Prosumer is a blend of two words and their meaning the words are either producer or professional and consumer. The term prosumer has taken different conflicting meanings depending on the context of the use. It has been defined differently in business context and economics context. In business sector, prosumer coined from professional-consumer is seen as a market segment. The economics view the producer-consumer as possessing greater independence from the conventional economy. It can also be argued as opposite to the consumer having an inactive role of consuming only, indicating an active role as the person is actively involved in the process. In the media context it can be argued from the point that the audience no longer taking the passive role of viewing or listening only, to participating in the production of what they listen to or view (Baker Bass 2003).The paper investigates the concept of producer-consumer or the concept of prosumption and its relation to media and how its effect on cultural identity.
Concept of prosumption
Prosumption means getting the consumer to work on the job, that is, being part of the production process, and generating goods and services for ones own utilization. There is a range of activities in prosumption from production to consumer. Towards the end of the consumption, there is an only dormant action among the consumers beyond this, consumers are more directly concerned with service relationships near the end of production the role of the consumer begin to merge with that of the producer. In prosumption there is the ladder of consumer involvement from inactivity to observer to membership, gathering activities, critical activity and the real service creation. Prosumption takes place if a product or service can only work where the consumer put a substantial contribution. In prosumption there is active user participation.
The concept deals with the emergence of a new society, the prosumer society where the user produces at least part of what heshe consumes. The concept cannot be said to be a very new concept but one that has been developing for a long time with industrialization and development in technology. For example in farming, those who were and still are producers were also the consumers of whatever they produced. Underlying the concept of prosumption is production for use and production for sale (Czerniawska Potter 1998).
Toffler argues that prosumption occurs in all of the waves that describe economic and social development all through history. In the initial wave, the one Toffler traces to ancient times, the majority of people in the community were prosumers by need and on a primitive technology basis. Only a very few of the community members sold their extra output for products generated by others. In this wave there was some degree of prosumption in that the consumers produced their own food. In the wave that followed, immediately after industrial revolution, members of the community except housewives generated products for commercial purposes to exchange with items generated by others. In the third wave, post industrial revolution, many of the community members moved much of their time from labor and customary business exchanges to prosumption actions. In short, prosumption has gone though phases and has been brought back forth by the utilization of high technology (Ensign 2007).
It was suggested by two authors, Marshall McLuhan and Barrington Nevitt in a book, Take Today published in 1972 that with the development in electric technology, the consumer would be transformed to a producer. The term prosumer was formed by a futurologist, Alvin Toffler in his book, The Third Wave published in 1980. Toffler suggested that the roles of consumers and producers would start to blur and merge. He envisaged an extremely inundated market place as vast production of consistent goods began to satisfy fundamental consumer needs. However in his theory, in order to achieve a high level of standardization on the products, consumers would have to participate in the process of production more specially in identifying the design required. He suggested a situation where consumers are not inactive (Ekstrm Brembeck 2004).
The term was elaborated by Don Tapscott in his book, The Digital Economy, published in 1995. He called the concept prosumption. The Cluetrain Manifesto presented markets as conversations where the new economy is coming from inactive consumers to dynamic prosumers. For example, Amazon.com came in as an ecommerce head. This was partially because customers were able to generate relations as conversations instead of the traditional one-time sales. It supports user participation, exchange of information among consumers and gives space for consumers to add information to the website as reviews (Baker Bass 2003).
Realizing that customers are actively participating in the production process establishing values and profits for their use, is in line with the concept of prosumption. It is also in line with the concept of the consumer being actively involved in the production process. Prosumption entails that consumers generate goods and services for their own current of later consumption. Most products need the participation of consumers to generate value. Prosumption does not deal with profession choices, but with how users operate as consumers in their daily lives. To an author for example, coming up with a book does not importantly contend with purchasing or using the book. Use and purchasing are in general reliant on and an essential part of prosumption and imminent into the causes and logic of prosumption should render the precursors of purchasing more understandable (Ekstrm Brembeck 2004).
