Do you do it yourself?

As said in previous blogs, with the surge into the new media, we are more involved. We are pushing the producers to give us what we want, we are writing our own biased and sometimes not really noteworthy news, adding to and editing our on encyclopedias and challenging the experts as amateurs. We are doing what we want to do. The newest edition to this is DIY.

Do it yourself baking, do it yourself sewing, do it yourself paper making, do it yourself add to a computer game.  Jenkins (in Bruns 2008) notes that in the new media aspect, DIY generally refers to produsers who form their own group cultures and design products of their own accord.

DIY stems from open source products and information that pushes people to make new creative and innovative products. It aims to give people the ability to build on knowledge and products. The produsers are now working individually and collaboratively to design and produce products for the whole. DIY also provides a podium for interaction in a social networking manner, creating their own online culture. This further develops the produsers to enhance the product or information through harnessing their collective intelligence.

Bauwens argues that information relating to product is what will be the most affected by DIY design and collaborative intelligence.  An example used throughout the unit has been that of the computer game, The Sims, in which 90% of the content is consumer produced. The game provides the users the ability to mould the game to how they want it and it has proved amazingly popular.

Currently, DIY design and culture is a relatively new concept. However, practitioners have predicted that this concept is likely to expand and develop in the future as more people and producers adopt the model.

Wikipedia

History assessment 2: Report on the escape of POW William Mudge in WWII.

We didn’t know much about World War II, we knew hardly anything about William Mudge, we knew nothing of his escape. We googled it. The first hit that came up was Wikipedia. Wikipedia told us exactly what happened in the escape of POW William Mudge in WWII in easy to understand terms and a language that we understood. We moved onto the sources referenced in the Wikipedia article, now armed with a knowledge as to what we were talking about, and were therefore able to write a succinct and knowledgeable report. We never told anybody that we looked at Wikipedia. 

Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that is traditionally discredited as an academically reliable source. I however, with adamant support from Axel Bruns, disagree. Wikipedia is a podium that allows instantaneous access to millions of articles (there are currently over 2.8 million English Wikipedia articles available) with legitimate sources and people forever sifting through to find discrepancies.

Any person can edit or add to a Wikipedia article, there are however, some standards that must be abided by to help keep the articles academic and true. These points are:

• Neutral point of view
• Verifiability
• No original research 
• Naming conventions
• Civility
• Harassment; no legal threats
• Consensus

This success of Wikipedia can be measured against its predecessor Nupedia. Nupedia only allowed previously published academic articles on the site, at the end of the first 18 months of the online encyclopedia, only 12 articles had been published. Perhaps this is due to Nupedia failing to recognize that society has the ability to produce useful and intellectual content. Wikipedia realized this ability and has exceeded all limits.

Wikipedia in the midst of Web 2.0 has remedied the main failing of traditional encyclopedias. As time changes and history is made every day, Wikipedia is changed, added to and edited every day, it is in the state of constant flux. What is true now may not be true tomorrow.

we are the journalists

We are evolving: we no longer just accept what we are told, we are exploring, discussing and writing it all down as we go along.  The process is new and exciting. The process is loosely termed, citizen journalism.

I am no golfing fan, truth be told it bores me to tears. But I am into media and blogging somewhat. So when Tiger Woods made a shot, with his new ‘platinum’ gold ball, I heard about it first. I heard about it before Nike could tell me, I heard it from a blogger. They got there first. This is the future of journalism.

CItizen Journalism, as defined by boitano.net (2007) is the work of a citizen which plays an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information with the intent to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires. Citizen journalism is a grassroots structure, where there is no governing body, people can, and do, write about anything and everything. And what they are writing, people are reading.

Terry Flew gives an example of the impact citizen journalism can have. He gives the point that citizen journalism ‘allows for new ideas and opinions to be expressed within state-controlled media countries’ (2007). This example is broadened by Flew through the mention of Indonesia. Flew (2007) suggests that the internet and in particular citizen journalism, is a forum that has been used by political activists and reformers which has consequently become a vital factor of commentary on elections and political affairs within Indonesia. This has ultimately, allowed for the development of a democratic Indonesia.

Another, less controversial form of citizen journalism is that of mobile phone video recordings. How often are we faced with slightly blurry, slightly inaudible footage that has been filmed on a phone splashed across our television screens? These are the journalists who are there, who are witnessing the events and recording them. These are the journalists.

