The Prosumer
The Tutorial
During the process of our manifesto, the group decided to look at the role of the prosumer. This where the consumer also plays the producer by producing content that can be absorbed by everyone. Technologies have allowed the consumer not only to consumer, but also produce content such as video, short film etc. They’ve allowed us to produce amateur content that can easily be recognised and recieve recognition for. Anyone can easily pick up a mobile phone, start recording, publish online and watch the poularity grow. At the end of the day, the prosumer is responsible for the content they show and create.
Our group had a tutorial on this and we all decided that the idea would be to make a video that mocks the traditional youtube video. At first i found it quite hard to understand this i didn’t know how you could mock a video that was already bad. The overall ideas we came up with for the video was to:
So websites such as Youtube, Myspace, Vimeo, Photobucket and Tumblr are all examples of social/video networking websites that show examples of prosumers. Videos and images are posted on these websites, thereby getting x amount of hits. Some videos on youtube have recieved such high recognition that they’ve lead to music artists, jobs for well known companies and been invited to television shows to talk about thier video. Youtube is a site for amateur videos in all categories. Sites like Vimeo and Photobucket are more for educational purposes.
• have poor content to represent the amateur look • use equipment which will result in poorer quality • have poor audio, imagery and use bad transitions During the process of making we found it quite difficult to complete the idea because of the time we had left. So in the end we decided to produce a statement expressing what our manifesto was and what we were talking about.
Prosuming has it pros and cons. A pro is that content which people produce onto these website can be off help. Videos such as “tutorials” and “how to’s” are helpful when wanting to fix something, put something together or to simply learn a new skill. There are many videos that benefit us because there easily accessible and most important it’s fast. It also benefits anyone wanting to pursue a career in film making for example. The populairty of the sites allows their videos to be easily approached. Another pro is the accessibility for educational purposes. The cons of prosuming are when videos, imagery or any type of content is shown for entertainment or any form of way that isn’t beneficial for us. There can also be videos that can be damaging to us and affect us in personal terms.
This is a screen grab of our final manifesto. A member of our group is expressing our manifesto and what our thoughts are on the consumer and prosumer. We made the video to look professional, so it wouldn’t be a typical youtube video.The idea we originally had was good but i felt we would drift away from what we were trying to get across. Although this isn’t the best idea, it shows clearly our outlines. The video is up on youtube and can be available for people to sign.
Interview Questions These are the questions i asked when conducting interview. All the members in the group had roughly similar questions. When doing mine i done them a bit more different. I didn’t want the whole of my questions to based on the prosumer role, i also wanted to ask basic questions in consumerism.
For the group interviews, the question given focussed more on the prosumer rather than the consumer. The answers we got back were similar in the way they produced and consumed information. Everyone produced for educational purposes and consumed in informative information rather than for entertainment purposes.
Questions
Questions
1) What is your definition of a consumer? 2) What type of things do you consume in and why? 3) Why do you feel there is a need to consume? 4) What is your view/opinion on the prosumer? 5) How do you think consumerism or the consumer affects digital culture?
1) Do you know what a prosumer is? 2) Do you use services such as Youtube, devianART or Vimeo. If so, why?
These were the questions i asked. I didn’t want to turn away from the consumer role which is what we were given at first. The answers varied when i asked my questions. Most were interesting to listen too and gave detailed answers. Before starting some of the interviews i had to go over the questions so my interviewers would roughly know the kind of things to say. Overall by conducting these, i also gained more knowledge of the role on the consumer. By listening to others, it also helps you to understand and think more about what it is your talking about.
3) When looking at youtube videos, do you look at the quality of the video or content? 4) Do you use facebook. If so, why? 5) When consuming information, how would you look at things that are trusted and things that arn’t?