Produsage as a form of self-publicationA qualitative study of casual news

produsage

IKE PICONEInterdisciplinary Institute for Broadband TechnologyStudies on Media Information and

Telecommunication Vrije Universiteit Brussel Brussels Belgium

(Received 16 July 2010 final version received 5 January 2011)

While Axel Brunsrsquos theory of produsage offers an adequate way of looking at a variety ofsites where the production of news content takes the form of collaborative user-drivenproduction it seems less suited for the study of productive news use as a user experienceas a way users engage in a more productive way with content This article gives a firstimpetus towards the expansion of the theory of produsage to a more user-orientedframework that is fitted to approach produsage as a social practice rather than asa process of information production The empirical work presented in this paperconcerns the average news user rather than the expert bloggers and citizen journalistsmost studies tend to focus on Through a qualitative semi-experimental study based ona Living Lab-approach motivational situational and social factors shaping productivenews use are identified Drawing from the findings conceptual elements as lsquolsquopotentialpublicrsquorsquo and lsquolsquosocial reflexrsquorsquo are introduced Self-publication is proposed as a way tounderstand how average news users experience productive news use

Keywords Online news use Produsage Self-publication Digital ethnography LivingLab-approach User experience

1 Introduction

In 2006 the interdisciplinary research project Flemish E-publishing Trends(FLEET) started The scope of the user research within this project was toexplore the ways in which average online news users engage in productivenews use ie contributing to the news by correcting evaluating completingmarking it or commenting on it At that time Axel Bruns (2005 2006 2007a2007b) published his first articles on the concept of produsage News groupsblogs and citizen journalism were one of the fields where Bruns explicitly sawthe practice of produsage emerging The idea of a user becoming a producerseemed the ideal point of departure to study the ways in which users take onthe amateur production of news

Email ikepiconevubacbe

New Review of Hypermedia and MultimediaVol 17 No 1 April 2011 99120

New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia

ISSN 1361-4568 printISSN 1740-7842 online 2011 Taylor amp Francis

httpwwwtandfcoukjournals

DOI 101080136145682011552643

Brunsrsquos analysis of the fading boundaries between users and producers inthe news sector offers an in-depth understanding of the collective user-driveninformation production process which he calls produsage and its impact ontraditional professional forms of news production However his work offersmuch less insights on the in situ usage of produsage-enabling technologiesLittle is known about produsage as a situated action (Suchman 1987)undertaken by news users about how and why an average news user wouldturn into a news produser The body of research of the last decade offers agood idea of the number of news produsers generally close to the 110100ratio of creators synthesisers and consumersevery creator being asynthesiser and in turn being a consumer of informationidentified byHorowitz (2006 see also Osimo 2008 The PEW Research Centre 2009)even though this balance is evolving Little is known however about this useractivity as a social practice embedded into usersrsquo everyday activities or inother words as an experience seen through the eyes of the news produserhimself A considerable amount of studies have been done on the motivationsof people to contribute to the news or user generated content in general(Schiano et al 2004 Nardi et al 2004a 2004b Li 2007 Van Dijck 2009) Thisgives an idea of what motivates users to produse However these studies tendto focus mainly on the individual motivations of produsers and less onsituational and social factors that might shape productive news useFurthermore these studies seem to revolve around the expert users or thetech-savvy hobbyist that puts a fair amount of his time into his produsingactivities Less is known about the more casual (news) produser

In order to grasp the way average news users contribute to the news in theirdaily use of it our article describes the results of a long-term qualitativestudy on online productive news use amongst average news users This studywants to shed light on news produsage as a situated action from a userperspective In addition through a process of grounded theory work theresults of this study serve as an empirical foundation for the adjustments toBrunsrsquos conceptual framework we propose This article concludes bysuggesting self-publication as a way of understanding produsage as experi-enced by (average) news users In closing we address the desirability of theproposed framework as a user-oriented supplementation of the theory ofprodusage developed by Bruns

At this point we would already like to stress that it is not our intention to offera user-oriented analysis as opposed to Brunsrsquos process-oriented analysis ofprodusage but rather as a complement to it To better understand how usersexperience produsage is we believe to better understand its impact on society aswell as the boundaries the domestication of produsage may encounter

2 Conceptualising news produsage from a user perspective

21 From usage to produsage

At first sight produsage undoubtedly bears the most resemblance to the ideaof the prosumer developed by futurologist Alvin Toffler (1980) in his book

100 I Picone

The Third Wave Whereas Toffler however develops his idea around theproduction of goods Bruns starts from the production of information andtakes into account the very specific nature of (digital) information Twoelements in Brunsrsquos conceptualisation of produsage are especially appealingfrom a social science user-oriented perspective

First by speaking of produsage instead of prosumption Bruns (2005)avoids the commercial connotation of consumerism Indeed a lot of theseprodusage activities do not thrive on a commercial logic Of courseprodusage takes place in an information market that is still to a high degreedominated by large media conglomerates Still it is an amateur-driven non-profit way of producing information

Second Bruns (2005) focuses on the productive engagement of users andnot so much on product customisation like Toffler does When it comes toonline information and communication the active engagement of users withinformation by way of digital media has been approached mainly through theconcept of interactivity In most cases user interactivity is interpreted asselectivity or control over information sources and over interaction withothers (Lievrouw and Livingstone 2006) which could be considered ascustomisation of information Interactivity is rarely analysed as a phenom-enon of mass communication but rather as an element of personalcommunication (Bucy 2004) As Bruns (2005) points out what is happeningnow with the amateur production of information is challenging traditionalways of information production rather than of personal communication Byfocussing on the production and distribution of information Brunsintroduces a concept that is suited for the analysis of user-driven informationproduction online

However in the work of Bruns the experience that is produsage to a largeextent at least from a socio-theoretical point of view remains a black box(Quere 1989 Punie 1997) we have an idea of its impact on other actors insociety but not so much of the internal circuits the produsers themselves andhow they experience the ability to produse information within their dailymedia use This is also reflected in the role of the produser Thus far theproduser rather resembles an imaginary produser by analogy with Hartleyrsquos(1987) imaginary audience a theoretically imagined construct in the mind ofthe author Anderson (1996) speaks of the formal audience as conceived inthe discourse of academic researchers and professionals and the analyticalaudience as based on user research

Specific empirical research on usersrsquo experience of produsage is lackingDifferent studies throw light on certain aspects or practices for example onblogging on sharing on tagging (Ames and Naaman 2007) However thesedifferent practices are rarely linked one to another in order to grasp thecommon dynamics underlying all these forms of user-generated contentFrom a user perspective this is exactly the strength of the theory of produsagenamely to point to the process of productive media use underlying differentmedia forms and applications But in order to fully exploit this potential it isnecessary to conceptualise produsage as a user experience or social practice

Produsage as a form of self-publication 101

and empirically support this Therefore while Brunsrsquos theory explains thedynamic from production to produsage we would like to explore the dynamicfrom usage to produsage Our focus lies on the shift from traditional forms ofnews consumption to the productive use of information

Bruns (2008) does pay attention to this dynamic to a certain extent Heshows that theoretical models making the distinction between producersdistributors and consumers are no longer tenable for the analysis ofinformation goods and services Indeed when looking at news services todaytreating users as merely the consumers of information would cause us tooverlook a great deal of user practices But how are these productive practicesshaped And in relation to news how must we understand the productiveinvolvement of users in their news use

When asking these questions however different elements of Brunsrsquosconceptual framework seem difficult Generally speaking he employs amacro-perspective His focus is not on the way produsers contribute but moreon the networked distributed and decentralised collective outcome that isthe result of it (Bruns 2008) More precisely Bruns conceptualises produsageas user-driven production of information rather than as a productive way ofusing information and he defines produsage to a large extent as a collectiveactivity excluding more individual ways of information production In orderto apply Brunsrsquos theory of produsage to user research these issues have to beaddressed

22 The need to refine produsage for user-oriented studies

First as Bruns is especially interested in the ways in which users are producinginformation he pays less attention to how people are using it We could arguethat Brunsrsquos concerns lie with user-driven information production whereas wewould like to investigate production-driven information usage Bruns does notignore this perspective as his reflections on produsers as Professional Amateurs(Pro-Ams) show He describes produsers as Pro-Ams as conceptualised byLeadbeater and Miller (2004) They act as volunteers who invest time andenergy in the pursuit of their engagement Pro-Am activities demand dedica-tion passion and perseverance and Pro-Ams are confronted with fears risksopportunities and setbacks Nevertheless this investment gives them culturalcapital knowledge and appreciation by others From a user-oriented researchperspective it would be interesting however to dig deeper into these fears risksopportunities and setbacks and their underlying dynamics Two elements inparticular deserve our attention when is a user a Pro-Am and which factorsshape these fears and opportunities

By presenting produsage communities as ad hoc meritocracies based onfluid and equipotential participation Bruns acknowledges the fact that notevery member of a produsage community is a produser at all times and somemembers rather casually contribute when their specific skills allow them to(Bruns 2008) JD Lasica (Hutchinson et al 2003) relates this to news Whenlooking at user-generated news content he not only sees citizen journalism

102 I Picone

and news blogs as important actors of change He also speaks of lsquolsquorandomacts of journalismrsquorsquo to refer to news content generated by people who do notpursue amateur journalism but who happen to witness the news live orhappen to have a piece of information they think is worth sharing WhenBruns refers to Lasicarsquos random acts of journalism however he does so topoint out how collective collaborative processes of citizen journalismengender ad hoc communities of governance rather than to elaborate onthis casual form of produsage

Bruns considers the specific knowledge and skills somebody has concern-ing a certain topic as important elements shaping produsage These arecertainly important factors but surely not the sole ones explaining produsageIn their research on communities of interest Nonnecke et al (2006) find that25 of the lurkers among their participants ie users being in the communitywithout contributingor produsing for that matterhave something to sayand 13 are actually willing to contribute In other words they have ideas ona certain topic and want to contribute but still they decide not to do so Whatis withholding them Other factors are likely to play a role when users engagein random acts of journalism Furthermore we know little about how thesemotivations interact amongst each other but also with situational factors Ifprodusage can be an ad hoc activity the way in which it is embedded in thedaily routines of users or situational factors like mood stress time pressureplace and so on must also be taken into account All these elements help toclarify what the practice of produsage means for those users undertaking it

In order to point out the difference between casual contributions to ratherdistributed and decentralised communities of produsage (where usageoutweighs production) and contribution to communities of produsagestructured around the collective production of information by hive minds(where production outweighs usage) we could speak about casual respec-tively structural produsage Applied to news produsage examples of casualnews produsage would be to leave a reaction in the comment section of anonline article to share a news fact with friends or to write an email to theeditor Structural produsage would then be contributing regularly to a citizenjournalism news site reporting news stories on a blog or being a frequenterin a news community like Diggcom

Second Bruns (2008) generally speaks of produsers in terms of acommunity He refers to JC Herzrsquo hive minds or Von Hippelrsquos (2005)information communities as the driver of produsage Produsage is a collectiveeffort Bruns (2008 p 16) states about his book lsquolsquofundamentally then [it] isabout a variety of such hive minds such information communities and theirpatterns and protocols of interaction and collaboration [ ]rsquorsquo Whenanalysing news produsage Bruns describes the open news story developmentwithin citizen journalism produser communities It starts with users having anitch to scratch subsequently initiating a story sharing it with the communityand letting the community take it from there evaluating discussing andadding depth to the story for it to become a collective and qualitative piece ofwork (Bruns 2008)

Produsage as a form of self-publication 103

However this process is the ideal type A contribution by users does notnecessarily follow this path Comment sections of news eg often take theform of a rather chaotic listing of different opinions and ramblings notnecessarily building up one on another and rarely resulting in a newimproved story being further prodused in the blogosphere For everysuccessful collectively produced act of citizen journalism a myriad ofunsuccessful postings seem to be possible especially on sites where mainlycasual produsage takes place like news sites Would this mean that a user isprodusing when hisher story is being engaged on but is not when this is notthe case

