Institute for Distributed Creativity
Cultural Studies Concentration of Eugene Lang College

Gatewatching: Collaborative Online News Production

• 11 October, 6 p.m. - The Thing / Postmasters Gallery, 459 West 19th Street, New York City

Recent years have seen the emergence of collaborative publishing models in key news Websites ranging from the worldwide Indymedia network to the massively successful technology news site Slashdot and further to the multitude of Weblogs. Such sites have been instrumental in debunking political misinformation and providing first-hand coverage of unfolding events from 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina, but also provide an important corrective to the mainstream news media in their everyday coverage of current events.

Association of Internet Researchers Conference, Chicago 2005

Wikinews: The Next Generation of Online News?

• 8 October 2005, 8.30 a.m. - Denver Room, Chicago Marriott Downtown Hotel

The past decade has seen a gradual evolution in the field of alternative online news sites. Generally spurred on by mainstream news operators' lack of understanding of, or interest in, the possibilities of online news publishing, many independent sites have sprung up: these include, for example, the edited collaborative news Website Slashdot in the technology field as well as the more open-access sites Kuro5hin and Plastic (which were inspired in good part by the Slashdot model); further, we have also witnessed the rapid growth of the Independent Media Center network from its beginnings on the sidelines of the World Trade Organisation meeting in Seattle in 1999, as well as similar 'citizen journalist' efforts such as the South Korean OhmyNews phenomenon (which is credited with tipping the balance in that country's recent presidential election).

Creativity Marketplace
Creative Places + Spaces Conference, Toronto, 30 Sep.-1 Oct. 2005

Teaching Creativity in a Creative Town

Axel Bruns and Jane Turner

• 30 September 2005, 1.30-6 p.m. - Koolhaus/Guvernment Complex, Toronto

In 2002, Queensland University of Technology developed the world’s first Creative Industries Faculty and introduced the new Bachelor of Creative Industries degree, replacing its existing Bachelor of Arts offering. The degree is designed to be inherently interdisciplinary, and aims to provide students both with the creative skills to develop and realise innovative ideas for projects in the creative industries field, as well as with the theoretical and conceptual knowledge to understand and operate effectively within the emerging creative economy in Australia and other nations.

Institute for Distributed Creativity
Cultural Studies Concentration of Eugene Lang College

'Anyone Can Edit': Understanding the Produser

The Mojtaba Saminejad Lecture

• 28 September, 6 p.m. - SUNY Buffalo
  
• 11 October, 10 a.m. - New School, New York City
  
• 12 October, 5 p.m. - Brown University, Providence
  
• 14 October, 12.30 p.m. - Temple University, Philadelphia
  

Recent decades have seen the dual trend of growing digitization of content, and of increasing availability of sophisticated tools for creating, manipulating, publishing, and disseminating that content. Advertising campaigns openly encourage users to 'Rip. Mix. Burn.' and to share the fruits of their individual or collaborative efforts with the rest of the world. The Internet has smashed the distribution bottleneck of older media, and the dominance of the traditional producer > publisher > distributor value chain has weakened. Marshall McLuhan's dictum 'everyone's a publisher' is on the verge of becoming a reality - and more to the point, as the Wikipedia proudly proclaims, 'anyone can edit.'

Institute for Distributed Creativity

Produsers and Produsage

• 28 September 2005, 1-3 p.m., Suny Buffalo (room DMS 247)

Workshop Outline

1. Introduction and exploration of the produser concept:
   Overall features of produsers; distinctions from related concepts (Toffler's 'prosumer', Leadbeater's 'pro-am'); potential applications.
    
2. Key sites of produsage:
   Indymedia and other forms of collaborative online news, open source software development, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google Earth and other geographical annotation systems, The Sims and other online gaming communities, Cellphedia, …
    
3. Implications and uses:
   Economic possibilities, legal frameworks, educational applications, uses in strengthening democratic participation.
4. Open discussion

Readings

Little has been published using the term 'produser' as yet, but the articles below describe produser activity in all but name. Some of them are also deliberately entrepreneurial and commercial in tone - this demonstrates the potential for commercial exploration (and exploitation) which is inherent in the concept, and points to social, ethical, and legal issues which will need to be addressed.