So what is produsage you ask? In his own paper 'Produsage: A Working Definition' Bruns explains produsage as "the collaborative and continuous building and extending of existing content in pursuit of further improvement."
As one of Axel's students, my understanding is that he invented the term 'produsage' to explain the way in which the internet has opened up opportunities for everyday people to become producers as well as users. No longer is society divided into those who produce (an end product) and those who consume. The internet and Web 2.0 have transformed society from being a property and material "things" based ecomomy (brought about by the Industrial Revolution) into an information and knowledge based economy. This has enabled a participatory environment where the product is neither tangible nor complete. Information and knowledge are shared, changed, edited, adapted, recycled and re-used on an even platform. While this is the essence of the term produsage, it becomes more complex when discussing its relationship to many other internet based terms.
The word produsage can be a little ambiguous in some situations, for example Ebay and Amazon.com - you can participate by buying and selling, but are you really "produsing" in the proper sense of the word. Well let's take a look at the pre-requisites for being an environment of produsage:
As Axel explains in much of his work, there are 4 key principles or "pre-conditions" neccessary to qualify a technosocial environment as produsage. These are:
- Open participation and communal evaluation
- Fluid heterachey and Ad Hoc Meritocracy
- Unfinished artifacts in a continuing process
- Common property with individual rewards
Axel is "the" expert on produsage. After all, he did invent the term and he has written many articles on the topic. So if you are really into virtual cultures/social networking/Web 2.0 and want to know more, be sure to check out his blog, his website produsage.org and his new book!
