The impact of produsage on brands

The purpose of this blog is to explore the produsage concept and how it has caused a shift in the way we interact with new media technologies. I would like to explore how the gradual shift to produsage production methods have affected products and brands.

Axel Bruns (2008) defines produsage as “the collaborative and continuous building and extending of existing content in pursuit of further improvement.” Bruns believes that, with regard to new media production, the concepts of producers and consumers are no longer separate entities. He implies usage is also productive, resulting in the term ‘produsage.’ The gradual shift from the producer/consumer paradigm to this new produsage phenomenon has important implications for business and creative industries. 

There are four core principles of produsage. These include:

• Open Participation, Communal Evaluation: inclusivity principle values equal opportunity to contribute to a source of collective knowledge;
• Fluid Heterarchy, Ad Hoc Meritocracy: promotes produsers contributing, using their unique knowledge and skills and allowing the level of involvement to change as the project changes;
• Unfinished Artefacts, Continuing Process: produsage projects are always evolving and are therefore, unfinished;
• Common Property, Individual Rewards: contributors’ gain recognition through social capital, and work contributed can be used for the benefit of the community (non-commerical). (Bruns 2008).

These principles apply to a variety of produsage contexts across a range of different online communities, from citizen journalism and social activism to the open source encyclopia, Wikipedia. Some of these issues will be explored in more depth in later blogs.

Although the shift to a produsage way of developing content has been gradual – it has also been profound, affecting the way we use and interact with artefacts and brands. For example, in an interview with the ABC, Axle Bruns (2008) talks about how the commercial viability of Lonely Planet has been compromised by the “rise of user-generated travel advisory websites.” Travellers are finding new ways to share and obtain information online, through “informal networks.” The power of produsage has caused Lonely Planet to “reorganise itself around improved collaborative online environments” (Bruns 2008).

Another example is the rise of Wikipedia, which has changed the way we have traditionally looked at and interacted with encyclopedias. In true produsage fashion, anyone can contribute to Wikipedia, whether the contribution is large or as small as correcting spelling – and its content is constantly evolving. A similar comparison is the Google Maps tool, as its satellite images threaten the viability of traditional maps and atlases (Bruns 2008).

Produsage has effectively revoluntionised the way we live our lives through the internet. Formerly, we had chat rooms; now, we have a plethora of social networking sites, blogs, games, fandom sites and other virtual communities. It is interesting to explore the fact that our acts of produsage include simply updating our profile status, which in turn may attract comments and stimulate further discussion.