Week 10 - Content Produser

'Produser' is a term coined by Professor Axel Bruns. The term is a combination of the words producer and user which refers to the shift from organisations or professions as producers to the collaborative engagement of online users to create content.


As stated in Brun's website, "Produsers engage not in a traditional form of content production, but are instead involved in produsage - the collaborative and continuous building and extending of existing content in pursuit of further improvement." 1 An example of produsage can be seen on Wikipedia where anyone can produce content, edit, write or rework existing content. Another example of this is a collaborative community such as Second Life where any user can contribute to creating information or content as there are no limitations between the produsers or the users that observe/use this content. The world is interconnected to the internet nowadays. Whether we realise it or not we are producing and consuming content constantly. The lines between a consumer and a content produser have blurred with the popularity of virtual worlds or websites such as the previously mentioned Wikipedia or YouTube.

An image that shows the link between users and producers. [ Image Source - www.produsage.org]

I am a content produser myself. I made and manage this blog to catalog and reflect on the topics that we cover in class and to share my opinion on it. Each week, I learn something new and get to research topics that I never got the chance to learn about before. In addition to this I'm also in the process of making a presentation with the rest of the Red team. We came together to come up with ideas within Second Life in order and create a cohesive body of work. We constantly had discussions on what topics and photos to include in our slideshow. Communication is essential to create a successful presentation. 

I researched my particular topics about fast fashion by reading articles and reports made by the UN in order to get credible information. Upon doing this I realised that there was a plentiful amount of information available about harmful emissions in fast fashion and the alternative fuels that could be used to transport these garments. I was originally also going to cover waste in the medical field such as one use masks or robes, but while researching I realised that this doesn't fall into 'fast fashion'. Because of this, I dropped that topic and expanded on my other ones instead. It's interesting to realise that while I'm not a professional writer or researcher by any means, I am content produser both within and outside of this module without even realising. 

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1 Bruns, A., Produsage: A Working Definition, 31 December 2007, http://produsage.org/produsage

Week 8 - An Update on the Team Project II

Progress on the team project has been going well so far. A day after we discussed our ideas in the previous update post, I asked Rachel and Chenming for their email accounts so that I could add them to a shared Google Slides presentation. I did this because I wanted a convenient way that we could all work together on the slideshow at our own pace and also because of the feature to be able to see what work and edits we've made. It's very convenient in comparison to the alternatives such as working separately and compiling our work together at the end because, with an approach like that, there is always a worry that there might be overlapping information or contrasting tone of voice.


There have been some struggles such as debates about changing the topic enterally into something more general. There was also some worry that another team might be doing a project on fast fashion, but we eventually agreed that even if that were the case we'd probably end up covering different topics such as waste in the medical field. Previously, Rachel created a useful layout for the presentation based on the ideas we discussed. Out of the 12 slides we each chose to do 4 each so that we have an equal amount of work to do. Rachel chose to do the introduction, materials, production of products and the way that companies transport the goods. I chose to fast fashion today particularly with regards to the medical field, damage caused by emissions, the quality and sustainably of goods and alternative ways of transport. Chenming will be covering textile recycling, how employers can reduce the harmful effects of the industry, ways to reduce waste and ways to not overproduce.


I chose my slides because I felt that those were the most interesting topics to me and I think that these topics tend to be overlooked. Fast fashion is often known for its terrible working conditions, which is important to acknowledge and talk about, but there are other negative that it causes to the environment. Team dynamics are playing out quite well as we meet up on Second Life and talk fairly often, always starting with some casual small talk. I'd say that my role in the team is still being a plant as mentioned in the last post and perhaps an implementer. I prefer to work behind the scenes by coming up with ideas and doing the work behind the scenes. I'm fairly efficient when it comes to working with the technicals. I think that so far things have been playing out well. We have a good variety of topics and a plan moving forward, I can confident that we'll make a good presentation.