Internettal Prosumerism

Are humans prosumers? With the first fast food chains introduced in the 1950's consumers had to start contributing to the production of their restaurant experience (Ritzer, 2010 p18). The introduction of Web 2.0, the widespread sharing of user-generated content, made the prosumer more central (Ritzer, 2010 p14).

It can be said that people were prosumers by nature, hunting dragons and trolls and then consuming them for meat and materials to make weapons out of (citation needed) but the industrial age separated prosumers into producers and consumers (Ritzer, 2010 p14).

But this blog isn't about people in general, it is about me. 

How am I a prosumer?

Well, I'm glad you asked. Take a seat.

What do you see? Is it a blog? I produced that.
If you read the first paragraph you will notice that I got some information from a journal. I didn't produce the journal, but I ate the knowledge out of it and regurgitated it into something I produced. If I am consuming one thing and applying it to something else that makes me a prosumer. 

Something I do in my spare time (never) is upload Let's Play videos to YouTube with a buddy of mine. 

Like, Comment & Subscribe

We consume videogames, but because we film it, commentate and upload it to YouTube we become prosumers. 

By responding to a text, in this case a videogame, we are providing feedback and information about the game that may contribute to a consumer's purchase of the game. A viewer of a YouTube show can contribute to the channel by commenting on it or even by liking it. More importantly, just by viewing a video you are promoting it. You don't even need an account, by watching the video you are saved as some statistics, including the amount of times you viewed the video and how long you held retention watching the video. If 100 people watched an entire video the 'Retention' statistic will increase and YouTube will advertise your video more. 

It is actually scary. I know how many people have viewed this blog. You can leave this page now; I will already know that someone has been here. By viewing this blog you have been an active prosumer, so thank you and prosume some more by leaving your thoughts in the comments below.

References

Jurgenson, N & Ritzer, G 2010, 'Production, Consumption, Prosumption: The nature of capitalism in the age of the digital 'prosumer'', Journal of Consumer Culture, Vol. 10, Issue 1, pp. 13-36.

Everything is Free

Piracy - The act of being smart enough to not buy things that are available for free.

Copyright Violation - Getting caught pirating.

There will always be a reason to pirate. In Australia television shows aired months to a year after they premiered in America. What was new to us was old to them. In a globalised culture it was paramount for the world to see the same content at the same time so that it could be discussed on forums.

Australia wised up eventually and started airing shows shortly after the American release, but not instantaneous.

Welcome to the World of Today!

As soon as a television show is released in America it can either be streamed or torrented hours after being shown.

This means when Breaking Bad is aired in America, everyone around the world can discuss and speculate simultaneously.

Stolen from Imgur - http://imgur.com/M1TQX

Is watching a television show for free worse than cooking and distributing crystal meth?

According to the Motion Picture Association of America's famous movie trailer, if you steal a movie you might as well steal a car. Except to download a car it would be devastating to one's bandwidth.

If I could pay for a service to watch television shows as they are released and it was reasonably priced I would pay for it. In fact, Norway's rate of piracy has decreased by 80% since 2008 due to convenient legal alternatives. Source.

 

Image stolen from - http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/piracy-drops-dramatically-in-norway/

Whereas piracy is the use of information you do not own, copyright is the infringement of intellectual property to profit.

In layman's terms piracy is what a consumer will take from a producer and copyright infringement is what a producer will take from another producer.

When a musician uses a clip from a song he can be forced to give payments to the original artist. A song cannot be used in a movie if it has not been authorised by the copyright owner otherwise the producers of the movie can get sued.

In conclusion, keep pirating. Even if you don't have to. It isn't about stealing information, it is about sending a message. Through us being radical pirates we are making the world a better place for future generations. But don't violate copyright laws, you might get caught.

Sources

 Martin, B, Moore, C and Salter, C. 2010, ‘Sharing music files: tactics of a challenge to the industry’, First Monday, vol. 15, no. 12, [available: http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2986/2680].

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/piracy-drops-dramatically-in-norway/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_media

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrent_file

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_bad

The Superheroes of Globalisation

I believe when people say they are into pop culture, they really mean they are into cartoons and comic books. Every body loves video games and movies. It is fine to say you love video games and movies. Despite 'The Avengers' making more money than exists in the world reading comics is still a social taboo. 

Today's lesson will focus on how comic books have affected me since my youth, and how manga has fixed me since then.

When I was younger I loved Superheroes like Spider-Man, Batman and Superman. Like every other stupid kid and smart adult. What appealed to me was the amount of power they had and what they did with it.

Superman had every power. If I had the choice I would still choose to have Superman's powerset. He is a god among men, and also among the other gods that reside in his universe. But he never spent any time honing his powers, he was Earth's best defence against space monsters and he was wasting time writing Feature articles for The Daily Planet.

As a young bloke this taught me that you will overcome any weakness as long as you try a little bit.

There is a major flaw in that logic, a flaw that is rectified by the Japanese.

The popular culture of the West ... have been increasingly flowing about the world - Hatchten & Scotton 2002 (p4)

Without the digitisation of the world I would lose interest in finding comics. They are too hard to get in Australia without the Internet. But without digitisation, I would never have been introduced to the popular culture of the East. 

Hatchten & Scotton said 'It is argued that many millions more people than ever before now have access to news and information (p4).' I disagree that it is even an argument. There are Scanlators (Scanners and Translators combined) that get hold of manga, scanlate(?) and upload it to the Internet before it is even available for retail in Japan. And millions of people read it on a service that was not available 20 years ago. Also there are millions of people who weren't even born 20 years ago, so there really is no argument.

As I started getting more into the Japanese culture I noticed a trend. The characters actually train and hone their skills.

Courtesy of qbatmanp on deviantArt

Dragon Ball's Goku is the Japanese analog to America's Superman. Both were sent to Earth as infants and both gained the powers beyond Gods. Superman became the strongest being of his race by being exposed to the sun. Goku became the strongest being of his race by being trained by the strongest martial artists on Earth, the God of Earth, the God of the East Quadrant of the Universe, the God of all the Quadrants, and the God that the other God's thought were a myth because he was too strong to believe existed.

Now I am not saying I want to go get super powers and fight crime (I do) I am saying that the culmination of these cultures (Hatchen & Scotton p4 again) has shown me that talent should be honed and practised until you are the best version of you that you can be.

To check out some cool manga try Madman Entertainment 







Sources:


Dragon Ball Z Wikipedia 2013, accessed August <http://dragonball.wikia.com/wiki/Dragon_Ball_Z>


Hatchen,WA& Scotton, JF 2002, The world newsprism:global media in an era of
terrorism, 6th edn, low a State Press, Am es, pp. 3-14.