Prosumption as a
whole, has many elements to explain and also question. It is basically
production and consumption intertwined and in todays day and age, it has a lot to
do with user generated content online. The term” prosumer” is linked to Alvin
Toffler (1980) who argued that prosumption was “the first wave” and predominant
in pre-industrial societies. A ‘second wave’ of marketization then came next
which separated these two functions, which allowed for producers and consumers
today. (Ritzer, G & Jurgensen, N, 2010, p 17)
Another view of
Toffler is that contemporary society is moving towards towards a ‘third wave’
that now and diversely signals their reintegration and merging of ‘the rise of the prosumer’ (Toffler, 1980:
265).
Prosumers are also known as “co-creators” (Prahalad and
Ramaswamy 2004) Tapscott and Williams (2006) have noted that prosumers are part
of a new wave of acceleration where businesses put consumers to work. This new
trend is rapidly moving around the world and we see this in everyday life through
the following examples that I do on a weekly basis. Without even realising we
are prosumers.
-
-Getting petrol yourself
at the petrol station
- -
Getting money out at
an ATM
- -
Self Service at Coles
and Safeway
- -
Kmart/Officeworks
printing your own photos
-
-Purchasing movie
tickets online
-
-Online shopping
(Ritzer, G & Jurgensen, N, 2010, p 19)
 |
| Image from The Australian Newspaper, December 23, 2010 |
I decided to talk to my Dad about being a prosumer because
I believe his insight would be somewhat different than mine and it quite
certainly was. My dad is someone who believes the self service is a lazy
invention because people cannot be bothered working at check outs anymore. He
also has an opinion that the self service has caused a job cut at Safeway and
Coles because they don’t need any staff to physically help anyone do it.
These new epidemics or now known as “the norm” have also
been further expressed online. What was once provided to us on Web 1.0 is now
less used because of Web 2.0. I will further explain this.
Web 1.0 (eg: Yahoo
and Google) is provider generated, however today Web 2.0 is used by prosumers.
Web 2.0 has aided in the development of prosumers as it facilitates the
implosion of production and consumption. (Ritzer, G & Jurgensen, N, 2010, p
20)
The following examples are things that I do every day and
produce and consume my own identity.
- -
Facebook, where users
create profiles including photos, videos, texts and interact with others.
- -
Instagram- posting
photos to the public and allowing anyone to use and post my photo.
- -
Ebay- where consumers
create the market and I can buy or sell anything.
 |
| Creative Instagram Photos, Hypenotice, Jan 7, 2013. |
Something that I take pride and joy
in is my Instagram Page. I am constantly posting photos of my newest purchase,
a Saturday night out, food or of course “selfies”. There are always friends of
mine that join the Instagram epidemic daily, purely because they want to see
other people’s photos. I not only follow my friends on instagram, but also
celebrites and clothing/beauty brands. Therefore by using Instagram, I am
producing my own content but I am also using their app and getting them more
active users.
One thing about being a prosumer on instagram
is that my “online identity” means as much to me as my personal identity. I
frequently go through past photos on my instagram and always delete ones that I
look back on and think are “embarrassing”. I currently now have 79 photos as
opposed to my 304 photos. There were so many that I deleted because I didn’t
have enough likes. Am I the only one who is insecure because I didn’t get
enough likes? No. As I scroll through my feed, about 10 out of 50 photos that
were posted 10 minutes ago have been deleted. What does this say about our
society.
REFERENCES:
Ritzer,
George and Jurgenson, Nathan 2010 ‘Production, Consumption, Prosumption: The
nature of capitalism in the age of the digital ‘prosumer’, Journal of Consumer
Culture, vol. 10 no. 1, pp 13-36.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHello Elise,
ReplyDeleteYou gave a very thorough and detailed explanation on prosumption terminology and concepts which was excellent. I like that you included a perspective on prosumer-based technology from your dad, who belongs to a different generation to our tech-age one. While your dad considers it ‘lazy’, a friend (our age) considers self-checkouts as the best thing to happen in supermarkets because it’s more efficient and there’s less social interaction involved. While that sounds majorly anti-social, prosumption is in a sense quite anti-social: you do things on your own for the majority (for example, with online shopping there’s no need to face eager retail assistants and make small chit chat on while you wait for the transaction to go through). Certainly you can ‘interact’ with followers/friends/strangers on the internet, but it’s all virtual communication. Are we talking less or talking more via technology? Overall a very detailed and insightful post on prosumption, particularly your anecdote on Instagram.
Hey Elise,
ReplyDeleteYour post was very detailed and great at explaining prosumer culture.
Firstly, I really like the discussion with your Dad with the idea of self check outs at Supermarkets and Kmart being "lazy" from employees and cutting jobs. This made me think about prosumer culture in terms of getting money out from an ATM vs going to the bank teller, Pouring petrol yourself VS the store clerk, online shopping VS going to the shops.
Secondly, I like the way you discussed Web 2.0 in relation to prosumer culture, especially with the Instagram example about deleting things that don't get enough likes. It's so true that the prosumer culture has been used to help construct out identity, I know I monitor my social media closely.
Thanks Elise look forward to reading more
Hey Elise! You've used some great examples to show the relationship between producing and consuming a good or service. You made it very clear what the 'prosumer' is, and gave a good indication of the change of attitude towards prosumer culture- i.e. mixed feelnigs about using the self serve check outs. All in all a very to-the-point narrative. The use of images was effective.
ReplyDelete