As the article Conceptualizing personal media (2008) by Marika Lüders explains, (personal media) users now have the technical resources to create texts, photos, private radio shows (podcasting) and videos that are generally accessible to an unknown audience. The combination of the internet, PC and evolvement of less expensive and more manageable media production tools give leeway for the amateur media producer (Lüders 2008: 693–694). This means that, especially internet phenomenon might have changed the whole process of making art towards more collaborative actions among random people with less or no “real” artistic skills, by using new techniques and new technologies.
Due to the help of the right (and now affordable and manageable) equipment, amateurs produce and distribute music, videos, texts and photographs, so that »'(a)nyone' becomes qualified to be a media producer and is likely to have an audience to their productions« (Lüders 2008: 694). If a media producer can be called an artist as well, is another tricky question. But since I agreed to take a very broad definition of art in terms of products that had been done by someone by the cause of particular feelings or emotions (and that main point of my research paper is about collaboration itself), we can generalize that everyone could take part in collaborative art project as long he/she has the right tools to make his/her part of the work, and does not really need to worry about his skills as much as if, for example, he/she would have an exhibition in an art gallery.
Another point is, that internet audience might be more tolerate and less sensible when approaching art on the web. For this reason, there might be more people willing to collaborate on-line than in the 'real' life. It is undoubtedly true that internet, as a huge part of the mass media has millions of users who can appear either as producers or consumers - or even both, what Lister and others (2003) call 'prosumers'.
Lüders claims, that recognizing the audience as co-producers of meanings in mass communication processes became particularly important in media studies, yet audiences are no longer recognized as merely co-producing media messages by interpreting their meaning. They take on an increasingly active role as producers of media messages in the first place. »The effort to include the audience can be seen as a response to the success of the participatory web and the increased significance of individually and collaboratively produced content« (Lüders 2008: 695).
Wikipedia, Flickr or Deviantart are just a few among many examples where amateurs can have an impact of the content that is being spread all around the world. “We experience the web not as a unified hierarchy of organized information, but as a collective pool of knowledge, which we can access, view, and reorganize in a variety of ways » (Rettberg 2005: 2).
Due to the help of the right (and now affordable and manageable) equipment, amateurs produce and distribute music, videos, texts and photographs, so that »'(a)nyone' becomes qualified to be a media producer and is likely to have an audience to their productions« (Lüders 2008: 694). If a media producer can be called an artist as well, is another tricky question. But since I agreed to take a very broad definition of art in terms of products that had been done by someone by the cause of particular feelings or emotions (and that main point of my research paper is about collaboration itself), we can generalize that everyone could take part in collaborative art project as long he/she has the right tools to make his/her part of the work, and does not really need to worry about his skills as much as if, for example, he/she would have an exhibition in an art gallery.
Another point is, that internet audience might be more tolerate and less sensible when approaching art on the web. For this reason, there might be more people willing to collaborate on-line than in the 'real' life. It is undoubtedly true that internet, as a huge part of the mass media has millions of users who can appear either as producers or consumers - or even both, what Lister and others (2003) call 'prosumers'.
Lüders claims, that recognizing the audience as co-producers of meanings in mass communication processes became particularly important in media studies, yet audiences are no longer recognized as merely co-producing media messages by interpreting their meaning. They take on an increasingly active role as producers of media messages in the first place. »The effort to include the audience can be seen as a response to the success of the participatory web and the increased significance of individually and collaboratively produced content« (Lüders 2008: 695).
Wikipedia, Flickr or Deviantart are just a few among many examples where amateurs can have an impact of the content that is being spread all around the world. “We experience the web not as a unified hierarchy of organized information, but as a collective pool of knowledge, which we can access, view, and reorganize in a variety of ways » (Rettberg 2005: 2).
Resource:
Lüders, Marika (2008): Conceptualizing personal media. New Media Society 2008, 10
(683). Downloaded 15.10.2009 from: http://nms.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/10/5/683
(683). Downloaded 15.10.2009 from: http://nms.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/10/5/683
