Towards Produsage: Futures for User-Led Content Production

Abstract

The increasing prevalence of user-led content production especially in online environments from the Wikipedia to open news publications and open source software development communities is indicative of an ongoing paradigm shift from industrial-style content production to what is here described as produsage: the collaborative, iterative, and user-led production of content by participants in a hybrid user-producer, or produser role. This paper outlines the overall characteristics of produsers and produsage, identifies key questions for the produsage model, and highlights the economic, educational, and democratic potential of produsage.