Generation C: Minimizing the disconnect between producers and consumers
After Reading Beyond Difference: Reconfiguring Education for the User-Led Age by Dr. Axel Bruns this week, it has become clear to me that a major paradigm shift has occurred and the traditional one-to-many flow of information we once knew is on its way out. This could be perceived as a threat, but when embraced as an opportunity for advancement and improvement can have a positive impact on educators and learners.
In an environment where heterarchical organization is increasingly favored over hierarchical, educators and creators of content who steer clear of this information sharing shift may find themselves missing out.
Perhaps in the past you've heard someone say their students "soak up information like a sponge." This term carries much less meaning today. If anything, it might be more appropriate to say that one's students "strengthen and form new connections like neurons."
So...it may not as catchy, but it fits. Web 2.0 learning environments encourage the users to also don the hat of the producer, creating a hybrid role referred to as a "produser" in the article. Produsers have more ownership over their learning environment than a traditional audience or consumer would. While it may be difficult in certain settings to embrace a structure where giving up control is encouraged, it seems that those who feel threatened by it have little choice but to adapt.
The Bruns article points to a blog posted by Trendwatching.com in 2004:
Trendwatching: "GENERATION C" refers to a generation more concerned with advancing content and engagement for the good of the group, than previous loose, oversimplified "generations" whose aim was to release content with a different, less altruistic goal in mind.
This shift in mindset, which spans across many environments may exhibit 4 fundamental aspects:
- be community based
- have fluid roles
- contain unfinished artefacts
- exist as common property
One of my favorite examples of this can be seen in the breakdown and gradual reshaping of the music industry. As we know, record companies used to have a stronghold on what music listeners had access to. The internet changed that in a very threatening way. I'm sure most of us remember the rise and fall of Napster. I was fortunate to have watched this happen at a very young age. I suppose this article made me realize that my first introduction to web 2.0 would probably be in the ways I interacted with strangers on the web through music sharing communities during that time. I would consume very large quantities of music at a time, and in exchange, would try and make new or rare content available to other users as a common courtesy. I belonged to communities where citizens or consumers would share and review music, and independent artists would do the same. These communities would often get shut down, and reconvene elsewhere in a short period of time.
It didn't matter what releases your local chain music store was selling that week because these communities largely rejected music backed by record companies all together, cutting out the middle man and rejecting the hierarchical flow of one-to-many, with many producing and consuming simultaneously.
Many saw it as the circulation and sharing of less popular music in a social environment for the greater good, others saw contributors as leeches and thieves... As motives varied from person to person, both are probably accurate.
While Spotify, (created by one of the men responsible for Napster), attempts to let users access a wide range of sounds in a similar, but way more legal way, (minus all the fun of contributing yourself), it is still a near miss in my book. I'm often unable to find what I am looking for using this service.
Today, I personally prefer bandcamp. Bandcamp is a platform created for artist promotion, which caters mainly to independent artists. It also exemplifies one of the four fundamental aspects of produsage. It "proceeds from the assumption that the community as a whole, if sufficiently large and varied, can contribute more than a closed team of producers (in this case, record companies) however qualified they may be." (Bruns article)
It allows you to follow the independent artists you love directly, so you can be the first to hear their new single, should that appeal to you. It allows artists to pick their own price points, with some adopting the popular-but-risky "pay what you want" model, and others opting to release some of their tracks for free. One of my favorite features of bandcamp is that it allows you to sign up as a fan. In this community of music listeners, the disconnect between artists and listeners had been removed, as fans are allowed to comment directly on a song. Fans review artists and albums and you are able to follow fans and see what they recommend as well. It encourages listeners to take the path less chosen and discover something new. Respected individuals raving about a band's latest release is probably the best PR they could hope for. It seems altruistic and fair in nature, and it cuts out the need for someone else to decide what you should be listening to.
Featured here: An album that is currently popular on bandcamp, chosen at random.
If you haven't explored bandcamp before, I urge you to spend a few minutes discovering. It's the perfect way to spend a study break.
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