One could argue whether the collective engagement on a casual produserrsquoscontribution is a necessary condition to speak of produsage When usersdecide to react to a news story or post a story on their blog do they expectthis to be further processed by the community Brunsrsquos ideas on produsageremain rather vague on this aspect Bruns certainly sees the blogosphere as acommunity of produsage but it is less clear if he considers the individual actof blogging as a way of produsing information It is worth looking at whatother studies tell about how users perceive this Based on their research onbloggersrsquo motivations to post stories Nardi et al (2004a) consider blogs as abroadcast medium of little interactivity suggesting that bloggers wantinteraction with their public but equally want to remain in control of whatothers do with their writings Asked on what basis bloggers see their blog assuccessful 75 of American bloggers point to personal satisfaction whereasonly 58 and 53 say the amount of comments respectively the number ofdaily visitors matters the most (Technorati 2008)

If we consider this individual form of user-generated content production asprodusage here too knowledge and skills do not seem to be the only reasonsfor individual users to contribute or not Synthesising different studies onblogger motivations the following main motivations can be identified (1) todocument onersquos life (and inform others about it) (2) share comments andopinions (to influence others) (3) to express onersquos self or onersquos emotions(blogging like a catharsis) (4) thinking by writing (5) socialise or expand ormaintain onersquos network (to receive feedback from others) (6) improve writingskills and (7) self-documentation (compile useful information online) Whenlooking at news bloggers or citizen journalists an important factor is theexperience of an impending loss of journalistic values Citizen journalists actbecause they believe mainstream journalists no longer meet the necessarystandards of speed content and quality (Bruns 2005 Ryfe and Mensing2007)

This broad categorisation of possible personal motivations to contribute tothe blogosphere already gives an indication of the different meanings thatusers can give to the practices of putting information online Howeverdifferent studies on citizen journalism look at bloggers or other lsquolsquoexpertcontributorsrsquorsquo (see eg Domingo et al 2007 Paulussen et al 2007 Deuze2008) Research on news produsage seems to focus mainly on these lead usersof news participation When looking at news bloggers or citizen journalists

104 I Picone

participants often are structural produsers blogging or reporting on a regularbasis through their own or collective news outlets The random acts ofjournalism Lasica speaks of are less represented Therefore it is not onlyinteresting to look at news produsage from a more personal perspective butalso to those users only casually engaging in productive news use They donot own their own news blog but rather contribute by voting on a news storyby sending an article to certain friends via email or by commenting on newssites or fora

The issues addressed here can be visualised on two dimensions usageproduction and individualcollective Whereas Bruns elaborates more on thecollective production of information this article would like to address thepersonal productive use of information more specifically regarding newsamongst regular news users More precisely the following research question isput forward

Q1 How do casual news produsers experience contributing to the news

This research question demands for a more qualitative approach to thematter The scope is not so much to quantify usersrsquo productive use of news(see Eurostat 2009 The Pew Research Centre 2009) but to understand whatthese activities mean to them We are interested in understanding productivenews use as a user experience embedded in an everyday context What does itconsist of in the mind of the user How do people fit it into their media useand other daily pursuits In order to answer these questions we need notonly to take into account motivational aspects but also situational andbroader social factors This brings us to the second research question

Q2 What motivational situational and social factors shape the userexperience of casual news produsers

It is important to note that we are chiefly interested in getting insights intoa practice not so much into the users themselves They form the entry pointsthrough which we can gather data on that practice (Boyd 2008) Furthermorewe hope insights into productive news use as a situated social practiceembedded in daily routines can help us evaluate if Brunsrsquos theory of produsageis found applicable to personal and casual productive use of information onthe one hand and on user-oriented research on the other hand

3 Online casual news produsage a semi-experimental digital ethnography based on a

Living Lab-approach

31 Methodology

In finding the right methodology to answer these questions different issueshad to be tackled

A first concern appeared inherent to the target group of our study The userresearch within the Fleet-project revolves around those aspects of user

Produsage as a form of self-publication 105

contribution that can be understood as individual casual productive usageSeen the rather personal nature of online news use the functionalitiescommonly offered on news sites like voting sharing and commenting form agood illustration of functionalities that are not aimed at creating a commonoutput but rather offer a platform for users to post their personal opinionsbeliefs or ramblings for others to read (or not) Central are not the bloggerscitizen journalists or other expert users of participative media but onlinenews users that occasionally cast a vote share an article or post a commenton a news site

Casual news produsers by definition only casually produse news Thismakes it difficult to pinpoint the moments where people engage in randomacts of journalism Through digital ethnography (Masten and Powman 2003Murthy 2008) it is possible to observe different news sites and to addressusers This allows researchers to get insight in specific acts of productive newsbut not in the underlying relations Therefore one would need to followcertain users through different activities in order to question them on allaspects Indeed as we mentioned the strength of the idea of produsage is thatit offers a way of understanding the dynamics underlying these different actsThis means observation is not sufficient Participants are needed that can befollowed during a certain time over different times situations and platformsboth online and offline In-depth interviews are proposed in order to dig intofactors emerging and in order to discover patters underlying different formsof productive news use

Therefore we chose to select participants according to maximum variationsampling a form of purposeful sampling aimed at getting a strongheterogeneity within a sample on the dimensions of interest (List 2004Polkinghorne 2005) This variation can be achieved on the level ofparticipantsrsquo experience with the researched practice (phenomenologicalsampling) or in their personal characteristics The rationale behind suchsampling is that through a strong variation in the sample of participantsrsquo datathey generate in this case the motivational situational and social factorsshaping their productive news use represent a fair amount of the availablepossibilities We get a wide spectrum of factors that are relevant amongst avariety of users Furthermore it allows discerning common patterns that cutacross the variations (Patton 1990) Hence it gives us insight in the factorsshaping the practice of productive news use amongst different relevant userprofiles

The next step is to determine how to select participants for a samplerepresenting a maximum variation This was achieved in two steps First weused the three dimensions shaping online news use identified by Nguyen(2008) orientation towards news new media-mindedness and Internetexperience Nguyen argues that these dimensions to a large extent determinethe way users engage with the news online Our sample thus had to consist ofparticipants with different kinds of profiles on these dimensions in order toincorporate a relevant variation of news users in our sample Eight possibleprofiles were identified (see Table 1)

106 I Picone

We chose to select users on the basis of a questionnaire consisting of 32questions relating to Nguyenrsquos three dimensions Flemish newspaper HetNieuwsblad published the survey on his news site There were 562 persons thatresponded to the questionnaire After cleaning the data 515 were willing toparticipate Their answers were coded in order to give them a score on everyone of the three dimensions Only the respondents scoring extremely highandor low on the three dimensions were selected constituting a shortlist ofapproximately 60 respondents corresponding to one of the eight profilesThirty-eight persons finally agreed to participate in the research (see Table 1)Within this final sample men and women coming from different social-economical backgrounds were distributed relatively evenly amongst theparticipants All were living in Flanders or Brussels and between 20 and 72years old

Whereas this group showed a strong variation on their experience withonline news not all of them were equally acquainted with productive onlinenews features Commenting voting or sharing news via mail etc arepractices that are not that common amongst average news consumers(Horowitz 2006 Osimo 2008 Eurostat 2009 The PEW Research Centre2009) Amongst the 38 participants most had shared a news article via emailsome had voted on a poll or article and few had commented on news sites

Table 1 Cross-tabulation of the different news user profiles according to a maximum variation

analysis (pseudonyms are used age between brackets)

Profile Short-term Long-term

1 Internet experience new media minded andnews-oriented

Gerard (46)Antje (59)Gina (26)Jessy (22)

Jan (45)Lina (28)

2 Internet experience new media minded andlittle news-oriented

Quentin (26) Pieter-Eric (23)Clara (26)

3 Internet experience little new media mindedand news-oriented

Anne-Marie (64)Pierre (46)

Edward (58)Marie (48)

4 Internet experience little new media mindedand little news-oriented

Christianne (50)Koenraad (46)

Anna (32)Alexandra (29)Truus (50)

5 Little Internet experience new media mindedand news-oriented

Francois (39)Kurt (41)Marjanne (58)

Tony (30)Piet (29)

6 Little Internet experience new media mindedand little news-oriented

Juliaan (19)Mark (29)

Pina (35)

7 Little Internet experience little new mediaminded and news-oriented

Anja (46)Robrecht (66)

Annette (55)Danny (63)Jeanne (63)Josef (78)John (38)

8 Little Internet experience little new mediaminded and little news-oriented

Cindy (37)Lukas (41)

Kristien (29)Veronique (33)Stan (35)

Produsage as a form of self-publication 107

Therefore we chose to work with two groups a short-term and a long-termone

The short-term group served as an explorative one in order to generateinformation on the way participants experienced productive news use Thegroup consisted of 18 participants They were questioned through a diary-interview Diaries were used to evaluate practices that could not beinvestigated through observation or intensive contact with the participants(Cohen et al 2006) Diaries allow more than just gathering information butmake participants reflect on their actions and describe them (Bolger et al2003 Jacobs and Van den Broeck 2008) The participants were asked to keeptrack of their media use during one week through a day per day paper diarywith closed and open questions The closed questions concerned the mediaand news sources they used that day They were also asked to fill in a dailyhour per hour schedule of their media-related and news-related activitiesThrough the open questions the participants were encouraged to share anythoughts or experiences concerning their media and news use that wouldseem relevant to them This allowed us to operate a more inductive way ofgenerating ideas One week seemed a relevant period as news habits generallyform a routine throughout the week except during the weekend whereFlemish users take more time for news (Glorieux 2006)

These reflections were then further investigated in the in-depth interviewsfollowing the diary period in order to get a more refined idea of why and howpeople give meaning to the different news sources they use The topic list ofeach interview was based on each participantrsquos personal account gatheredthrough the survey and through the diary The participants were confrontedwith the patterns of use emerging out of their diaries and asked to reflectabout what news and contributing to it means for them Special attention wasgiven to incongruence found within the diary or between the diary and thesurvey data of each participant in order to confront the person with it and digdeeper into these often paradoxical accounts A recurring example is thedifference between the time people estimate they spend online (as answered ina question of the survey) and the time they actually spend on it when loggingtheir own media use through the diaries

This first phase of data collection generated 18 seven-day diaries and 18corresponding in-depth interviews A first analysis took place using theladdering technique (Reynolds and Gutman 1988 Grunert and Grunert 1995Chen et al 2002) This technique aims at uncovering factors and processesunderlying the concrete answers given by participants This allows for moregeneral clusters of factors shaping casual acts of productive news use to beidentified With laddering the analysis already starts during the in-depthinterviews by always digging deeper into the motivational ladder of theparticipants The following example can give an idea of such a motivationalladder When confronted with a situation where a participant replies that he isnot interested to leave a comment online the researcher tries to find out whyThe participant answers it is too time-intensive and therefore does not like itStill digging deeper the researcher finds out contributing takes time because

108 I Picone

the participant finds himself not good at writing In the end not wanting tocontribute is not so much a question of interest but a question of beinginsecure and afraid of being publicly reproved when making a spelling orgrammatical mistake in an online contribution Applying this procedure toother situations different factors initially mentioned by participants seemedto lead up to the same underlying motivations That way broader clusters ofrelevant factors and motivations underlying productive news use as a wholecould be identified giving us the possibility to get an idea of what kind ofpractice productive news use is

The different relevant factors and the lsquolsquoladdersrsquorsquo they form that wereidentified at this point served as a first set of findings but were also used asinput to adjust complement and refine the topics to be further investigatedin the long-term phase Certain aspects seeming more important thanexpected or that emerged from the interviews were incorporated in thesecond phase in order to elicit an as wide as possible range of factors shapingproductive news use

Initially the long-term group consisting of 21 participants was alsoquestioned through a diary-interview following the same procedure as thefirst group They were then asked to use different forms of productive newsuse consecutively for three weeks each and during a nine-month period Asalready mentioned casually produsing news means that one is not active onnews produsage sites on a regular basis or one sticks to a certain form ofprodusage (eg only rating news) This would complicate the identificationof factors underlying productive news use as a whole Therefore theparticipants all had to be acquainted to a certain level with the relevantforms of news contribution

In a news context the main forms of productive news use can be identifiedas retrieving news on demand evaluating news sharing news and comment-ing on it (Picone 2008) The participants were consecutively introduced to thefollowing web sites or applications which altogether encompass all of theseforms

Google Reader an RSS-reader allowing users to personalise rate andshare news selection (on demandratesharing)

Zitabe a Flemish news site allowing users to personalise their home pagewith different widgets (on demandrate)

Nujijnl a Dutch news forum where people share links to news stories andrate and comment on othersrsquo links