Prosumption is in phases and not a single action and comprises of an amalgamation of physical actions, mental power, and socio-psychological actions. The consumers actively contribute to the process by inputting finances, energy, time and experience. The physical effort required comprise of manufacturing-like processes like acquiring, sorting, moving, merging and altering inputs. The mental activities involved comprise of activities like development, appraising, supervising, managing and regulating progress. The socio-psychological experiences happen in variety features of the process and its outcomes and their effects on the prosumer and others. Therefore prosumption can be defined as activities that establish value done by the consumer whose outcome is the development of products that the consumer eventually use and that come to be their consumption occurrence. This definition goes consistently with the idea of value co-creation which possesses dual components. The first component is the value-in-use that suggests that the creation of the value can only be possible with the user involvement and can also be determined by the consumer in the consumption process and through utilization. The other component is what is known as co-production which involves the contribution of the consumer in the production process. This can happen through communal inventiveness, co-design, or communal production of related products. It can happen with customers and any other member in the value creation network (Ensign 2007).
Prosumption changes the perspective of being creative and innovative and how the two are currently understood. The idea has created the need for creativity and innovativeness on the part of the consumer. In the past, the consumer had no need to be either creative or innovative because the producer did the work of producing while the consumer only waited for the end results. Even where the consumer participated in value creation in actions like specifying the design, it cannot be compared with the current concept of prosumption. In prosumption, creativity goes far past innovativeness and needs a more detailed comprehension of creative intelligence. The passive consumers differ from the prosumer in habitual behavior. The habitual behavior of the passive consumer deals with stability over time of the market place and the products to be purchased. In prosumption, there is creativity and production of products that are better quality and are tailored to the consumer needs (Ritzer 2005).
Prosumption in media
In media active audience participation is very crucial. When what is provided to the audience is tailored to what they really need, there is no doubt that they will participate. There is no better way of ensuring audience active participation in media than applying the concept of prosumption. This is the reason why interactive media has become preferable to the audience over others especially the print media. Prosumption is threatening the market of the conventional or print media. Prosumption has created the concept of capitalism providing a ground for competition between different media. Advancing technology particularly in computers and telecommunication has made more and more people to become prosumers (Morley 1992).
Prosumer brings about the appearance of an emancipatory collectivity in media production. The trend in prosumption has been manifested in the entertainment industry. The concept exists in media especially the television. It is argued that it is part of a major fundamental role reversal, a reordering of the centuries old relationship between whos on stage and whos watching, a devaluing of professionalism and a new premium of amateurism. Theres been a kind of perverse democratization of mass media (Ritzer 2008, p. 11).
There is the recent development of television shows, that is, the reality shows, where the people on the audience become performers, and they still are in a position to watch as they perform. It is much easier and cheaper in the current age to get formats that allow audience to be performers, than it is in getting creative people required for successful dramatic or comedic television series. Reality television shows that have led to more audience activity have realized lower cost of production and higher profits for the media. They have also enabled the television industry to thrive and compete with the threatening cable television and the internet. Reality television has increased in popularity taking the place of dramatic and comedic series. While famous actors and actresses require a lot of financing in terms of salaries, reality show performers, perform for very little or nothing (Morley 1992).
The idea of prosumption has greatly been made more popular with the development of the internet media. The concept of prosumption in the internet is seen in what has come to be popularly known as Web 2.0 generated by the consumer. Web 2.0 contrasts with Web 1.0 for example AOL.Yahoo, which was provider-generated other than consumer-generated. Web 2.0 is defined by the capability of consumers to generate content in collaboration whereas most of what is accessed in Web 1.0 is generated by the internet service provider it is the advent of Web 2.0 that has seen rapid explosion in prosumption. It is suggested that Web 2.0 should be significant in the establishment of the means of prosumption. Web 2.0 has facilitated the explosion of production and consumption (Ritzer 2008).
The internet has been described as a self-service technology, especially the use of web for example Wikipedia and Facebook. There is a convergence taking place between production and consumption, producer and consumer, and also between author and audience, amateur and expert etc. In the internet, the producer of whatever is accessible on the website is simultaneously the consumer of what is available and there is hence a close relationship between productionconsumption as well as producerconsumer (Ritzer 2008).
