PROSUMER

I am a prosumer. Right now I am a prosumer of blogger.com. This is because as I write on to it along with an estimated 31 million people blogging in the United States (Bullas 2012). Without us these blog sites would not be worth hundreds of millions of dollars (Bullas 2012). “Prosumption involves both production and consumption rather than focusing on either one” Ritzer 2005.This is the same in almost all social media sites. Without the user they are literally nothing. What would instagram be without a constant feed of pictures?

Image source: Apple 'N' Apps

There are many examples of prosumption in social media. The infectious nature of prosumption means that the amount of users and people using the sites the stronger the site will become. Facebook had only 100 million users in 2008 (Bullas 2012) compared to the 1.15 billion users that have an account making it one of the most popular websites existing.

Although I understand that all of these are examples of consumption and production, social media is not the first thing I think of when I think of these two words. To me these words have more association with consuming and producing material things such as food or clothing. These things have also turned more towards prosumption as online stores such as gumtree and eBay have developed, they would also be nothing without the user. In the offline world there are food stores such as McDonald's. Ritzer (2008) discusses how this is an example of prosumption “among other things, diners are expected to serve as their own waiters carrying their meals to their tables or back to their cars” this means that the customers are part of the service.

There has been a substantial growth in prosumption in recent times “early years were dominated by production, especially in the factory. Much more recently, the focus shifted to consumption” (Ritzer 2005) this has now lead on to focus on prosumption and has brought in many positive and negative aspects. For example this growth of prosumption has lead to a huge loss in jobs of people such as ticket collectors.

Who knows where prosumption will go from here but there is no doubt that it is a growing and continuing practice being fuelled by us all.

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.

Jeff Bullas. 2012. Blogging Statistics, Facts and Figures in 2012 – Infographic. [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.jeffbullas.com/2012/08/02/blogging-statistics-facts-and-figures-in-2012-infographic/. [Accessed 25 August 13].

MUSIC (OR NOT)

I don't download music. I have no music on my iPhone or iPad or iPod or iTunes. I'm almost ashamed to admit it because I am probably one of the only people who doesn't. This is not because I am strongly against music being downloaded or think that this illegal behaviour is wrong but I have just never been into doing it. I instead spend hours and hours watching TV shows that I have downloaded. It brings up a lot of the same issues as you start to think about peoples property and how easy it is to 'steal'.

Sitting in my room watching Geordie shore on my laptop, it's easy to forget that I am breaking the law. It helps because I know that people all over the world are watching it with me before it comes onto TV where we can legally watch it. Because so many people do it, I start to feel far less guilty. It's kind of like how when you're little swearing is the worst thing in the world until you hit an age where everyone is swearing and it doesn't feel wrong at all anymore. Safety in numbers.

Even though I have this attitude I do feel intimidation would work as a tactic to change my mind. “Most individuals are frightened when they are taken to court by a large company” (Martin, B Moore, C and Salter, C 2010). I am no exception to this and if I received a letter in the mail threatening legal action I would be far less inclined to continue my downloading habits.

However while I do think that this would be effective in stopping individuals but would be less effective on a larger scale in stopping the general population. I don't think that companies have the time or resources to effect the masses with these threats so intimidation is only a short term solution. In the same way that people don't feel guilty about downloading when everyone is downloading they will not feel the threat of being punished unless everyone is being punished.

I don't personally know anyone who has been punished for downloading and therefore it's never occurred to me that I will be punished.

No matter if it's music, TV or pictures people will continue to download and share things until there is a long term solution on a larger level.

References:

Martin, B, Moore, C and Salter, C. 2010, ‘Sharing music files: tactics of a challenge to the industry’, First Monday, vol. 15, no. 12

ART

Dating back to the stone age, cave paintings are one of the oldest forms of art. Throughout time art genre's have evolved, genres borrowing features of other genres as they evolve through time. In the beginning of 'art' genres were defined by the country of origin, such as the egyptian genre from 3100 b.c.- 30 b.c. This genre of art had an afterlife focus, like painting tombs and making pyramids, genres like this were extremely specific to the country more than the time. More recently art has been defined more globally such as Dada and Surrealism from 1917 to 1950 which was not specific to a country but rather the events that were happening at the time, for this genre in particular it was The Great Depression and World War 2 that influenced the art. This is a good example of globalisation as it shows countries coming together to form global movements and changes rather than being completely separate and specific.

“Globalization is being shaped by technological change.” (Nederveen, 2004) . This also has been a large part of why art has become more global and the way that art has developed. Being able to share art techniques and artists over the internet allows ideas and new ways of looking at art to be shared. Nederveen also asserts that

“Technological changes and their ramifications contribute to the impression that globalization is "inevitable," "unstoppable."”(Nederveen, 2004) I think that in relation to art this is true. I think that the more that people can share their cultures and techniques and styles with art there is no way of knowing what could be produced or how art will progress.

Green Composition, Kandinsky 

In my own experience of art I know that we were encouraged to look at other artists from all different countries and genres to influence our work. We were often encouraged to copy their work directly in studies.

One artist that interested me in particular while I studied art was Kandinsky, he was not only influenced by art but also by music. His artworks were named after the very compositions of music they were influenced by. He himself was Russian but he later on influenced other artists from all over the world. For example his use of colour influenced the Russian, Mark Rothko, the American, Jackson Pollock and the Australian, me.

References:
Nederveen Pieterse, J 2004, ‘Globalization: consensus and controversies’, Globalization and culture: global mélange2004, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, Md, pp. 7-21