Procontrabe a Flemish site where the administrator selects and introducesone news topic a day to evaluate and debate amongst users (ratingcommenting) (now offline)

Nieuwsbe a Flemish news site combining all of the above features

The participants were not introduced to these sites in a lab but in theeveryday setting they usually consult news according to a Living Labmethodology (Pierson et al 2005) We did not literally set up a Living Lab

Produsage as a form of self-publication 109

ie an environment for innovation and development where users are exposedto new ICT solutions in (semi-)realistic contexts (Foslashlstad 2008 p 116) Anexample of such a Living Lab would be the deployment of free wifi in a city ordistrict providing a sample of users with Wifi-enabled smartphones andregister their use of it We merely used a Living Lab-approach (Pierson et al2005) introducing participants to applications through a technology theyalready own The rationale behind it however is similar to that of a LivingLab set up namely to study the adoption of technology in daily situationsrather than in an experimental setting This approach is especially usefulwhen looking for factors that go beyond usability and interface By givingparticipants the opportunity to get acquainted to a certain extent with therelevant features researchers avoid the participantsrsquo accounts to revolvearound practical issues of ease-of-use or troubles understanding thesefeatures

In order to allow the participants to incorporate the different web sites intheir daily routines we let them use the applications for three weeks at leastbefore asking them to comment on it Through short mail questionnaires theywere asked for their first impressions likes and dislikes These answers thenserved again as input for an in-depth interview held once all sites andapplications were introduced During the whole period the researcher couldbe reached by phone or mail in order to give feedback on possible problemsparticipants experienced

To facilitate access to these applications and also to guarantee a certainlevel of privacy the participants were asked to use Gmail-addresses especiallyset up for them by the researchers We used these addresses to register theparticipants beforehand on the various sites and applications so they wouldonly need to login always with the same user name and password Theparticipants were aware of the fact that the researchers knew their passwordand would use it to regularly log into their accounts and monitor their use ofthe application This allowed us especially to monitor which kind ofinformation every participant was most keen on contributing to Further-more these observations served again as a way of detecting incongruencebetween what participants were saying and what they were actually doing

The long-term phase was concluded with a second in-depth interviewwhere the participants were asked about their experiences with the differentproductive features The diary-interview the mail questionnaires and thelogging reports served as input for the topic list of those interviews Thediary-interviews and the concluding interviews combined resulted in 42interviews being coded The same laddering technique was applied in order toelaborate motivational ladders for every participant The Living Lab-approach putting productive news use as a situated action at the centreallowed us to also investigate situational and social factors First all interviewrecords were coded according to the different motivational situational andsocial factors identified in the interviews These were clustered according tocommon underlying motivations forming the next rung of the ladder Theserungs were clustered in turn in order to find a higher rung We then compared

110 I Picone

the individual ladders of the 21 participants in order to look for recurringelements and common patterns Because of the maximum variation samplethis allowed us to come to a lsquolsquoladder of laddersrsquorsquo representing a fair amount ofpossible meanings and motivations for productive news use We got an idea ofwhat produsage means to users and how they shape it as a social practicerather than as a production process

It is not the scope of this article to give a detailed overview of all theidentified factors and personal ladders but rather to look at the underlyingmotivational clusters and what they tell us on the practice of productive newsuse In others words we will not present the bottom rungs of the motivationaland situational ladders for productive news use but rather the top ones Thispermits us to come to more theoretical propositions about productive newsuse through the principle of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967)Concretely we look for theoretical propositions to emerge from empiricalanalysis We did not start with a preconceived theory that needs to be provenbut rather with a general area of study that needs elaboration (Razavi andIverson 2007) In this study this area is formed by Brunsrsquos insights on newsprodusage

32 Findings

A first important element emerging from the data analysis is that dedicationpassion and perseverance what Bruns sees at the centre of produsage as aPro-Am activity are reflected in the participantsrsquo answers Contributingonline even simply voting on a news story by clicking on a checkbox next toit requires a certain effort Certain participants felt like all these lsquolsquonewfeaturesrsquorsquo were simply too lsquolsquodemandingrsquorsquo However our participants beingcasual produsers these emotions seem too strong to express their engage-ment Rather we prefer to speak of a form of investment needed in order tocontribute to the news The motivational situational and social factorsidentified through the analysis of the data and presented below can beunderstood as elements inciting or withholding users to deliver the invest-ment productive news use necessarily requires We now go through the threetop lsquolsquorungsrsquorsquo of the motivational ladder of productive news use amongstcasual news produsers sets of factors are grouped into clusters that are inturn grouped into three broad dimensions

We identified a first set of factors about peoplersquos interest in a newsstory Participants seem to be keener on participating when the news itemrevolves on something that they are particularly interested in To a certainextent this corresponds to factors of newsworthiness as those of Galtungand Ruge (1965 Harcup and OrsquoNeil 2001) A second set of factors couldbe labelled as the vicinityspiritually and geographicallyto the newsitem Events involving places persons or themes someone is close to incitecontributions Participants were less keen on contributing to lsquolsquodistantrsquorsquostories unless they generated strong emotions both positive and negativeones a third set

Produsage as a form of self-publication 111

All these factors relate to the connection people have with the news storyThe stronger it is in terms of interest vicinity or emotion the more likelypeople seemed to engage with it

A fourth set of factors is more related to the mistakes that other users makewhen commenting on a news topic or more generally on the news siteParticipants seem sensitive to mistakes and tend to correct them This canalso bear on what someone can perceive as a mistake of judgement by othersin voting an article onto the most valued list or filling in an online poll Notonly the substance of lsquolsquonewsrsquorsquo generated by others also the general tenor ofreactions affects contribution which forms a fifth set of factors When othercontributors seem open to input and people feel like others may be interestedin what they have to say they are more likely to produse Then again ifas isthe case on different Flemish news sites (Picone and Depreeuw 2009)theother contributions look rather hostile or a harsh or depreciatory discussionis emerging in the comment section many participants seemed ratherreluctant to contribute

These sets of factors can be clustered as relating to the reactions of othersNot only news items but also other usersrsquo comments on the news can shapeusersrsquo willingness to contribute

These clusters all relate to the news content the actual story and the waypeople are relating to it They can be clustered in a content-related dimension

A sixth set of factors relates to the knowledge someone has about a certaintopic To what extent is the person not perforce an expert but at least abreastof the news topic discussed Professional or scholarly expertise makes it easierfor someone to contribute because it reduces the odds of being confrontedwith other users online who might point towards mistakes in onersquoscontribution A seventh set of factors also relate to what users know aboutthe news topic but more in terms of lsquolsquohands-onrsquorsquo expertise Even peopleaccidentally witnessing an event gain temporary credibility as a first-handwitness However not always do users need a thick understanding of the newstopic in order to have their say about it It does make it easier to contributebut users can be so amazed or shocked by a story that they want to expresstheir feelings or opinion about it This can be grouped in an eighth set offactors as people simply having something to say

All these sets can in turn be clustered as shaping usersrsquo orientation towardsself-expression

A ninth set of factors relates to people being lsquolsquoin the mood for produsagersquorsquoThe Living Lab-approach allowed us to take into account situationalelements During the study it became clear that users do not always feellike contributing Especially when online news is used between times or toquickly catch up with the news participants seemed not willing to reactextensively on it Also work stress domestic tasks and other time-consumingactivities shape a userrsquos mood for produsage Similar results are found in aDutch study on personalised news (Bierhoff and Eyck 2009) where theoutcome suggests that the level of personalisation in news applications shouldbe adaptable to the mood of users in order to truly obtain an added value

112 I Picone

Other participants show a more general pro or contra attitude towards newsprodusage that is less subject to mood swings They simply do not want topublicly react on news stories or comments made by others or conversely arevery keen on voicing their opinion It seems a matter of principle be it becausethey do not see the added value because they do not feel like spamming theInternet or even because they estimate it impolite to carp on others On a moregeneral level this seemed to relate to the fact of not being used to being askedto voice opinions online a 10th set of factors This can be linked to morestructural cultural or generational factors eg the Flemish catholic inspiredculture to lsquolsquothink twice before you speakrsquorsquo An interesting element here is thatwithholding participants to contribute is not so much the fact of having anopinion but of saying it out loud lsquolsquoWho am I to tell what others need tothinkrsquorsquo was a rhetorical question heard at different occasions amongst theparticipants Different participants were keen on having an opinion but felt asif they would be too intrusive when sharing it with strangers online

These sets of factors could form a cluster termed lsquolsquoattitude and moodrsquorsquorespectively pointing towards a more structural and situational affectiontowards the act of produsing news

An 11th set of factors refers to usersrsquo skills People with poor writing skillsmay be reluctant to contribute especially when the level of other contribu-tions is rather high Besides writing skills also narrative and argumentativeskills or the perceived lack of it were recurrent thresholds for contributingFurthermore different participants at this point applied the element ofmisjudgement mentioned before on their own ability being afraid of nothaving enough background to make an appropriate comment or judgementThis way a perceived lack of skills is not only a threshold to comment butalso to vote or to mark news as well This is related to a 12th set of factors Asalready mentioned people may be afraid of reactions by others on theircontribution which might withhold them from participating Here we see thelink with the potential public of an act of productive news use People thinkabout what others are likely to think about their contribution It isremarkable to note that various participants felt much more comfortablesharing this kind of information with close friends than with strangers onlineIt seemed that the more they were able to anticipate the reactions of othersthe more they were keen on contributing Again not so much what they hadto say (or produce) but who might hear it and how they would react played arole at that moment

These two sets of factors can be clustered under the idea of self-confidenceas they refer to the degree to which a user is confident voicing his opinion

All these factors relate to the personal dispositions of the user hisherskills attitude mood and background or in general a more personal dimen-sion and how this shapes hisher decision to engage with the news or not

A 12th set of factors relates to the idea of the potential public of a userrsquoscontribution Being able to assess onersquos potential public and how they willreact to onersquos contribution played an important role when consideringwhether or not to share mark or comment news stories This is what makes

Produsage as a form of self-publication 113

sharing news with friends via Facebook or mail and certainly face to facemore accessible than putting it online where virtually everybody can see it itis easier to assess whether friends will like it than it is to estimate whether asignificant part of a news sitersquos audience will appreciate it

These factors can be clustered under the term potential public In generalthe more one is able to assess what hisher potential public may like the morelikely heshe is to contribute

Building on the idea of the potential public we found a 13th set of factorsrevolving around the fact that various participants expected their contribu-tion one way or another to form an added value for the people who wouldread it (eg when they could advise others on a certain topic) This can belinked to Thorsonrsquos (2008) research on the most-emailed article list on theNew York Times web site The author concludes that news stories withpractical tips are more likely to be emailed to others The more usefulinformation is the more likely the potential public of the information is toappreciate it Such contributions however were more likely to be shared onlifestyle sections than on the hard news sections A similar set of factors wasfound concerning hard news Users then did not want to help others butmake them aware of certain aspects they think are important another angleto a story elements that need nuance the existence of other stakeholders withdifferent views and so on all with the intention to broaden other usersrsquohorizon Voting for certain articles in order for them to reach the most votedsection is a good example of this A 15th set of factors can be viewed as goingeven a step further by not only raising awareness for certain issues butgaining interest from other users by interacting through comment sections orlinking to other sites concerning the issue

All these sets can be clustered as a form of altruism where users want toshow commitment to the broader community they belong to

A final set of factors could be named lsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo Especially on news sitescomment sections tend to take the form of a wailing wall everyone can postopinions contributions and complaints but usually nothing happens with itFor many participants the fact that their contribution would not be takeninto account or would not have any impact seemed to be a major thresholdto participate Why exert one if it is a lost call anyway

These clusters in turn seem to revolve around a social dimension They allcome forth out of a social reflex users have with their potential public orsociety as a whole

321 Conclusion understanding produsage as self-publication The 16 different setsof factors the eight clusters they are organised in and the three overarchingdimensions represent a relevant set of motivational situational and socialfactors shaping the practice of productive news use (Q2) These dimensionsrelating to casual produsage could be pursued further to structuralprodusage as visualised in Figure 1 The passion and dedication of Pro-Ams could be considered as a more intense connection or affection towardsthe idea of information production lsquolsquothinking by writingrsquorsquo lsquolsquoto networkrsquorsquo or

