User:Lavoile/sandbox

Produsage is a portmanteau of the words "production" and "usage" popularized by Australian media scholar Axel Bruns in the book "Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life and Beyond: From Production to Produsage. Produsage refers to the type of user-led content creation that takes place in a variety of online environments such as Wikipedia, open source software, and the blogosphere. The concept blurs the boundaries between passive consumption and active production and the distinction between producers and consumers or users of  content has faded, as users also play the role of producers whether they are aware of this role or not.  The hybrid term produser refers to an individual who is engaged in the activity of produsage.

Primary Characteristics of produsage
Bruns lists four main characteristics of produsage as 1) open participation and communal evaluation; 2) fluid heterarchy through ad hoc meritocracies; 3) palimsestic unfinished artifacts in a continuing process and 4) common property and individual rewards.

Open participation
A key characteristic of produsers is that they collaborate to create content rather than working as individuals. The creation of a content is frequently done by a number of different users rather than one single author. The existing materials are then open to evaluation and further development by other members of the community. The produsage environment often encourages collaborative engagement by having preconfigured tools or architectural structures that enables a open discussion about the material. An example of this discussion feature is the Wikipedia Talk page in every article which facilitates an open discussion between the users in evaluating the quality of work created by the previous users.

Fluid heterarchy
Another characteristic of a produsage environment is that there is often no clear hierarchy or centralized leadership in place. In order for produsage sites to function, they need to attract a large number of participants thus arise the need for balancing between open participation of the users and sense of cohesion without being oversight by other individuals. Bruns identifies the balance of governance in produsage sites as fluid heterarchies organized through ad hoc meritocracies. This means that governance is not formalized but based on an ad hoc principle of a heterarchical regime. For example, administrators can be chosen at random or chosen based on seniority in terms of the amount and quality of their existing contributions. An 'ad hoc' or temporary 'benevolent dictator' may also arise from the community with limited power through a voting system.

Community leaders or administrators are thus chosen based on merits and only tentative. Their leadership is only recognized as long as they respect the heterarchical power structure of the produsage model.

Palimpsestic unfinished artifacts
In relations to open participation and communal evaluation is that a produsage content is often unfinished and in a continuous process of development. Since virtually all users can contribute to an existing content, there is always motivation to further improve upon it. Bruns identifies this characteristics as a stigmergic collaboration, with the example of a Wikipedia article being likened to a 'mark' or a palimpsest: a repeatedly over-written, multi-layered piece of document. Any user can have access to palimpsest and add on their contribution to the original mark. Most often, the produsage sites would offer the architectural tools to record the history of development of the materials, thus users are able to trace back the evaluation of materials through its various stages. An example is the produsage site ccMixter, a community music site using open source multimedia management system to allow users to create music remixes. The site allows the tools for retracing the music track back to its original form.

Common property, individual rewards
Bruns argues that with the creation of collaborative contents, strict enforcement of conventional intellectual property rights is likely to stifle the palimsestic collaboration of users to work on the materials of their predecessors. On the other hand, completely discharging all materials created in the public domain would be refusing the produsers the acknowledgement and recognition of their work. Thus an alternative to imposing intellectual property recognition is needed for a produsage site to function. Bruns states that a produsage content is treated as common property and that each constructive contributor will be able to receive individual reward from their collaboration.

Motivation for contributions, however, is not always determined by legal ownership of the contents but in other aspects, such as the sense of communal participation. Bruins identifies an informal, individual merit system for rewards in Wikipedia of experiencing a sense of seniority for the amount and quality of contributions.

Examples of Produsage

 * Wikipedia was used by Bruns as a primary example for qualifying important characteristics of a produsage model.
 * Open source software with its source code made available for which the copyright holder provides the rights to change the software to anyone and for any purpose.
 * ccMixter, a community music sites that allows collaborative music remixing
 * Citizen journalism websites such as Slashdot and Indymedia

Criticism of produsage
This section will add some scholars' critiques and perspectives on produsage. Some works by Michel Bauwens, S. E. Bird, Addy Ruddock and so on will be referenced.