Much of what happens in the internet can be viewed as the latest developments in the continuing trend of prosumption. They include the very people who create texts on the internet who are the very people who view, edit, revise and comment on them it is the audience who come up with the videos, text and interactivity on You Tube, My space and Facebook the very people who generate blogs, whether weblogs or personal blogs and comment on them are the ones who consume them it is the consumers and not retailers who establish the market for eBay, craigslist, etc. it is the consumers who uploads and later download photos on flickr it is the users who order products from sites like Amazon.com and also add things like the reviews that appear there and it is the viewers of internet maps who create them on what is known as GeoWEb. This is made possible because Microsoft, Yahoo and Google have come up with tools that are accessible to and can be utilized by the people with little or no technical experience (Ritzer 2005).
While prosumption in media is advantageous to the media owners, it can be viewed as capitalism. Media owners are exploiting the opportunity presented by consumers as producers to spend less while making more profits. Prosumption can be looked at as means of transforming consumers and their labor time into some sort of means of production. However there are cases where the consumer becomes a prosumer out of own free will. Most of the internet prosumers are not forced to be producers as well as consumers. Choosing to be on Facebook, playing Second Life, MySpace, or posting a flickr or something to Wikipedia is usually out of free will and the need to benefit. Prosumption is not forcing people to make the choices although the providers may be bent on earning a profit from the media. Many people seem to enjoy being prosumers. Having a choice on what one can have or consume is very enjoyable (Morley 1992).
Cultural identity defines social construction through difference and exclusion in communications, practices and positions. All identities whether based on class, culture, religion or nation, are always constructed in language. Identity is developed through social interaction and communication. Prosumption concept in media like the internet and television has allowed unlimited communication and social interaction. They have allowed construction of identity and cultural competence. Prosumption is rapidly becoming one of the most powerful engines in media that is changing cultural and social behavior. Being successful prosumers in media field is creating self-actualization. Prosumption is also emerging in media as a society with different cultural and social practices. It is transforming the traditional community into an online society with different behaviors, beliefs and norms (Ritzer 2005).
Prosumption will continue to rise as a result of such factors like improvement and establishment of new technologies that allow people to contribute in the design of standardized products, increase in structural unemployment, rise in cost of labor, the yearning for better quality products and services, and the general rise in education which motivates the desire for self-actualization. The concept of prosumption has brought in competition in the market place. Different people, products and companies are striving to get a way of outdoing their competitors in order to stay at the top. Co-creating with consumers is like assembling in a pool the most unique intellectual capital. With the advantages that are accrued to prosumption, there is the possibility of it rising and adapted to all aspects of the economy.
Concept of prosumption
Prosumption means getting the consumer to work on the job, that is, being part of the production process, and generating goods and services for ones own utilization. There is a range of activities in prosumption from production to consumer. Towards the end of the consumption, there is an only dormant action among the consumers beyond this, consumers are more directly concerned with service relationships near the end of production the role of the consumer begin to merge with that of the producer. In prosumption there is the ladder of consumer involvement from inactivity to observer to membership, gathering activities, critical activity and the real service creation. Prosumption takes place if a product or service can only work where the consumer put a substantial contribution. In prosumption there is active user participation.
The concept deals with the emergence of a new society, the prosumer society where the user produces at least part of what heshe consumes. The concept cannot be said to be a very new concept but one that has been developing for a long time with industrialization and development in technology. For example in farming, those who were and still are producers were also the consumers of whatever they produced. Underlying the concept of prosumption is production for use and production for sale (Czerniawska Potter 1998).
Toffler argues that prosumption occurs in all of the waves that describe economic and social development all through history. In the initial wave, the one Toffler traces to ancient times, the majority of people in the community were prosumers by need and on a primitive technology basis. Only a very few of the community members sold their extra output for products generated by others. In this wave there was some degree of prosumption in that the consumers produced their own food. In the wave that followed, immediately after industrial revolution, members of the community except housewives generated products for commercial purposes to exchange with items generated by others. In the third wave, post industrial revolution, many of the community members moved much of their time from labor and customary business exchanges to prosumption actions. In short, prosumption has gone though phases and has been brought back forth by the utilization of high technology (Ensign 2007).