114 I Picone

lsquolsquoto improve writing skillsrsquorsquo could be seen as elements of self-expression orself-development and the impending loss of values driving citizen journalistscould be regarded as a strong social reflex towards a potential public thatneeds to be better informed (see Figure 1)

How can these different sets of factors the clusters they are grouped in andthe dimensions they are categorised in now shed light on produsage as asocial practice from a user perspective more precisely the perspective ofcasual news produsers

A first element that becomes clear through this research is that knowledgeand skills do play an important role to engage with the news also amongstcasual produsers However they are not the only factors relating to the userrsquosindividual dispositions Also self-expression and self-confidence are relevantaspects Interesting is that these elements are interpreted in relation to thepotential public of a userrsquos contribution It is not so much the difficulty ofwriting a comment that holds users back from voting sharing or reacting toa news story but other usersrsquo response to it Users do not express themselvesby producing an opinion but by publicising it

Figure 1 Motivational situational and social factors shaping productive news use

Produsage as a form of self-publication 115

A second interesting element is the identification of situational factors thatdo not only relate to the availability of certain technological artefacts at agiven moment in time but also to the mood and attitude of users in a certaincontext Also the attitude of users towards productive news use seems to acertain extent rooted in cultural values Cultural factors play an importantrole in the way people use news (Vandenbrande 2002 Gasher 2007) and itseems this is also applicable to the productive use of it But remarkable is thata prudent attitude towards productive news use does not in the first placerefer to the articulation of opinions on news stories but to enforcing onersquosown opinion to others Again onersquos concern seems to lie with the potentialpublic and how this public will perceive onersquos contribution and consequentlyoneself

A third important outcome is precisely the emerging importance of usersrsquopotential public when contributing Also the factors lsquolsquoaltruismrsquorsquo andlsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo show that casual produsers attach great importance to the factthat their contribution needs to make a difference In many occasions if theywould have the impression their contribution is not adding anything to thedebate is not reaching anybody or is not helpful or meaningful to others theyask themselves why it would be worth the investment The idea of leveragetakes this a step further referring to the intention of actually having animpact on the issues at stake in society through contributions

To sum up casual produsers seem to treat other users as an audience ofwhich they do not know the reach This potential public plays an importantrole as produsers adapt their contributions to the perceived likes and needs ofit The idea of users reflecting on the lsquolsquoimpactrsquorsquo of their contribution on theirpotential public can be denominated a social reflex This is more than justaltruism It is a reflection on how others are going to perceive the publicationof a personal expression An interesting link is found between this way ofcommunicating online and the notion of performance as defined by Goffman1959 Burnett and Marshall 2003 and Robinson 2007 Performance is everyactivity that takes place during a period of exhibition to a public and that isadapted to the common context of interaction in order to be understood bythat public The performance not only consists of what a person exhibits andhow but also of hisher profile biography the conversation context and howthey both match (Robinson 2007)

Subsequently the user-driven production of information online could beunderstood as a form of self-performance or more suitably self-publicationWe would argue that from a user perspective produsage is not so much aboutthe production of information but rather about the self-publication ofinformation What makes a blog unique is not the fact that users areproducing a diary it is the fact that they can publish it to a potential public ofmillions The true potential of user-generated content lies in the fact that thishappens publicly that this process takes the form of a public performancethat everyone can witness and react to In other words when looking atproductive news use the question is not so much why people do or do notwant to produce information but rather if they want to publicise themselves

116 I Picone

Is the collaborative user-driven production of information as intended byBruns something different from the personal experience of self-publication ofinformation We would argue that they are the both sides of the same pictureWhile Bruns looks at the phenomenon of user-generated content from apoliticaleconomic perspective (from production to produsage) approachingit as a form of self-publication enables us to treat it as a user-experience as asituated social practice (from usage to produsage) We believe it is importantif we want to fully grasp this phenomenon to apply both perspectivesProdusage should not be solely understood as an alternative model for theproduction of information (Bruns 2008) but also as an alternative way ofusing information

Talking about self-publication gives us the opportunity to take intoaccount the stories that do not get to be collectively engaged upon thosecontributions people do not want others to further evaluate and completethose contributions that are not fit for hive mind treatment or the verydistributed acts of produsage that take place in the loosest communitieswhere information is merely being shared without being evaluated and soon The idea of self-publication helps us to understand why certain users arenot necessarily willing to contribute to a shared effort of informationproduction even though they have the skills and knowledge to do so Inother words even if it would be easy and not time consuming why wouldthey not contribute Because they experience it as self-publication and theydo not want or are not comfortable engaging in this practice

Produsage in other words should not only be seen as an alternative way ofproducing information but also as an alternative complementary way ofusing it as the fluid ad hoc adoption of a lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo news logic amongstregular news user shows This kind of distributed casual contribution withindecentralised communities such as news sites could be considered casualprodusage When these efforts take a more structural form the form of acollective hive mind driven production of information we could speak ofstructural produsage as intended by Bruns Self-publication as a lsquolsquoprodu-siversquorsquo logic is finding its way into the daily news use of people and in theirmedia use in general As such it should be a point of interest for scientistsresearching (news) produsage too This lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo logic amongst news usersis not replacing the mere use of traditional news it is complementing itHowever looking at news use without taking the produsive logic into accountwould mean to overlook a great deal of ways in which people are using news

The adaptations from a user-oriented perspective on Brunsrsquos theoryproposed in this paper should not be seen as solely a theoretical reflectionIn reality they are the fruit of an iterative process where findings emergingfrom the data analysis are constantly related to theory in the course of thequalitative study and subsequently they are grounded in practice Still theyare open to discussion It could be a valuable argument not to broadenprodusage as to include casual random non-collective contributions frommainly consuming users Maybe produsage should point only towards thecollective user-driven production of information in order to preserve the link

Produsage as a form of self-publication 117

with the specificity of this kind of process excluding other forms of user-generated content From a production point of view this is arguable Whenlooking at the impact of this form of production it is clear that the effect isessentially visible when singular users combine their engagement Not somuch this or that blog makes the blogosphere influential but specifically thenetworked effect that one message can have when it is endorsed by thousandsof bloggers

Still the practice of self-publication what we identified as the nature ofprodusage as a user experience is an important social evolution that cannotbe neglected We believe produsage is a strong conceptualisation that has thepotential to become an important framework to understand the evolutionsunderlying a large array of currently emerging practices and innovations in aworld not necessarily without borders but with different boundaries andmore cross-boundary work (Bockszkowski 2004) By not merely looking atprodusage as a practice where production outweighs consumption but also asa practice where usage can outweigh production and even more as acontinuum between both dimensions we believe we could come to a more in-depth holistic understanding of this process With this article we hope tohave given a valuable first impetus in that direction

Acknowledgements

This research took place within the framework of the FLEET (Flemish E-publishing Trends

project funded by the Flemish Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) This

interdisciplinary research project aims at generating fundamental scientific knowledge about

the e-publishing sector in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium More information and

research outcomes can be found at wwwfleetprojectbe

References

M Ames and M Naaman lsquolsquoWhy we tag Motivations for annotation in mobile and online mediarsquorsquo Paper

presented at the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 28 April3 May 2007 San

Jose California

JA Anderson lsquolsquoThe pragmatics of audience in research and theoryrsquorsquo in The Audience and its Landscape

J Hay L Grossberg and E Wartella (Eds) Oxford Westview Press pp 7593 1996

J Bierhoff and A Eyck lsquolsquoDesigning the digital dailyrsquorsquo Paper presented at the International Conference

New Media amp Information Convergences amp Divergences 69 May 2009 Athens

N Bolger A Davis and E Rafaeli lsquolsquoDiary Methods capturing life as it is livedrsquorsquo Annual Review of

Psychology 54 pp 579616 2003

PJ Boczkowski Digitizing the News Innovation in Online Newspapers Cambridge MIT Press 2004

DM Boyd Taken Out of Context American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics [unpublished doctoral

thesis] University of California 2008

A Bruns Blogs Wikipedia Second Life and Beyond From Production to Produsage New York Peter

Lang 2008

A Bruns lsquolsquoProdusage Towards a broader framework for user-led content creationrsquorsquo Proceedings of the

2007 Conference on Creativity and Cognition New York ACM Press pp 99106 2007a

A Bruns lsquolsquoThe future is user-led The path towards widespread Produsagersquorsquo Paper presented at the

PerthDAC Conference Perth 1518 September 2007b Western Australia

A Bruns lsquolsquoTowards produsage Futures for user-led content productionrsquorsquo Paper presented at the Cultural

Attitudes towards Communication and Technology Conference 28 June1 July 2006 Tartu Estonia

118 I Picone

Brunsrsquos analysis of the fading boundaries between users and producers inthe news sector offers an in-depth understanding of the collective user-driveninformation production process which he calls produsage and its impact ontraditional professional forms of news production However his work offersmuch less insights on the in situ usage of produsage-enabling technologiesLittle is known about produsage as a situated action (Suchman 1987)undertaken by news users about how and why an average news user wouldturn into a news produser The body of research of the last decade offers agood idea of the number of news produsers generally close to the 110100ratio of creators synthesisers and consumersevery creator being asynthesiser and in turn being a consumer of informationidentified byHorowitz (2006 see also Osimo 2008 The PEW Research Centre 2009)even though this balance is evolving Little is known however about this useractivity as a social practice embedded into usersrsquo everyday activities or inother words as an experience seen through the eyes of the news produserhimself A considerable amount of studies have been done on the motivationsof people to contribute to the news or user generated content in general(Schiano et al 2004 Nardi et al 2004a 2004b Li 2007 Van Dijck 2009) Thisgives an idea of what motivates users to produse However these studies tendto focus mainly on the individual motivations of produsers and less onsituational and social factors that might shape productive news useFurthermore these studies seem to revolve around the expert users or thetech-savvy hobbyist that puts a fair amount of his time into his produsingactivities Less is known about the more casual (news) produser

In order to grasp the way average news users contribute to the news in theirdaily use of it our article describes the results of a long-term qualitativestudy on online productive news use amongst average news users This studywants to shed light on news produsage as a situated action from a userperspective In addition through a process of grounded theory work theresults of this study serve as an empirical foundation for the adjustments toBrunsrsquos conceptual framework we propose This article concludes bysuggesting self-publication as a way of understanding produsage as experi-enced by (average) news users In closing we address the desirability of theproposed framework as a user-oriented supplementation of the theory ofprodusage developed by Bruns

At this point we would already like to stress that it is not our intention to offera user-oriented analysis as opposed to Brunsrsquos process-oriented analysis ofprodusage but rather as a complement to it To better understand how usersexperience produsage is we believe to better understand its impact on society aswell as the boundaries the domestication of produsage may encounter

2 Conceptualising news produsage from a user perspective

21 From usage to produsage

At first sight produsage undoubtedly bears the most resemblance to the ideaof the prosumer developed by futurologist Alvin Toffler (1980) in his book

100 I Picone

The Third Wave Whereas Toffler however develops his idea around theproduction of goods Bruns starts from the production of information andtakes into account the very specific nature of (digital) information Twoelements in Brunsrsquos conceptualisation of produsage are especially appealingfrom a social science user-oriented perspective

First by speaking of produsage instead of prosumption Bruns (2005)avoids the commercial connotation of consumerism Indeed a lot of theseprodusage activities do not thrive on a commercial logic Of courseprodusage takes place in an information market that is still to a high degreedominated by large media conglomerates Still it is an amateur-driven non-profit way of producing information

Second Bruns (2005) focuses on the productive engagement of users andnot so much on product customisation like Toffler does When it comes toonline information and communication the active engagement of users withinformation by way of digital media has been approached mainly through theconcept of interactivity In most cases user interactivity is interpreted asselectivity or control over information sources and over interaction withothers (Lievrouw and Livingstone 2006) which could be considered ascustomisation of information Interactivity is rarely analysed as a phenom-enon of mass communication but rather as an element of personalcommunication (Bucy 2004) As Bruns (2005) points out what is happeningnow with the amateur production of information is challenging traditionalways of information production rather than of personal communication Byfocussing on the production and distribution of information Brunsintroduces a concept that is suited for the analysis of user-driven informationproduction online