It seems we are faced with a change. Gone are the days of the gatekeepers, now are the days of the gatewatchers. The citizen journalists.

pro ams

The emergence of new media has blurred the lines between professionals and amateurs. These people have been named, pro ams. They are moving away from the professionals or experts and coming together and editing, changing and ever adding to a collective intelligence.

Axel Bruns (2008) comments on the ever increasing divide between the experts and these new called, pro ams, ‘between two different systems of representing knowledge: one the expert paradigm, which ultimately and ideally aims to develop well-behaved, universally accepted, and internally consistent understandings of the world, and one, the folksonomic paradigm, which allows for multiplicity, conflicts of interpretation, and the existence of a number of alternative representations of extant knowledge…’

As people are adjusting to the new media technologies, pro ams are taking over, just like Charles Leadbeater stated, ‘from astronomy to computing, networks of amateurs are displacing the pros and spawning some of the greatest innovations’. 

It seems that the ‘professional amatuers’ have been pushing and developing their networks and communities, forever editing and harnessing their collective intelligence to help redefine and shape society over the next years. Again, Leadbeater comments on this shift, ‘passionate amateurs, empowered by technology and linked to one another, are reshaping business, politics, science, and culture’.. 

Pin pointing the idea of pro ams comes the quote, ‘ knowledge is wide spread, not controlled in  a few ivory towers’. It is evident that the vessel that will shift us forward into the next century is this combination of the professional with the amatuers.

Usage to Produsage

In the beginning, there was a hierarchy: Producers > Distributers > Consumers.

The role of the consumer was to have needs, the role of the producer was to satisfy these needs and the role of the distributer was, to in fact (surprisingly) distribute the product. The consumers were not active in the product and service development. This is supported by the statement from the Ford Motor Company, “you can have any colour you like as long as it is black.”

Gradually, however, this hierarchy adjusted when the producers, under strain from the fiercly competitative market, looked into developing their products to match the needs and wants of the consumers.

With the introduction of Web 2.0 taking off all over the world, a new system has been developed. Producer <> Consumer. Hence the prosumer has been born.

Bruns (2007) notes that society has pushed to becoming the prosumers of democracy. It has become evident to him that producers no longer only distribute knowledge and information to consumers but rather, consumers have become much more actively involved in shaping their own media and network usage. Therefore this has brought forward the emergence of information from both professionals and non-professionals or ‘experts’ and ‘folks’ to contribute and add their knowledge, views and opinions. 

Now it seems, everyone is operating on a neutral playing field. It is the non-hierarchical, many-to-many media: in intecreative environments, user collaborative (often in large communities) on the development and extension of shared information resources of common interest, rather than merely interacting with the material already available; they are taking into their own hands the tools to create content. Flew (2008) decribes the process ‘where users engage and participate, often simultaneously or interchangeably, as both a consumer and a producer of information and news’. As a result, such users are engaged in the development of a more participatory culture. And now, consumers are no longer just that, but active participants in the creation and development as well as the usage of the product (Bruns. 2007).

The importance of the prosumer concept was emphasized in 2006 when reinforcing the significance of user-led content and the role that produsage plays in society, TIME magazine awarded its ‘Person of the Year’ to ‘You’. For the reason of each person’s collective contribution to the Web 2.0 (Flew 2008).

We are at an interesting phase of development in this century, it is clever and dynamic and hopefully, will ultimately bring out the most everyone can have to offer, harnessing the collective intelligence.

she said hello world

First blog: first post: hello to the blogging world.

I am a student at QUT, studying media and communication  (and law but that doesn’t have much to do with this assignment) and therefore doing the subject ‘New Media: Information and Knowledge’ (KCB201).

To get my degree, I have to pass this subject. To pass this subject I have to complete, and pass, the assigments. Assignment 1 – done and dusted. Assigment 2 – under development.

For assignment 2, I have to start a blog and every week, for five weeks, insert an entry that is relevant to the readings that we have been assigned.

Week 1: From Production to Produsage.

Week 2: Citizen Journalism and Location-based Media.

Week 3: Wikipedia and Consensus.

Week 4: Experts and Amatuers.

Week 5: DIY Culture and Design.

Can’t wait.