It was suggested by two authors, Marshall McLuhan and Barrington Nevitt in a book, Take Today published in 1972 that with the development in electric technology, the consumer would be transformed to a producer. The term prosumer was formed by a futurologist, Alvin Toffler in his book, The Third Wave published in 1980. Toffler suggested that the roles of consumers and producers would start to blur and merge. He envisaged an extremely inundated market place as vast production of consistent goods began to satisfy fundamental consumer needs. However in his theory, in order to achieve a high level of standardization on the products, consumers would have to participate in the process of production more specially in identifying the design required. He suggested a situation where consumers are not inactive (Ekstrm Brembeck 2004).
The term was elaborated by Don Tapscott in his book, The Digital Economy, published in 1995. He called the concept prosumption. The Cluetrain Manifesto presented markets as conversations where the new economy is coming from inactive consumers to dynamic prosumers. For example, Amazon.com came in as an ecommerce head. This was partially because customers were able to generate relations as conversations instead of the traditional one-time sales. It supports user participation, exchange of information among consumers and gives space for consumers to add information to the website as reviews (Baker Bass 2003).
Realizing that customers are actively participating in the production process establishing values and profits for their use, is in line with the concept of prosumption. It is also in line with the concept of the consumer being actively involved in the production process. Prosumption entails that consumers generate goods and services for their own current of later consumption. Most products need the participation of consumers to generate value. Prosumption does not deal with profession choices, but with how users operate as consumers in their daily lives. To an author for example, coming up with a book does not importantly contend with purchasing or using the book. Use and purchasing are in general reliant on and an essential part of prosumption and imminent into the causes and logic of prosumption should render the precursors of purchasing more understandable (Ekstrm Brembeck 2004).
Prosumption is in phases and not a single action and comprises of an amalgamation of physical actions, mental power, and socio-psychological actions. The consumers actively contribute to the process by inputting finances, energy, time and experience. The physical effort required comprise of manufacturing-like processes like acquiring, sorting, moving, merging and altering inputs. The mental activities involved comprise of activities like development, appraising, supervising, managing and regulating progress. The socio-psychological experiences happen in variety features of the process and its outcomes and their effects on the prosumer and others. Therefore prosumption can be defined as activities that establish value done by the consumer whose outcome is the development of products that the consumer eventually use and that come to be their consumption occurrence. This definition goes consistently with the idea of value co-creation which possesses dual components. The first component is the value-in-use that suggests that the creation of the value can only be possible with the user involvement and can also be determined by the consumer in the consumption process and through utilization. The other component is what is known as co-production which involves the contribution of the consumer in the production process. This can happen through communal inventiveness, co-design, or communal production of related products. It can happen with customers and any other member in the value creation network (Ensign 2007).
Prosumption changes the perspective of being creative and innovative and how the two are currently understood. The idea has created the need for creativity and innovativeness on the part of the consumer. In the past, the consumer had no need to be either creative or innovative because the producer did the work of producing while the consumer only waited for the end results. Even where the consumer participated in value creation in actions like specifying the design, it cannot be compared with the current concept of prosumption. In prosumption, creativity goes far past innovativeness and needs a more detailed comprehension of creative intelligence. The passive consumers differ from the prosumer in habitual behavior. The habitual behavior of the passive consumer deals with stability over time of the market place and the products to be purchased. In prosumption, there is creativity and production of products that are better quality and are tailored to the consumer needs (Ritzer 2005).
Prosumption in media
In media active audience participation is very crucial. When what is provided to the audience is tailored to what they really need, there is no doubt that they will participate. There is no better way of ensuring audience active participation in media than applying the concept of prosumption. This is the reason why interactive media has become preferable to the audience over others especially the print media. Prosumption is threatening the market of the conventional or print media. Prosumption has created the concept of capitalism providing a ground for competition between different media. Advancing technology particularly in computers and telecommunication has made more and more people to become prosumers (Morley 1992).
Prosumer brings about the appearance of an emancipatory collectivity in media production. The trend in prosumption has been manifested in the entertainment industry. The concept exists in media especially the television. It is argued that it is part of a major fundamental role reversal, a reordering of the centuries old relationship between whos on stage and whos watching, a devaluing of professionalism and a new premium of amateurism. Theres been a kind of perverse democratization of mass media (Ritzer 2008, p. 11).