However in the work of Bruns the experience that is produsage to a largeextent at least from a socio-theoretical point of view remains a black box(Quere 1989 Punie 1997) we have an idea of its impact on other actors insociety but not so much of the internal circuits the produsers themselves andhow they experience the ability to produse information within their dailymedia use This is also reflected in the role of the produser Thus far theproduser rather resembles an imaginary produser by analogy with Hartleyrsquos(1987) imaginary audience a theoretically imagined construct in the mind ofthe author Anderson (1996) speaks of the formal audience as conceived inthe discourse of academic researchers and professionals and the analyticalaudience as based on user research

Specific empirical research on usersrsquo experience of produsage is lackingDifferent studies throw light on certain aspects or practices for example onblogging on sharing on tagging (Ames and Naaman 2007) However thesedifferent practices are rarely linked one to another in order to grasp thecommon dynamics underlying all these forms of user-generated contentFrom a user perspective this is exactly the strength of the theory of produsagenamely to point to the process of productive media use underlying differentmedia forms and applications But in order to fully exploit this potential it isnecessary to conceptualise produsage as a user experience or social practice

Produsage as a form of self-publication 101

and empirically support this Therefore while Brunsrsquos theory explains thedynamic from production to produsage we would like to explore the dynamicfrom usage to produsage Our focus lies on the shift from traditional forms ofnews consumption to the productive use of information

Bruns (2008) does pay attention to this dynamic to a certain extent Heshows that theoretical models making the distinction between producersdistributors and consumers are no longer tenable for the analysis ofinformation goods and services Indeed when looking at news services todaytreating users as merely the consumers of information would cause us tooverlook a great deal of user practices But how are these productive practicesshaped And in relation to news how must we understand the productiveinvolvement of users in their news use

When asking these questions however different elements of Brunsrsquosconceptual framework seem difficult Generally speaking he employs amacro-perspective His focus is not on the way produsers contribute but moreon the networked distributed and decentralised collective outcome that isthe result of it (Bruns 2008) More precisely Bruns conceptualises produsageas user-driven production of information rather than as a productive way ofusing information and he defines produsage to a large extent as a collectiveactivity excluding more individual ways of information production In orderto apply Brunsrsquos theory of produsage to user research these issues have to beaddressed

22 The need to refine produsage for user-oriented studies

First as Bruns is especially interested in the ways in which users are producinginformation he pays less attention to how people are using it We could arguethat Brunsrsquos concerns lie with user-driven information production whereas wewould like to investigate production-driven information usage Bruns does notignore this perspective as his reflections on produsers as Professional Amateurs(Pro-Ams) show He describes produsers as Pro-Ams as conceptualised byLeadbeater and Miller (2004) They act as volunteers who invest time andenergy in the pursuit of their engagement Pro-Am activities demand dedica-tion passion and perseverance and Pro-Ams are confronted with fears risksopportunities and setbacks Nevertheless this investment gives them culturalcapital knowledge and appreciation by others From a user-oriented researchperspective it would be interesting however to dig deeper into these fears risksopportunities and setbacks and their underlying dynamics Two elements inparticular deserve our attention when is a user a Pro-Am and which factorsshape these fears and opportunities

By presenting produsage communities as ad hoc meritocracies based onfluid and equipotential participation Bruns acknowledges the fact that notevery member of a produsage community is a produser at all times and somemembers rather casually contribute when their specific skills allow them to(Bruns 2008) JD Lasica (Hutchinson et al 2003) relates this to news Whenlooking at user-generated news content he not only sees citizen journalism

102 I Picone

and news blogs as important actors of change He also speaks of lsquolsquorandomacts of journalismrsquorsquo to refer to news content generated by people who do notpursue amateur journalism but who happen to witness the news live orhappen to have a piece of information they think is worth sharing WhenBruns refers to Lasicarsquos random acts of journalism however he does so topoint out how collective collaborative processes of citizen journalismengender ad hoc communities of governance rather than to elaborate onthis casual form of produsage

Bruns considers the specific knowledge and skills somebody has concern-ing a certain topic as important elements shaping produsage These arecertainly important factors but surely not the sole ones explaining produsageIn their research on communities of interest Nonnecke et al (2006) find that25 of the lurkers among their participants ie users being in the communitywithout contributingor produsing for that matterhave something to sayand 13 are actually willing to contribute In other words they have ideas ona certain topic and want to contribute but still they decide not to do so Whatis withholding them Other factors are likely to play a role when users engagein random acts of journalism Furthermore we know little about how thesemotivations interact amongst each other but also with situational factors Ifprodusage can be an ad hoc activity the way in which it is embedded in thedaily routines of users or situational factors like mood stress time pressureplace and so on must also be taken into account All these elements help toclarify what the practice of produsage means for those users undertaking it

In order to point out the difference between casual contributions to ratherdistributed and decentralised communities of produsage (where usageoutweighs production) and contribution to communities of produsagestructured around the collective production of information by hive minds(where production outweighs usage) we could speak about casual respec-tively structural produsage Applied to news produsage examples of casualnews produsage would be to leave a reaction in the comment section of anonline article to share a news fact with friends or to write an email to theeditor Structural produsage would then be contributing regularly to a citizenjournalism news site reporting news stories on a blog or being a frequenterin a news community like Diggcom

Second Bruns (2008) generally speaks of produsers in terms of acommunity He refers to JC Herzrsquo hive minds or Von Hippelrsquos (2005)information communities as the driver of produsage Produsage is a collectiveeffort Bruns (2008 p 16) states about his book lsquolsquofundamentally then [it] isabout a variety of such hive minds such information communities and theirpatterns and protocols of interaction and collaboration [ ]rsquorsquo Whenanalysing news produsage Bruns describes the open news story developmentwithin citizen journalism produser communities It starts with users having anitch to scratch subsequently initiating a story sharing it with the communityand letting the community take it from there evaluating discussing andadding depth to the story for it to become a collective and qualitative piece ofwork (Bruns 2008)

Produsage as a form of self-publication 103

However this process is the ideal type A contribution by users does notnecessarily follow this path Comment sections of news eg often take theform of a rather chaotic listing of different opinions and ramblings notnecessarily building up one on another and rarely resulting in a newimproved story being further prodused in the blogosphere For everysuccessful collectively produced act of citizen journalism a myriad ofunsuccessful postings seem to be possible especially on sites where mainlycasual produsage takes place like news sites Would this mean that a user isprodusing when hisher story is being engaged on but is not when this is notthe case

One could argue whether the collective engagement on a casual produserrsquoscontribution is a necessary condition to speak of produsage When usersdecide to react to a news story or post a story on their blog do they expectthis to be further processed by the community Brunsrsquos ideas on produsageremain rather vague on this aspect Bruns certainly sees the blogosphere as acommunity of produsage but it is less clear if he considers the individual actof blogging as a way of produsing information It is worth looking at whatother studies tell about how users perceive this Based on their research onbloggersrsquo motivations to post stories Nardi et al (2004a) consider blogs as abroadcast medium of little interactivity suggesting that bloggers wantinteraction with their public but equally want to remain in control of whatothers do with their writings Asked on what basis bloggers see their blog assuccessful 75 of American bloggers point to personal satisfaction whereasonly 58 and 53 say the amount of comments respectively the number ofdaily visitors matters the most (Technorati 2008)

If we consider this individual form of user-generated content production asprodusage here too knowledge and skills do not seem to be the only reasonsfor individual users to contribute or not Synthesising different studies onblogger motivations the following main motivations can be identified (1) todocument onersquos life (and inform others about it) (2) share comments andopinions (to influence others) (3) to express onersquos self or onersquos emotions(blogging like a catharsis) (4) thinking by writing (5) socialise or expand ormaintain onersquos network (to receive feedback from others) (6) improve writingskills and (7) self-documentation (compile useful information online) Whenlooking at news bloggers or citizen journalists an important factor is theexperience of an impending loss of journalistic values Citizen journalists actbecause they believe mainstream journalists no longer meet the necessarystandards of speed content and quality (Bruns 2005 Ryfe and Mensing2007)

This broad categorisation of possible personal motivations to contribute tothe blogosphere already gives an indication of the different meanings thatusers can give to the practices of putting information online Howeverdifferent studies on citizen journalism look at bloggers or other lsquolsquoexpertcontributorsrsquorsquo (see eg Domingo et al 2007 Paulussen et al 2007 Deuze2008) Research on news produsage seems to focus mainly on these lead usersof news participation When looking at news bloggers or citizen journalists

104 I Picone

participants often are structural produsers blogging or reporting on a regularbasis through their own or collective news outlets The random acts ofjournalism Lasica speaks of are less represented Therefore it is not onlyinteresting to look at news produsage from a more personal perspective butalso to those users only casually engaging in productive news use They donot own their own news blog but rather contribute by voting on a news storyby sending an article to certain friends via email or by commenting on newssites or fora

The issues addressed here can be visualised on two dimensions usageproduction and individualcollective Whereas Bruns elaborates more on thecollective production of information this article would like to address thepersonal productive use of information more specifically regarding newsamongst regular news users More precisely the following research question isput forward

Q1 How do casual news produsers experience contributing to the news

This research question demands for a more qualitative approach to thematter The scope is not so much to quantify usersrsquo productive use of news(see Eurostat 2009 The Pew Research Centre 2009) but to understand whatthese activities mean to them We are interested in understanding productivenews use as a user experience embedded in an everyday context What does itconsist of in the mind of the user How do people fit it into their media useand other daily pursuits In order to answer these questions we need notonly to take into account motivational aspects but also situational andbroader social factors This brings us to the second research question

Q2 What motivational situational and social factors shape the userexperience of casual news produsers

It is important to note that we are chiefly interested in getting insights intoa practice not so much into the users themselves They form the entry pointsthrough which we can gather data on that practice (Boyd 2008) Furthermorewe hope insights into productive news use as a situated social practiceembedded in daily routines can help us evaluate if Brunsrsquos theory of produsageis found applicable to personal and casual productive use of information onthe one hand and on user-oriented research on the other hand

3 Online casual news produsage a semi-experimental digital ethnography based on a

Living Lab-approach

31 Methodology

In finding the right methodology to answer these questions different issueshad to be tackled

A first concern appeared inherent to the target group of our study The userresearch within the Fleet-project revolves around those aspects of user

Produsage as a form of self-publication 105

contribution that can be understood as individual casual productive usageSeen the rather personal nature of online news use the functionalitiescommonly offered on news sites like voting sharing and commenting form agood illustration of functionalities that are not aimed at creating a commonoutput but rather offer a platform for users to post their personal opinionsbeliefs or ramblings for others to read (or not) Central are not the bloggerscitizen journalists or other expert users of participative media but onlinenews users that occasionally cast a vote share an article or post a commenton a news site

Casual news produsers by definition only casually produse news Thismakes it difficult to pinpoint the moments where people engage in randomacts of journalism Through digital ethnography (Masten and Powman 2003Murthy 2008) it is possible to observe different news sites and to addressusers This allows researchers to get insight in specific acts of productive newsbut not in the underlying relations Therefore one would need to followcertain users through different activities in order to question them on allaspects Indeed as we mentioned the strength of the idea of produsage is thatit offers a way of understanding the dynamics underlying these different actsThis means observation is not sufficient Participants are needed that can befollowed during a certain time over different times situations and platformsboth online and offline In-depth interviews are proposed in order to dig intofactors emerging and in order to discover patters underlying different formsof productive news use

Therefore we chose to select participants according to maximum variationsampling a form of purposeful sampling aimed at getting a strongheterogeneity within a sample on the dimensions of interest (List 2004Polkinghorne 2005) This variation can be achieved on the level ofparticipantsrsquo experience with the researched practice (phenomenologicalsampling) or in their personal characteristics The rationale behind suchsampling is that through a strong variation in the sample of participantsrsquo datathey generate in this case the motivational situational and social factorsshaping their productive news use represent a fair amount of the availablepossibilities We get a wide spectrum of factors that are relevant amongst avariety of users Furthermore it allows discerning common patterns that cutacross the variations (Patton 1990) Hence it gives us insight in the factorsshaping the practice of productive news use amongst different relevant userprofiles

The next step is to determine how to select participants for a samplerepresenting a maximum variation This was achieved in two steps First weused the three dimensions shaping online news use identified by Nguyen(2008) orientation towards news new media-mindedness and Internetexperience Nguyen argues that these dimensions to a large extent determinethe way users engage with the news online Our sample thus had to consist ofparticipants with different kinds of profiles on these dimensions in order toincorporate a relevant variation of news users in our sample Eight possibleprofiles were identified (see Table 1)

