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‘Anyone Can Edit’:Understanding the Produser

Dr Axel Bruns(Visiting Scholar, Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds)Creative Industries Faculty / Institute for Creative Industries and Innovation

Queensland University of Technologya.bruns@qut.edu.au – http://snurb.info/

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The Produser

‒ No, it’s not a typo…

‒ Produsers are involved in:• user-led content production –

produsage

‒ In a variety of environments

(Image: http://flickr.com/photos/stabilo-boss/93136022/)

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Produsing the News?

‒ Traditional news process:

(from Bruns, Gatewatching: Collaborative Online News Production, 2005)

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Against Gatekeeping

‒Gatekeeping is outdated:• media scarcity no longer exists• too many gates to keep• journalists’ judgment can fail• ‘all the news that’s fit to print’ is patronising• Fordist production model• citizens want to be active and involved

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Towards Gatewatching

‒ New form of collaborative news produsage:• observing what news passes through the gates of

news and other organisations• highlighting those news items which are of relevance

to the community• publicising rather than publishing the news• adding commentary, analysis, and discussion to the

news• post-Fordist production model, involving users as

produsers

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Produsing the News

‒Gatewatcher news process:

(adapted from Bruns, Gatewatching: Collaborative Online News Production, 2005)

‒ Variations on the process are possible

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Gatewatching and the News

‒Rise of alternative online news:• in news-related blogs and collaborative online

news sites• e.g. Indymedia, Slashdot, Kuro5hin, Plastic,

OhmyNews• often in response to perceived shortcomings

in the mainstream news media• creating a kind of open news• but not replacing the mainstream news media

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Gatewatching Effects

‒ Suggestion of a new role for open news:• bottom-up rather than top-down news coverage• multiperspectival news coverage (Herbert Gans)• democratic, dialogic, deliberative journalism

(Dan Gillmor: move from lecture to conversation)

‒ Effects on mainstream journalism:• bypassing journalists and editors• offering corrective to, watchdog for mainstream news

(Herbert Gans: a second tier of news organisations)• breaking down producer/consumer dichotomies

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Open News and Open Source‒ Open source approach to news:

The basic idea behind open source is very simple: When programmers can read, redistribute, and modify the source code for a piece of software, the Software evolves. People improve it, people adapt it, people fix bugs. And this can happen at a speed that, if one is used to the slow pace of conventional software development, seems astonishing.

We in the open source community have learned that this rapid evolutionary process produces better software than the traditional closed model, in which only a very few programmers can see the source and everybody else must blindly use an opaque block of bits.

(Opensource.org)

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Produsage

‒ 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

• media sharing and creative practice∘ e.g. Flickr, ccMixter, YouTube

, Jumpcut, Current.tv

• reviews and viral marketing∘ e.g. Epinions, IgoUgo

• automatic aggregation∘ Google, Amazon, Technorati

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‒ decline of the traditional value chain:

producer distributor consumer

(producer advised by consumer distributor consumer)

(customer-made ideas producer distributor consumer)

Beyond Production

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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

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A New Value Chain?

(as producer)

produser

(as consumer)

content content

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Common Characteristics

‒ shared across these environments:• Community-Based – the community as a whole, if sufficiently large and

varied, can contribute more than a closed team of producers, however qualified

• Fluid Roles – produsers participate as is appropriate to their personal skills, interests, and knowledges; this changes as the produsage project proceeds

• Unfinished Artefacts – content artefacts in produsage projects are continually under development, and therefore always unfinished; their development follows evolutionary, iterative, palimpsestic paths

• Common Property, Individual Merit - contributors permit (non-commercial) community use of their intellectual property, and are rewarded by the status capital

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content development space

set up by community or company to

harbour produsage

(e.g. Wikimedia Foundation; Google;

SourceForge)

commercial / non-profit harvesting of user-generated content

(e.g. The Sims, Wikipedia on CD-ROM)

commercial / non-profit services to support produsage

(e.g. Red Hat, SourceForge)

commercial activities by users themselves, harnessing the hive

(e.g. support services, consultancies, content sales)

initial IP contributions from

individuals, the public domain, or

commercial sources

collaborative, iterative, evolutionary, palimpsestic user-led content development

valuable, often commercial-grade content is created

Produsage Environment(populated by produsers)

Breaking the Chains

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Produsage

‒ beyond production:• ‘anyone can edit’ – users become producers of

content• 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

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Harnessing the Hive

‒ Implications of produsage:• emergent community structures?• creative potential – grassroots, vernacular creativity?• (e-)democratic potential?• sustainability of voluntary labour?• commercial approaches (JC Herz: ‘harnessing the

hive’) and exploitation (i.e. hijacking the hive)?• intellectual property issues?• trust, authority, responsibility, liability?

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Produser 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• increasing focus on creativity and innovation in

international business development – e.g. move from ‘made in China’ to ‘created in China’

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Intellectual Property

‒ Ambiguous relation of produsage to IP:• innovative use of new IP licences (e.g.

Creative Commons)• complex IP relationships in massively multi-produser

environments (e.g. Wikipedia)• conflicted response from established industries

(“Rip. Mix. Burn.” vs. p2p persecution)• potential stifling of produser innovation by heavy-

handed IP legislation, with potential economic impact – China’s growth helped by lax IP enforcement

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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 produser-citizens?

Is it possible to harness produsage to support a move of citizens from being a passive audience for to being active produsers of democracy?