The
idea of prosumption has been
around for many years yet it is a concept that isn't widely recognised or known
about. For over 200 years since the industrial revolution that has seen the
world change forever the centre of the capitalist world has been the factories,
the production of goods. ( Ritzer, 2010) But
a dramatic change at the close of the Second World War, consumers in the US
wanted goods, such as refrigerate, the consumer was slowly making its way as
the main form of capitalism as factories started to decline in the US. ( Ritzer, 2010) the US is now seen as a nation of consumers but with
the world becoming more globalised a single nation does not have to do both,
but can rely on imports from other counties to supply the demands and yet even
when we consider MacDonald as the pinnacle of physical prosumption
where the consumer, must go to the counter to order, the consumer takes their own food to their table and they must clean up after themselves, this physical prosumption is nothing compared to the online prosumption of data.
The Web 2.0 has change the face of the world with it
being a user-generated, with websites such as YouTube, Facebook and twitter. ( Ritzer,
2010) The
idea behind website such as the ones just mentions is that we consume what is
on our pages of people and things we like and the we produce information about
what we do, how we feel and how such products have been useful such as the MacDonald Facebook page where people can
see promotions not advertise on the traditional forms of media and comment on
such promotions. The way I am a prosumer is generally though Facebook where I’ll
make a status update or share a picture and at the same time I could be looking
at someone else’s profile. Another way I am a big prosumer is on YouTube, I am
yet to post videos myself but I’ll watch and comment on videos as I see fit
thus giving the producer information of the quality and how they could improve
the next video they make.
Most information gathered from Journal of Consumer Culture, Production,
Consumption, Prosumption: The nature of capitalism in the age of the digital
'prosumer' George Ritzer and Nathan Jurgenson, 2010
Hey Steven,
ReplyDeleteYour blog post about prosumption was a great discussion and comparison from of prosumer culture before and after Web 2.0. I especially liked your comparison of McDonalds how without realising we are actually prosumers, responsible for our own service in some ways.
I would say that I too generally am I prosumer through social media websites like Facebook and Youtube as I consume what is on my page but I also put things out there such as comments or posts.
Great discussion, look forward to reading more.
It was also great to see some hyperlinks and a break in the text with your image. However, perhaps you could go into more depth about the ideas that Ritzer mentioned about prosumers in Web 2.0.
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