Week 7: Response to Content

Produsage: Help or Hinder?

Produsage: 'the collaborative, iterative, and user-led production of content by participants in a hybrid user-producer, or produser  role'. (Bruns, 2011) In other words, the uploading of information to a site; a site created by peers for peers. Axel Bruns, from the Queensland University of Technology explains that 'in recent years, various observers have pointed to the shifting paradigms of cultural and societal participation and economic production in developed nations. These changes are facilitated (although, importantly, not solely driven) by the emergence of new, participatory technologies of information access, knowledge exchange, and content production, many of whom are associated with Internet and new media technologies.'

Wikipedia is a very popular site which many people turn to for information, but is this information accurate?

Vasilis Kostakis from the University of Macedonia in his writing of produsage in particular to the site claims that 'Wikipedia is constantly at risk of transforming itself into an inflexible, despotic hierarchy, while new disputes are emerging about the mode of content creation and governance. As the size of Wikipedia increases (in terms of both content and participants), it becomes more difficult and complex for a relatively small group of administrators to keep track of everything that happens “in the far–flung of the site.”'

Bruns beliefficiency can be achieved when searching on the internet and this can be helpful. However, just like Wikipedia, it is helpful but to some extent it may not always be useful due to be amount of “incremental” users. Basically, the information present may not always be valid or necessarily credible.


Sources:

Jona's Blog, DIY Culture and Design: Physical Goods Through the Online Rhelm, image, viewed 16 September 2011.
<http://jonathanpeck.wordpress.com/ >

Kostakis, V 2010. Identifying and Understanding the Problems of Wikipedia's Peer Governance: The Case of Inclusionists Versus Deletionists. Viewed 16 September 2011.
<http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2613/2479>

Bruns, A (Date Unknown), Towards Produsage: Futures for User-Led Content Production. Viewed 16 September 2011
<http://produsage.org/files/12132812018_towards_produsage_0.pdf>