There's a nice piece by Rosemary Sorensen in the Media section of today's Weekend Australian newspaper, called "Time You Turned On the Tube", discussing the implications of the recent rise to prominence of YouTube and other user-led content sites. Rosemary spoke to me at length for this article, and I'm very happy with the way it's turned out - sometimes such articles end up being little more than mainstream media hacks' attempts to denigrate what they don't understand, but this article balances an enthusiasm for the changes being brought about by such sites with the legitimate questions of intellectual property rights, quality, and economic sustainability which can be asked of them.
It's also very gratifying to see my concept of produsage get such a very public airing, beyond academic circles. While Rosemary calls the term 'inelegant', that's what they said about the word 'blog', too, so I guess I can live with it - and if this coverage leads to a wider recognition for and productive engagement with the implications of the emergence of produsage, whatever the terms used to describe this phenomenon, then that's all the better, too.
