Words....

A wise tutor once said to me;

"Natalie, your aim in life is to create your own word which is known to the general public."

Well to be honest it was only said to me a few weeks ago by a 23 year old tutor who just thought that it would be pretty cool to make up a word, but for Dr. Axel Bruns (who just happens to be the unit coordinator for this subject) the dream of many has become a reality.

No, a produser is not how someone who failed spelling would spell producer, it is a combination of producer and user... a term which accurately defines what our generation is. With the emergence of new media technologies user-created content is in surplus thanks to websites such as Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and blogs, such as the one i am writing now. In recent years technology has boomed, especially within media. Now, 78% of Australians are connected to the internet, 99% own a television set and 2.7 billion people worldwide possess a mobile phone.

The introduction of Web 2.0 has seen the largest media transformation embodying convergence, DIY cultures and produsage. Users are able to create, produce and circulate content, use the internet to communicate or watch television and be viewsers and prosumers, all of which have become possible with the emergence of new media.

Wow, you are now saying what is this "university student" going on about.... produsers, viewsers, prosumers? These words have been coined by peoples such as Bruns to describe this trend. A viewser is a viewer/user.... a prosumer is a producer/consumer.

Try and come up with your own words.... we'll report back to base in a few days...