One of my absolute passions in this world is perfume. I love everything about it from the science,
the bottle design, the perfume advertisements and most importantly the actual
fragrance. I am that passionate about it
that I’ve started a blog (the emphasis being on started, I’ve been busy with
university). I rarely use other people’s
work for my blog though sometimes I need information on specific notes in
perfume and will use content from fragrance experts. This technically makes me a produser where I utilise
the tool Blogger.com to produce content sometimes manipulating already
developed content to create a new product disrupting the normal production
chain that is producer creates content and uses a distributor to deliver it to
the consumer who then receives and consumes the media (Next.com 2010). Axel Bruns (2010) notes that consumers like myself
are not advising producers of what content they want to see but are rather
generating it themselves (Next.com 2010).
However, if I do use content from another producer I will
heavily reference it as leading the public to believe the content to be mine is
unethical and I’d hardly like it if this were to happen to me. Axel Bruns (2007) in his paper, Produsage:Towards a Broader Framework for User-Led Content Creation notes that produsage
has a devastating effect on production industries (i.e. music, journalism,
software and broadcast industries) that are experiencing great difficulty in
not only retaining existing customers but also attracting new customers (Bruns
2007, p.104). Bruns (2007) highlights
that produsage has now placed production industries in the difficult position
of having to reinvent themselves to remain profitable (Bruns 2007, p.104).
Perhaps they should take some advice from American
politicians. The book, Campaigning forPresident 2008 details how in 2007 presidential candidate Mitt Romney launched
a video creation contest giving supporters access to hundreds of photos and
video clips so that they could create an advertisement to boost Romney’s profile
and assist him in winning votes (Johnson 2009, p.151).
Even though Romney lost the presidential race he cleverly
used bilateral communications where the focus is shifted off solely
broadcasting messages to the public and actually involved them in the creation
of the message that was being broadcasted to them and this would’ve assisted in
attaining votes for the candidate (Johnson 2009, p.151). Romney encouraged what media theorist Henry
Jenkins (2010) calls a participatory culture; where the consumers of the
message become producers they take media into their own hands and create media
with the content Romney has provided them with therefore becoming produsers
(DML Research Hub 2010). This is quite
clever as Romney has control of what content can be utilised within the message
and as it’s a contest he (rather his staff) get to screen the messages before
they’re released.
I think produsage will continue well into the future and
gain momentum as social media technologies advance making it easier for
consumers to produce content and if production industries wish to remain
profitable that perhaps they need to take their cue from Romney and utilise
bi-lateral communications. Producers
could put media into their consumers hands allowing them to create content on
their behalf because let’s face it the producers are the ones marketing to the
consumers and the consumers know what they want.
Just for your entertainment here's a little something that isn't Romney's best interest but demonstrates produsage where the produser discredits Romney using Psy's Gangnam Style. Enjoy!
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