106 I Picone

We chose to select users on the basis of a questionnaire consisting of 32questions relating to Nguyenrsquos three dimensions Flemish newspaper HetNieuwsblad published the survey on his news site There were 562 persons thatresponded to the questionnaire After cleaning the data 515 were willing toparticipate Their answers were coded in order to give them a score on everyone of the three dimensions Only the respondents scoring extremely highandor low on the three dimensions were selected constituting a shortlist ofapproximately 60 respondents corresponding to one of the eight profilesThirty-eight persons finally agreed to participate in the research (see Table 1)Within this final sample men and women coming from different social-economical backgrounds were distributed relatively evenly amongst theparticipants All were living in Flanders or Brussels and between 20 and 72years old

Whereas this group showed a strong variation on their experience withonline news not all of them were equally acquainted with productive onlinenews features Commenting voting or sharing news via mail etc arepractices that are not that common amongst average news consumers(Horowitz 2006 Osimo 2008 Eurostat 2009 The PEW Research Centre2009) Amongst the 38 participants most had shared a news article via emailsome had voted on a poll or article and few had commented on news sites

Table 1 Cross-tabulation of the different news user profiles according to a maximum variation

analysis (pseudonyms are used age between brackets)

Profile Short-term Long-term

1 Internet experience new media minded andnews-oriented

Gerard (46)Antje (59)Gina (26)Jessy (22)

Jan (45)Lina (28)

2 Internet experience new media minded andlittle news-oriented

Quentin (26) Pieter-Eric (23)Clara (26)

3 Internet experience little new media mindedand news-oriented

Anne-Marie (64)Pierre (46)

Edward (58)Marie (48)

4 Internet experience little new media mindedand little news-oriented

Christianne (50)Koenraad (46)

Anna (32)Alexandra (29)Truus (50)

5 Little Internet experience new media mindedand news-oriented

Francois (39)Kurt (41)Marjanne (58)

Tony (30)Piet (29)

6 Little Internet experience new media mindedand little news-oriented

Juliaan (19)Mark (29)

Pina (35)

7 Little Internet experience little new mediaminded and news-oriented

Anja (46)Robrecht (66)

Annette (55)Danny (63)Jeanne (63)Josef (78)John (38)

8 Little Internet experience little new mediaminded and little news-oriented

Cindy (37)Lukas (41)

Kristien (29)Veronique (33)Stan (35)

Produsage as a form of self-publication 107

Therefore we chose to work with two groups a short-term and a long-termone

The short-term group served as an explorative one in order to generateinformation on the way participants experienced productive news use Thegroup consisted of 18 participants They were questioned through a diary-interview Diaries were used to evaluate practices that could not beinvestigated through observation or intensive contact with the participants(Cohen et al 2006) Diaries allow more than just gathering information butmake participants reflect on their actions and describe them (Bolger et al2003 Jacobs and Van den Broeck 2008) The participants were asked to keeptrack of their media use during one week through a day per day paper diarywith closed and open questions The closed questions concerned the mediaand news sources they used that day They were also asked to fill in a dailyhour per hour schedule of their media-related and news-related activitiesThrough the open questions the participants were encouraged to share anythoughts or experiences concerning their media and news use that wouldseem relevant to them This allowed us to operate a more inductive way ofgenerating ideas One week seemed a relevant period as news habits generallyform a routine throughout the week except during the weekend whereFlemish users take more time for news (Glorieux 2006)

These reflections were then further investigated in the in-depth interviewsfollowing the diary period in order to get a more refined idea of why and howpeople give meaning to the different news sources they use The topic list ofeach interview was based on each participantrsquos personal account gatheredthrough the survey and through the diary The participants were confrontedwith the patterns of use emerging out of their diaries and asked to reflectabout what news and contributing to it means for them Special attention wasgiven to incongruence found within the diary or between the diary and thesurvey data of each participant in order to confront the person with it and digdeeper into these often paradoxical accounts A recurring example is thedifference between the time people estimate they spend online (as answered ina question of the survey) and the time they actually spend on it when loggingtheir own media use through the diaries

This first phase of data collection generated 18 seven-day diaries and 18corresponding in-depth interviews A first analysis took place using theladdering technique (Reynolds and Gutman 1988 Grunert and Grunert 1995Chen et al 2002) This technique aims at uncovering factors and processesunderlying the concrete answers given by participants This allows for moregeneral clusters of factors shaping casual acts of productive news use to beidentified With laddering the analysis already starts during the in-depthinterviews by always digging deeper into the motivational ladder of theparticipants The following example can give an idea of such a motivationalladder When confronted with a situation where a participant replies that he isnot interested to leave a comment online the researcher tries to find out whyThe participant answers it is too time-intensive and therefore does not like itStill digging deeper the researcher finds out contributing takes time because

108 I Picone

the participant finds himself not good at writing In the end not wanting tocontribute is not so much a question of interest but a question of beinginsecure and afraid of being publicly reproved when making a spelling orgrammatical mistake in an online contribution Applying this procedure toother situations different factors initially mentioned by participants seemedto lead up to the same underlying motivations That way broader clusters ofrelevant factors and motivations underlying productive news use as a wholecould be identified giving us the possibility to get an idea of what kind ofpractice productive news use is

The different relevant factors and the lsquolsquoladdersrsquorsquo they form that wereidentified at this point served as a first set of findings but were also used asinput to adjust complement and refine the topics to be further investigatedin the long-term phase Certain aspects seeming more important thanexpected or that emerged from the interviews were incorporated in thesecond phase in order to elicit an as wide as possible range of factors shapingproductive news use

Initially the long-term group consisting of 21 participants was alsoquestioned through a diary-interview following the same procedure as thefirst group They were then asked to use different forms of productive newsuse consecutively for three weeks each and during a nine-month period Asalready mentioned casually produsing news means that one is not active onnews produsage sites on a regular basis or one sticks to a certain form ofprodusage (eg only rating news) This would complicate the identificationof factors underlying productive news use as a whole Therefore theparticipants all had to be acquainted to a certain level with the relevantforms of news contribution

In a news context the main forms of productive news use can be identifiedas retrieving news on demand evaluating news sharing news and comment-ing on it (Picone 2008) The participants were consecutively introduced to thefollowing web sites or applications which altogether encompass all of theseforms

Google Reader an RSS-reader allowing users to personalise rate andshare news selection (on demandratesharing)

Zitabe a Flemish news site allowing users to personalise their home pagewith different widgets (on demandrate)

Nujijnl a Dutch news forum where people share links to news stories andrate and comment on othersrsquo links

Procontrabe a Flemish site where the administrator selects and introducesone news topic a day to evaluate and debate amongst users (ratingcommenting) (now offline)

Nieuwsbe a Flemish news site combining all of the above features

The participants were not introduced to these sites in a lab but in theeveryday setting they usually consult news according to a Living Labmethodology (Pierson et al 2005) We did not literally set up a Living Lab

Produsage as a form of self-publication 109

ie an environment for innovation and development where users are exposedto new ICT solutions in (semi-)realistic contexts (Foslashlstad 2008 p 116) Anexample of such a Living Lab would be the deployment of free wifi in a city ordistrict providing a sample of users with Wifi-enabled smartphones andregister their use of it We merely used a Living Lab-approach (Pierson et al2005) introducing participants to applications through a technology theyalready own The rationale behind it however is similar to that of a LivingLab set up namely to study the adoption of technology in daily situationsrather than in an experimental setting This approach is especially usefulwhen looking for factors that go beyond usability and interface By givingparticipants the opportunity to get acquainted to a certain extent with therelevant features researchers avoid the participantsrsquo accounts to revolvearound practical issues of ease-of-use or troubles understanding thesefeatures

In order to allow the participants to incorporate the different web sites intheir daily routines we let them use the applications for three weeks at leastbefore asking them to comment on it Through short mail questionnaires theywere asked for their first impressions likes and dislikes These answers thenserved again as input for an in-depth interview held once all sites andapplications were introduced During the whole period the researcher couldbe reached by phone or mail in order to give feedback on possible problemsparticipants experienced

To facilitate access to these applications and also to guarantee a certainlevel of privacy the participants were asked to use Gmail-addresses especiallyset up for them by the researchers We used these addresses to register theparticipants beforehand on the various sites and applications so they wouldonly need to login always with the same user name and password Theparticipants were aware of the fact that the researchers knew their passwordand would use it to regularly log into their accounts and monitor their use ofthe application This allowed us especially to monitor which kind ofinformation every participant was most keen on contributing to Further-more these observations served again as a way of detecting incongruencebetween what participants were saying and what they were actually doing

The long-term phase was concluded with a second in-depth interviewwhere the participants were asked about their experiences with the differentproductive features The diary-interview the mail questionnaires and thelogging reports served as input for the topic list of those interviews Thediary-interviews and the concluding interviews combined resulted in 42interviews being coded The same laddering technique was applied in order toelaborate motivational ladders for every participant The Living Lab-approach putting productive news use as a situated action at the centreallowed us to also investigate situational and social factors First all interviewrecords were coded according to the different motivational situational andsocial factors identified in the interviews These were clustered according tocommon underlying motivations forming the next rung of the ladder Theserungs were clustered in turn in order to find a higher rung We then compared

110 I Picone

the individual ladders of the 21 participants in order to look for recurringelements and common patterns Because of the maximum variation samplethis allowed us to come to a lsquolsquoladder of laddersrsquorsquo representing a fair amount ofpossible meanings and motivations for productive news use We got an idea ofwhat produsage means to users and how they shape it as a social practicerather than as a production process

It is not the scope of this article to give a detailed overview of all theidentified factors and personal ladders but rather to look at the underlyingmotivational clusters and what they tell us on the practice of productive newsuse In others words we will not present the bottom rungs of the motivationaland situational ladders for productive news use but rather the top ones Thispermits us to come to more theoretical propositions about productive newsuse through the principle of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967)Concretely we look for theoretical propositions to emerge from empiricalanalysis We did not start with a preconceived theory that needs to be provenbut rather with a general area of study that needs elaboration (Razavi andIverson 2007) In this study this area is formed by Brunsrsquos insights on newsprodusage

32 Findings

A first important element emerging from the data analysis is that dedicationpassion and perseverance what Bruns sees at the centre of produsage as aPro-Am activity are reflected in the participantsrsquo answers Contributingonline even simply voting on a news story by clicking on a checkbox next toit requires a certain effort Certain participants felt like all these lsquolsquonewfeaturesrsquorsquo were simply too lsquolsquodemandingrsquorsquo However our participants beingcasual produsers these emotions seem too strong to express their engage-ment Rather we prefer to speak of a form of investment needed in order tocontribute to the news The motivational situational and social factorsidentified through the analysis of the data and presented below can beunderstood as elements inciting or withholding users to deliver the invest-ment productive news use necessarily requires We now go through the threetop lsquolsquorungsrsquorsquo of the motivational ladder of productive news use amongstcasual news produsers sets of factors are grouped into clusters that are inturn grouped into three broad dimensions

We identified a first set of factors about peoplersquos interest in a newsstory Participants seem to be keener on participating when the news itemrevolves on something that they are particularly interested in To a certainextent this corresponds to factors of newsworthiness as those of Galtungand Ruge (1965 Harcup and OrsquoNeil 2001) A second set of factors couldbe labelled as the vicinityspiritually and geographicallyto the newsitem Events involving places persons or themes someone is close to incitecontributions Participants were less keen on contributing to lsquolsquodistantrsquorsquostories unless they generated strong emotions both positive and negativeones a third set

Produsage as a form of self-publication 111

All these factors relate to the connection people have with the news storyThe stronger it is in terms of interest vicinity or emotion the more likelypeople seemed to engage with it

A fourth set of factors is more related to the mistakes that other users makewhen commenting on a news topic or more generally on the news siteParticipants seem sensitive to mistakes and tend to correct them This canalso bear on what someone can perceive as a mistake of judgement by othersin voting an article onto the most valued list or filling in an online poll Notonly the substance of lsquolsquonewsrsquorsquo generated by others also the general tenor ofreactions affects contribution which forms a fifth set of factors When othercontributors seem open to input and people feel like others may be interestedin what they have to say they are more likely to produse Then again ifas isthe case on different Flemish news sites (Picone and Depreeuw 2009)theother contributions look rather hostile or a harsh or depreciatory discussionis emerging in the comment section many participants seemed ratherreluctant to contribute

