We are all prosumers

Whether we are aware of it or not, we are all prosumers and contribute to this society in one way or another. After reading the very interesting reading for this week by George Ritzer and Nathan Jurgenson, it made me realise how much the world in earlier times and present rely on prosumption and that we are all prosumers.

 The word prosumption according to Ritzer and Jurgenson “involves both production and consumption rather than focusing on either one (production) or the other (consumption) (Ritzer & Jurgenson, 2010).We are all consumers of the internet, we use it within our lives everyday.

But, are we all producers?.

When thinking about this theory I only ever believed I was a consumer of the internet, using it for social, education and business purposes. But then I realised that I am a consumer also, this making me a definite prosumer.

 I have a Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube account and I am constantly uploading information to those social media accounts and ‘producing’ content for my viewers and followers to ‘consume’. 

With the every changing technology which give people different ways to access the internet such as using mobile phones, tablets, laptops and other devices used to connect and communicate through the internet means this is a gateway for anyone to be a prosumer.

“It can be argued that web 2.0 should be seen as crucial in the development of the ‘means of prosumption’; web 2.0 facilitates the implosion of production and consumption” (Boyd, 2008) This can be seen from buying and selling goods on the internet or even just producing and or reading social media.

This YouTube video discusses the idea of how a character named Stan uses the internet to consume and produce movies with the aid of the social media sites YouTube and MySpace to help consumers view his movie he has created. This YouTube video is a prime example how everyday people like you and I are prosumers within society and we are continually using the internet linked with social media to share and create content seen all over the world.

References:

POLS 3040 Concept Paper 1 - Stan Is A Prosumer. YouTube, 2008.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lhr_IjflaVI

Image: http://wikinomics-i101.wikispaces.com/file/view/Prosumer.jpg/33866059/Prosumer.jpg, Google Images.

Boyd, d. (2008b) ‘Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked

Publics in Teenage Social Life’, in D. Buckingham (ed.) Youth, Identity, and Digital

Media, pp. 119–42. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. URL (accessed 28 October 2009)

http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/dmal.9780262524834.119

Ritzer, G & Jurgenson N, ‘Production, Consumption, Prosumption: The nature of capitalism in the age of the digital ‘prosumer’’ Journal of Consumer Culture, 2010, SAGE Publications.