
multi-user gaming:
∘
e.g. The Sims, Everquest, Second Life,
Spore
creative practice
∘
e.g. Flickr, ccMixter, YouTube, Jumpcut
reviews and social shopping
∘
e.g. Epinions, IgoUgo
(Image: http://flickr.com/photos/stabilo-boss/93136022/)
creativeindustries.qut.com
creative industries
Beyond Production
‒ decline of the traditional value chain:
producer  distributor  consumer
(producer advised by consumer  distributor  consumer)
(customer-made ideas  producer  distributor  consumer)
creativeindustries.qut.com
creative industries
What’s Happening Here?
‒ emergence of:
• the prosumer (Alvin Toffler)?
• the citizen-consumer (John Hartley)?
• pro-am production (Charles Leadbeater & Paul
Miller)?
• customer-made products, produced by a new
Generation C (Trendwatching.com)?
• corporations harnessing the hive (J.C. Herz)?
creativeindustries.qut.com
creative industries
Beyond Products
‒ traditional value chains rely on key
assumptions:
•
•
•
•
products exist in discrete versions,
and producers decide when these
are to be released
the distribution of products is
controlled (and controllable) by
producers and distributors, not by
consumers
consumers are relatively isolated
– only producers have access to
the whole community
the core business lies in the sale
of copyrighted products
‒ but in a user-led, digital
environment, this is no longer true:
•
•
•
•
the latest update is always
immediately available – e.g. open
source, Wikipedia
content is available for direct
access online – users become
producers, and the Net replaces
the distributor
consumers join together in
enthusiast groups, interest
groups, developer groups
the core business lies in providing
value-added services around
freely available content
creativeindustries.qut.com
creative industries
Common Characteristics
‒ shared across these environments:
• Open Participation, Communal Evaluation – the community as a whole,
if sufficiently large and varied, can contribute more than a closed team
of producers, however qualified
• Fluid Heterarchy, Ad Hoc Meritocracy – produsers participate as is
appropriate to their personal skills, interests, and knowledges; this
changes as the produsage project proceeds
• Unfinished Artefacts, Continuing Process – content artefacts in
produsage projects are continually under development, and therefore
always unfinished; their development follows evolutionary, iterative,
palimpsestic paths
• Common Property, Individual Rewards – contributors permit (noncommercial) community use and adaptation of their intellectual property,
and are rewarded by the status capital gained through this process
creativeindustries.qut.com
creative industries
A New Value Chain?
(as producer)
content
produser
content
(as user)
creativeindustries.qut.com
creative industries
Produsage
‒ beyond production:
• ‘anyone can edit’ – users become producers of content
• content is no longer a distinct product – it is a temporary artefact
of an ongoing process
• usage and production are increasingly, inextricably intertwined
• strict distinctions between producers, distributors, and
consumers no longer apply
• a new “Generation C” of content produsers?
this is produsage
creativeindustries.qut.com
creative industries
Breaking the Chains
Produsage Environment
(populated by produsers)
content
development space
set up by
community or
company to
harbour produsage
commercial / non-profit
harvesting of usergenerated content
(e.g. The Sims,
Wikipedia on CD-ROM)
commercial / non-profit
services to support
produsage
(e.g. Wikimedia
Foundation; Google;
SourceForge)
(e.g. Red Hat,
SourceForge)
valuable, often
commercial-grade
content is created
initial IP
contributions from
individuals, the
public domain, or
commercial sources
commercial activities by users
themselves, harnessing the hive
(e.g. support services,
consultancies, content sales)
collaborative, iterative, evolutionary, palimpsestic
user-led content development
creativeindustries.qut.com
creative industries
Collective Intelligence
‒ Questions and answers:
• creative potential of distributed collaboration
– grassroots, vernacular creativity; shared folk culture
• sustainability of voluntary labour
– reliance on interest communities and enthusiasts
• intellectual property issues
– building a new creative, information, knowledge commons
• trust, authority, responsibility, liability
– communal evaluation of content quality
• emergence of new cultural, social, economic structures
– towards a new collective intelligence?
creativeindustries.qut.com
creative industries
Produsage Economics
‒ Economic potential:
• cheap workforce for commercial producers
• but also post-Fordist production/produsage models
• possible opposition to traditional business, and opportunity for
new businesses
‒ Economic models:
•
•
•
•
•
harnessing the hive – by produsers for produsers
harvesting the hive – by produsers for wider community
helping the hive – promoting and supporting produsage
harbouring the hive – providing the spaces for produsage
hijacking the hive – locking users into spaces of produsage
creativeindustries.qut.com
creative industries
Political Implications
‒ Towards post-Fordist politics?
• growing effect of produser news on political process
∘ towards more dialogue and deliberation,
∘ or more argument and conflict?
• rear-guard battles by governments and news organisations against
citizen journalists – but not only in authoritarian regimes
• conflict between alternative and mainstream media coverage (e.g.
Howard Dean campaign)
• digital divide opening between traditional audiences and new produsercitizens?
Is it possible to harness produsage to support a move of citizens
from being a passive audience for to being active produsers of
democracy?
creativeindustries.qut.com
creative industries
Shameless Plug
snurb.info
creativeindustries.qut.com