These sets of factors can be clustered as relating to the reactions of othersNot only news items but also other usersrsquo comments on the news can shapeusersrsquo willingness to contribute

These clusters all relate to the news content the actual story and the waypeople are relating to it They can be clustered in a content-related dimension

A sixth set of factors relates to the knowledge someone has about a certaintopic To what extent is the person not perforce an expert but at least abreastof the news topic discussed Professional or scholarly expertise makes it easierfor someone to contribute because it reduces the odds of being confrontedwith other users online who might point towards mistakes in onersquoscontribution A seventh set of factors also relate to what users know aboutthe news topic but more in terms of lsquolsquohands-onrsquorsquo expertise Even peopleaccidentally witnessing an event gain temporary credibility as a first-handwitness However not always do users need a thick understanding of the newstopic in order to have their say about it It does make it easier to contributebut users can be so amazed or shocked by a story that they want to expresstheir feelings or opinion about it This can be grouped in an eighth set offactors as people simply having something to say

All these sets can in turn be clustered as shaping usersrsquo orientation towardsself-expression

A ninth set of factors relates to people being lsquolsquoin the mood for produsagersquorsquoThe Living Lab-approach allowed us to take into account situationalelements During the study it became clear that users do not always feellike contributing Especially when online news is used between times or toquickly catch up with the news participants seemed not willing to reactextensively on it Also work stress domestic tasks and other time-consumingactivities shape a userrsquos mood for produsage Similar results are found in aDutch study on personalised news (Bierhoff and Eyck 2009) where theoutcome suggests that the level of personalisation in news applications shouldbe adaptable to the mood of users in order to truly obtain an added value

112 I Picone

Other participants show a more general pro or contra attitude towards newsprodusage that is less subject to mood swings They simply do not want topublicly react on news stories or comments made by others or conversely arevery keen on voicing their opinion It seems a matter of principle be it becausethey do not see the added value because they do not feel like spamming theInternet or even because they estimate it impolite to carp on others On a moregeneral level this seemed to relate to the fact of not being used to being askedto voice opinions online a 10th set of factors This can be linked to morestructural cultural or generational factors eg the Flemish catholic inspiredculture to lsquolsquothink twice before you speakrsquorsquo An interesting element here is thatwithholding participants to contribute is not so much the fact of having anopinion but of saying it out loud lsquolsquoWho am I to tell what others need tothinkrsquorsquo was a rhetorical question heard at different occasions amongst theparticipants Different participants were keen on having an opinion but felt asif they would be too intrusive when sharing it with strangers online

These sets of factors could form a cluster termed lsquolsquoattitude and moodrsquorsquorespectively pointing towards a more structural and situational affectiontowards the act of produsing news

An 11th set of factors refers to usersrsquo skills People with poor writing skillsmay be reluctant to contribute especially when the level of other contribu-tions is rather high Besides writing skills also narrative and argumentativeskills or the perceived lack of it were recurrent thresholds for contributingFurthermore different participants at this point applied the element ofmisjudgement mentioned before on their own ability being afraid of nothaving enough background to make an appropriate comment or judgementThis way a perceived lack of skills is not only a threshold to comment butalso to vote or to mark news as well This is related to a 12th set of factors Asalready mentioned people may be afraid of reactions by others on theircontribution which might withhold them from participating Here we see thelink with the potential public of an act of productive news use People thinkabout what others are likely to think about their contribution It isremarkable to note that various participants felt much more comfortablesharing this kind of information with close friends than with strangers onlineIt seemed that the more they were able to anticipate the reactions of othersthe more they were keen on contributing Again not so much what they hadto say (or produce) but who might hear it and how they would react played arole at that moment

These two sets of factors can be clustered under the idea of self-confidenceas they refer to the degree to which a user is confident voicing his opinion

All these factors relate to the personal dispositions of the user hisherskills attitude mood and background or in general a more personal dimen-sion and how this shapes hisher decision to engage with the news or not

A 12th set of factors relates to the idea of the potential public of a userrsquoscontribution Being able to assess onersquos potential public and how they willreact to onersquos contribution played an important role when consideringwhether or not to share mark or comment news stories This is what makes

Produsage as a form of self-publication 113

sharing news with friends via Facebook or mail and certainly face to facemore accessible than putting it online where virtually everybody can see it itis easier to assess whether friends will like it than it is to estimate whether asignificant part of a news sitersquos audience will appreciate it

These factors can be clustered under the term potential public In generalthe more one is able to assess what hisher potential public may like the morelikely heshe is to contribute

Building on the idea of the potential public we found a 13th set of factorsrevolving around the fact that various participants expected their contribu-tion one way or another to form an added value for the people who wouldread it (eg when they could advise others on a certain topic) This can belinked to Thorsonrsquos (2008) research on the most-emailed article list on theNew York Times web site The author concludes that news stories withpractical tips are more likely to be emailed to others The more usefulinformation is the more likely the potential public of the information is toappreciate it Such contributions however were more likely to be shared onlifestyle sections than on the hard news sections A similar set of factors wasfound concerning hard news Users then did not want to help others butmake them aware of certain aspects they think are important another angleto a story elements that need nuance the existence of other stakeholders withdifferent views and so on all with the intention to broaden other usersrsquohorizon Voting for certain articles in order for them to reach the most votedsection is a good example of this A 15th set of factors can be viewed as goingeven a step further by not only raising awareness for certain issues butgaining interest from other users by interacting through comment sections orlinking to other sites concerning the issue

All these sets can be clustered as a form of altruism where users want toshow commitment to the broader community they belong to

A final set of factors could be named lsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo Especially on news sitescomment sections tend to take the form of a wailing wall everyone can postopinions contributions and complaints but usually nothing happens with itFor many participants the fact that their contribution would not be takeninto account or would not have any impact seemed to be a major thresholdto participate Why exert one if it is a lost call anyway

These clusters in turn seem to revolve around a social dimension They allcome forth out of a social reflex users have with their potential public orsociety as a whole

321 Conclusion understanding produsage as self-publication The 16 different setsof factors the eight clusters they are organised in and the three overarchingdimensions represent a relevant set of motivational situational and socialfactors shaping the practice of productive news use (Q2) These dimensionsrelating to casual produsage could be pursued further to structuralprodusage as visualised in Figure 1 The passion and dedication of Pro-Ams could be considered as a more intense connection or affection towardsthe idea of information production lsquolsquothinking by writingrsquorsquo lsquolsquoto networkrsquorsquo or

114 I Picone

lsquolsquoto improve writing skillsrsquorsquo could be seen as elements of self-expression orself-development and the impending loss of values driving citizen journalistscould be regarded as a strong social reflex towards a potential public thatneeds to be better informed (see Figure 1)

How can these different sets of factors the clusters they are grouped in andthe dimensions they are categorised in now shed light on produsage as asocial practice from a user perspective more precisely the perspective ofcasual news produsers

A first element that becomes clear through this research is that knowledgeand skills do play an important role to engage with the news also amongstcasual produsers However they are not the only factors relating to the userrsquosindividual dispositions Also self-expression and self-confidence are relevantaspects Interesting is that these elements are interpreted in relation to thepotential public of a userrsquos contribution It is not so much the difficulty ofwriting a comment that holds users back from voting sharing or reacting toa news story but other usersrsquo response to it Users do not express themselvesby producing an opinion but by publicising it

Figure 1 Motivational situational and social factors shaping productive news use

Produsage as a form of self-publication 115

A second interesting element is the identification of situational factors thatdo not only relate to the availability of certain technological artefacts at agiven moment in time but also to the mood and attitude of users in a certaincontext Also the attitude of users towards productive news use seems to acertain extent rooted in cultural values Cultural factors play an importantrole in the way people use news (Vandenbrande 2002 Gasher 2007) and itseems this is also applicable to the productive use of it But remarkable is thata prudent attitude towards productive news use does not in the first placerefer to the articulation of opinions on news stories but to enforcing onersquosown opinion to others Again onersquos concern seems to lie with the potentialpublic and how this public will perceive onersquos contribution and consequentlyoneself

A third important outcome is precisely the emerging importance of usersrsquopotential public when contributing Also the factors lsquolsquoaltruismrsquorsquo andlsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo show that casual produsers attach great importance to the factthat their contribution needs to make a difference In many occasions if theywould have the impression their contribution is not adding anything to thedebate is not reaching anybody or is not helpful or meaningful to others theyask themselves why it would be worth the investment The idea of leveragetakes this a step further referring to the intention of actually having animpact on the issues at stake in society through contributions

To sum up casual produsers seem to treat other users as an audience ofwhich they do not know the reach This potential public plays an importantrole as produsers adapt their contributions to the perceived likes and needs ofit The idea of users reflecting on the lsquolsquoimpactrsquorsquo of their contribution on theirpotential public can be denominated a social reflex This is more than justaltruism It is a reflection on how others are going to perceive the publicationof a personal expression An interesting link is found between this way ofcommunicating online and the notion of performance as defined by Goffman1959 Burnett and Marshall 2003 and Robinson 2007 Performance is everyactivity that takes place during a period of exhibition to a public and that isadapted to the common context of interaction in order to be understood bythat public The performance not only consists of what a person exhibits andhow but also of hisher profile biography the conversation context and howthey both match (Robinson 2007)

Subsequently the user-driven production of information online could beunderstood as a form of self-performance or more suitably self-publicationWe would argue that from a user perspective produsage is not so much aboutthe production of information but rather about the self-publication ofinformation What makes a blog unique is not the fact that users areproducing a diary it is the fact that they can publish it to a potential public ofmillions The true potential of user-generated content lies in the fact that thishappens publicly that this process takes the form of a public performancethat everyone can witness and react to In other words when looking atproductive news use the question is not so much why people do or do notwant to produce information but rather if they want to publicise themselves

116 I Picone

Is the collaborative user-driven production of information as intended byBruns something different from the personal experience of self-publication ofinformation We would argue that they are the both sides of the same pictureWhile Bruns looks at the phenomenon of user-generated content from apoliticaleconomic perspective (from production to produsage) approachingit as a form of self-publication enables us to treat it as a user-experience as asituated social practice (from usage to produsage) We believe it is importantif we want to fully grasp this phenomenon to apply both perspectivesProdusage should not be solely understood as an alternative model for theproduction of information (Bruns 2008) but also as an alternative way ofusing information

Talking about self-publication gives us the opportunity to take intoaccount the stories that do not get to be collectively engaged upon thosecontributions people do not want others to further evaluate and completethose contributions that are not fit for hive mind treatment or the verydistributed acts of produsage that take place in the loosest communitieswhere information is merely being shared without being evaluated and soon The idea of self-publication helps us to understand why certain users arenot necessarily willing to contribute to a shared effort of informationproduction even though they have the skills and knowledge to do so Inother words even if it would be easy and not time consuming why wouldthey not contribute Because they experience it as self-publication and theydo not want or are not comfortable engaging in this practice

Produsage in other words should not only be seen as an alternative way ofproducing information but also as an alternative complementary way ofusing it as the fluid ad hoc adoption of a lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo news logic amongstregular news user shows This kind of distributed casual contribution withindecentralised communities such as news sites could be considered casualprodusage When these efforts take a more structural form the form of acollective hive mind driven production of information we could speak ofstructural produsage as intended by Bruns Self-publication as a lsquolsquoprodu-siversquorsquo logic is finding its way into the daily news use of people and in theirmedia use in general As such it should be a point of interest for scientistsresearching (news) produsage too This lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo logic amongst news usersis not replacing the mere use of traditional news it is complementing itHowever looking at news use without taking the produsive logic into accountwould mean to overlook a great deal of ways in which people are using news

The adaptations from a user-oriented perspective on Brunsrsquos theoryproposed in this paper should not be seen as solely a theoretical reflectionIn reality they are the fruit of an iterative process where findings emergingfrom the data analysis are constantly related to theory in the course of thequalitative study and subsequently they are grounded in practice Still theyare open to discussion It could be a valuable argument not to broadenprodusage as to include casual random non-collective contributions frommainly consuming users Maybe produsage should point only towards thecollective user-driven production of information in order to preserve the link

Produsage as a form of self-publication 117

with the specificity of this kind of process excluding other forms of user-generated content From a production point of view this is arguable Whenlooking at the impact of this form of production it is clear that the effect isessentially visible when singular users combine their engagement Not somuch this or that blog makes the blogosphere influential but specifically thenetworked effect that one message can have when it is endorsed by thousandsof bloggers