There is the recent development of television shows, that is, the reality shows, where the people on the audience become performers, and they still are in a position to watch as they perform. It is much easier and cheaper in the current age to get formats that allow audience to be performers, than it is in getting creative people required for successful dramatic or comedic television series. Reality television shows that have led to more audience activity have realized lower cost of production and higher profits for the media. They have also enabled the television industry to thrive and compete with the threatening cable television and the internet. Reality television has increased in popularity taking the place of dramatic and comedic series. While famous actors and actresses require a lot of financing in terms of salaries, reality show performers, perform for very little or nothing (Morley 1992).
The idea of prosumption has greatly been made more popular with the development of the internet media. The concept of prosumption in the internet is seen in what has come to be popularly known as Web 2.0 generated by the consumer. Web 2.0 contrasts with Web 1.0 for example AOL.Yahoo, which was provider-generated other than consumer-generated. Web 2.0 is defined by the capability of consumers to generate content in collaboration whereas most of what is accessed in Web 1.0 is generated by the internet service provider it is the advent of Web 2.0 that has seen rapid explosion in prosumption. It is suggested that Web 2.0 should be significant in the establishment of the means of prosumption. Web 2.0 has facilitated the explosion of production and consumption (Ritzer 2008).
The internet has been described as a self-service technology, especially the use of web for example Wikipedia and Facebook. There is a convergence taking place between production and consumption, producer and consumer, and also between author and audience, amateur and expert etc. In the internet, the producer of whatever is accessible on the website is simultaneously the consumer of what is available and there is hence a close relationship between productionconsumption as well as producerconsumer (Ritzer 2008).
Much of what happens in the internet can be viewed as the latest developments in the continuing trend of prosumption. They include the very people who create texts on the internet who are the very people who view, edit, revise and comment on them it is the audience who come up with the videos, text and interactivity on You Tube, My space and Facebook the very people who generate blogs, whether weblogs or personal blogs and comment on them are the ones who consume them it is the consumers and not retailers who establish the market for eBay, craigslist, etc. it is the consumers who uploads and later download photos on flickr it is the users who order products from sites like Amazon.com and also add things like the reviews that appear there and it is the viewers of internet maps who create them on what is known as GeoWEb. This is made possible because Microsoft, Yahoo and Google have come up with tools that are accessible to and can be utilized by the people with little or no technical experience (Ritzer 2005).
While prosumption in media is advantageous to the media owners, it can be viewed as capitalism. Media owners are exploiting the opportunity presented by consumers as producers to spend less while making more profits. Prosumption can be looked at as means of transforming consumers and their labor time into some sort of means of production. However there are cases where the consumer becomes a prosumer out of own free will. Most of the internet prosumers are not forced to be producers as well as consumers. Choosing to be on Facebook, playing Second Life, MySpace, or posting a flickr or something to Wikipedia is usually out of free will and the need to benefit. Prosumption is not forcing people to make the choices although the providers may be bent on earning a profit from the media. Many people seem to enjoy being prosumers. Having a choice on what one can have or consume is very enjoyable (Morley 1992).
Cultural identity defines social construction through difference and exclusion in communications, practices and positions. All identities whether based on class, culture, religion or nation, are always constructed in language. Identity is developed through social interaction and communication. Prosumption concept in media like the internet and television has allowed unlimited communication and social interaction. They have allowed construction of identity and cultural competence. Prosumption is rapidly becoming one of the most powerful engines in media that is changing cultural and social behavior. Being successful prosumers in media field is creating self-actualization. Prosumption is also emerging in media as a society with different cultural and social practices. It is transforming the traditional community into an online society with different behaviors, beliefs and norms (Ritzer 2005).
Prosumption will continue to rise as a result of such factors like improvement and establishment of new technologies that allow people to contribute in the design of standardized products, increase in structural unemployment, rise in cost of labor, the yearning for better quality products and services, and the general rise in education which motivates the desire for self-actualization. The concept of prosumption has brought in competition in the market place. Different people, products and companies are striving to get a way of outdoing their competitors in order to stay at the top. Co-creating with consumers is like assembling in a pool the most unique intellectual capital. With the advantages that are accrued to prosumption, there is the possibility of it rising and adapted to all aspects of the economy.
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