Still the practice of self-publication what we identified as the nature ofprodusage as a user experience is an important social evolution that cannotbe neglected We believe produsage is a strong conceptualisation that has thepotential to become an important framework to understand the evolutionsunderlying a large array of currently emerging practices and innovations in aworld not necessarily without borders but with different boundaries andmore cross-boundary work (Bockszkowski 2004) By not merely looking atprodusage as a practice where production outweighs consumption but also asa practice where usage can outweigh production and even more as acontinuum between both dimensions we believe we could come to a more in-depth holistic understanding of this process With this article we hope tohave given a valuable first impetus in that direction

Acknowledgements

This research took place within the framework of the FLEET (Flemish E-publishing Trends

project funded by the Flemish Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) This

interdisciplinary research project aims at generating fundamental scientific knowledge about

the e-publishing sector in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium More information and

research outcomes can be found at wwwfleetprojectbe

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M Ames and M Naaman lsquolsquoWhy we tag Motivations for annotation in mobile and online mediarsquorsquo Paper

presented at the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 28 April3 May 2007 San

Jose California

JA Anderson lsquolsquoThe pragmatics of audience in research and theoryrsquorsquo in The Audience and its Landscape

J Hay L Grossberg and E Wartella (Eds) Oxford Westview Press pp 7593 1996

J Bierhoff and A Eyck lsquolsquoDesigning the digital dailyrsquorsquo Paper presented at the International Conference

New Media amp Information Convergences amp Divergences 69 May 2009 Athens

N Bolger A Davis and E Rafaeli lsquolsquoDiary Methods capturing life as it is livedrsquorsquo Annual Review of

Psychology 54 pp 579616 2003

PJ Boczkowski Digitizing the News Innovation in Online Newspapers Cambridge MIT Press 2004

DM Boyd Taken Out of Context American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics [unpublished doctoral

thesis] University of California 2008

A Bruns Blogs Wikipedia Second Life and Beyond From Production to Produsage New York Peter

Lang 2008

A Bruns lsquolsquoProdusage Towards a broader framework for user-led content creationrsquorsquo Proceedings of the

2007 Conference on Creativity and Cognition New York ACM Press pp 99106 2007a

A Bruns lsquolsquoThe future is user-led The path towards widespread Produsagersquorsquo Paper presented at the

PerthDAC Conference Perth 1518 September 2007b Western Australia

A Bruns lsquolsquoTowards produsage Futures for user-led content productionrsquorsquo Paper presented at the Cultural

Attitudes towards Communication and Technology Conference 28 June1 July 2006 Tartu Estonia

118 I Picone

The Third Wave Whereas Toffler however develops his idea around theproduction of goods Bruns starts from the production of information andtakes into account the very specific nature of (digital) information Twoelements in Brunsrsquos conceptualisation of produsage are especially appealingfrom a social science user-oriented perspective

First by speaking of produsage instead of prosumption Bruns (2005)avoids the commercial connotation of consumerism Indeed a lot of theseprodusage activities do not thrive on a commercial logic Of courseprodusage takes place in an information market that is still to a high degreedominated by large media conglomerates Still it is an amateur-driven non-profit way of producing information

Second Bruns (2005) focuses on the productive engagement of users andnot so much on product customisation like Toffler does When it comes toonline information and communication the active engagement of users withinformation by way of digital media has been approached mainly through theconcept of interactivity In most cases user interactivity is interpreted asselectivity or control over information sources and over interaction withothers (Lievrouw and Livingstone 2006) which could be considered ascustomisation of information Interactivity is rarely analysed as a phenom-enon of mass communication but rather as an element of personalcommunication (Bucy 2004) As Bruns (2005) points out what is happeningnow with the amateur production of information is challenging traditionalways of information production rather than of personal communication Byfocussing on the production and distribution of information Brunsintroduces a concept that is suited for the analysis of user-driven informationproduction online

However in the work of Bruns the experience that is produsage to a largeextent at least from a socio-theoretical point of view remains a black box(Quere 1989 Punie 1997) we have an idea of its impact on other actors insociety but not so much of the internal circuits the produsers themselves andhow they experience the ability to produse information within their dailymedia use This is also reflected in the role of the produser Thus far theproduser rather resembles an imaginary produser by analogy with Hartleyrsquos(1987) imaginary audience a theoretically imagined construct in the mind ofthe author Anderson (1996) speaks of the formal audience as conceived inthe discourse of academic researchers and professionals and the analyticalaudience as based on user research

Specific empirical research on usersrsquo experience of produsage is lackingDifferent studies throw light on certain aspects or practices for example onblogging on sharing on tagging (Ames and Naaman 2007) However thesedifferent practices are rarely linked one to another in order to grasp thecommon dynamics underlying all these forms of user-generated contentFrom a user perspective this is exactly the strength of the theory of produsagenamely to point to the process of productive media use underlying differentmedia forms and applications But in order to fully exploit this potential it isnecessary to conceptualise produsage as a user experience or social practice

Produsage as a form of self-publication 101

and empirically support this Therefore while Brunsrsquos theory explains thedynamic from production to produsage we would like to explore the dynamicfrom usage to produsage Our focus lies on the shift from traditional forms ofnews consumption to the productive use of information

Bruns (2008) does pay attention to this dynamic to a certain extent Heshows that theoretical models making the distinction between producersdistributors and consumers are no longer tenable for the analysis ofinformation goods and services Indeed when looking at news services todaytreating users as merely the consumers of information would cause us tooverlook a great deal of user practices But how are these productive practicesshaped And in relation to news how must we understand the productiveinvolvement of users in their news use

When asking these questions however different elements of Brunsrsquosconceptual framework seem difficult Generally speaking he employs amacro-perspective His focus is not on the way produsers contribute but moreon the networked distributed and decentralised collective outcome that isthe result of it (Bruns 2008) More precisely Bruns conceptualises produsageas user-driven production of information rather than as a productive way ofusing information and he defines produsage to a large extent as a collectiveactivity excluding more individual ways of information production In orderto apply Brunsrsquos theory of produsage to user research these issues have to beaddressed

22 The need to refine produsage for user-oriented studies

First as Bruns is especially interested in the ways in which users are producinginformation he pays less attention to how people are using it We could arguethat Brunsrsquos concerns lie with user-driven information production whereas wewould like to investigate production-driven information usage Bruns does notignore this perspective as his reflections on produsers as Professional Amateurs(Pro-Ams) show He describes produsers as Pro-Ams as conceptualised byLeadbeater and Miller (2004) They act as volunteers who invest time andenergy in the pursuit of their engagement Pro-Am activities demand dedica-tion passion and perseverance and Pro-Ams are confronted with fears risksopportunities and setbacks Nevertheless this investment gives them culturalcapital knowledge and appreciation by others From a user-oriented researchperspective it would be interesting however to dig deeper into these fears risksopportunities and setbacks and their underlying dynamics Two elements inparticular deserve our attention when is a user a Pro-Am and which factorsshape these fears and opportunities

By presenting produsage communities as ad hoc meritocracies based onfluid and equipotential participation Bruns acknowledges the fact that notevery member of a produsage community is a produser at all times and somemembers rather casually contribute when their specific skills allow them to(Bruns 2008) JD Lasica (Hutchinson et al 2003) relates this to news Whenlooking at user-generated news content he not only sees citizen journalism

102 I Picone

and news blogs as important actors of change He also speaks of lsquolsquorandomacts of journalismrsquorsquo to refer to news content generated by people who do notpursue amateur journalism but who happen to witness the news live orhappen to have a piece of information they think is worth sharing WhenBruns refers to Lasicarsquos random acts of journalism however he does so topoint out how collective collaborative processes of citizen journalismengender ad hoc communities of governance rather than to elaborate onthis casual form of produsage

Bruns considers the specific knowledge and skills somebody has concern-ing a certain topic as important elements shaping produsage These arecertainly important factors but surely not the sole ones explaining produsageIn their research on communities of interest Nonnecke et al (2006) find that25 of the lurkers among their participants ie users being in the communitywithout contributingor produsing for that matterhave something to sayand 13 are actually willing to contribute In other words they have ideas ona certain topic and want to contribute but still they decide not to do so Whatis withholding them Other factors are likely to play a role when users engagein random acts of journalism Furthermore we know little about how thesemotivations interact amongst each other but also with situational factors Ifprodusage can be an ad hoc activity the way in which it is embedded in thedaily routines of users or situational factors like mood stress time pressureplace and so on must also be taken into account All these elements help toclarify what the practice of produsage means for those users undertaking it

In order to point out the difference between casual contributions to ratherdistributed and decentralised communities of produsage (where usageoutweighs production) and contribution to communities of produsagestructured around the collective production of information by hive minds(where production outweighs usage) we could speak about casual respec-tively structural produsage Applied to news produsage examples of casualnews produsage would be to leave a reaction in the comment section of anonline article to share a news fact with friends or to write an email to theeditor Structural produsage would then be contributing regularly to a citizenjournalism news site reporting news stories on a blog or being a frequenterin a news community like Diggcom

Second Bruns (2008) generally speaks of produsers in terms of acommunity He refers to JC Herzrsquo hive minds or Von Hippelrsquos (2005)information communities as the driver of produsage Produsage is a collectiveeffort Bruns (2008 p 16) states about his book lsquolsquofundamentally then [it] isabout a variety of such hive minds such information communities and theirpatterns and protocols of interaction and collaboration [ ]rsquorsquo Whenanalysing news produsage Bruns describes the open news story developmentwithin citizen journalism produser communities It starts with users having anitch to scratch subsequently initiating a story sharing it with the communityand letting the community take it from there evaluating discussing andadding depth to the story for it to become a collective and qualitative piece ofwork (Bruns 2008)

Produsage as a form of self-publication 103

However this process is the ideal type A contribution by users does notnecessarily follow this path Comment sections of news eg often take theform of a rather chaotic listing of different opinions and ramblings notnecessarily building up one on another and rarely resulting in a newimproved story being further prodused in the blogosphere For everysuccessful collectively produced act of citizen journalism a myriad ofunsuccessful postings seem to be possible especially on sites where mainlycasual produsage takes place like news sites Would this mean that a user isprodusing when hisher story is being engaged on but is not when this is notthe case

One could argue whether the collective engagement on a casual produserrsquoscontribution is a necessary condition to speak of produsage When usersdecide to react to a news story or post a story on their blog do they expectthis to be further processed by the community Brunsrsquos ideas on produsageremain rather vague on this aspect Bruns certainly sees the blogosphere as acommunity of produsage but it is less clear if he considers the individual actof blogging as a way of produsing information It is worth looking at whatother studies tell about how users perceive this Based on their research onbloggersrsquo motivations to post stories Nardi et al (2004a) consider blogs as abroadcast medium of little interactivity suggesting that bloggers wantinteraction with their public but equally want to remain in control of whatothers do with their writings Asked on what basis bloggers see their blog assuccessful 75 of American bloggers point to personal satisfaction whereasonly 58 and 53 say the amount of comments respectively the number ofdaily visitors matters the most (Technorati 2008)

If we consider this individual form of user-generated content production asprodusage here too knowledge and skills do not seem to be the only reasonsfor individual users to contribute or not Synthesising different studies onblogger motivations the following main motivations can be identified (1) todocument onersquos life (and inform others about it) (2) share comments andopinions (to influence others) (3) to express onersquos self or onersquos emotions(blogging like a catharsis) (4) thinking by writing (5) socialise or expand ormaintain onersquos network (to receive feedback from others) (6) improve writingskills and (7) self-documentation (compile useful information online) Whenlooking at news bloggers or citizen journalists an important factor is theexperience of an impending loss of journalistic values Citizen journalists actbecause they believe mainstream journalists no longer meet the necessarystandards of speed content and quality (Bruns 2005 Ryfe and Mensing2007)

This broad categorisation of possible personal motivations to contribute tothe blogosphere already gives an indication of the different meanings thatusers can give to the practices of putting information online Howeverdifferent studies on citizen journalism look at bloggers or other lsquolsquoexpertcontributorsrsquorsquo (see eg Domingo et al 2007 Paulussen et al 2007 Deuze2008) Research on news produsage seems to focus mainly on these lead usersof news participation When looking at news bloggers or citizen journalists

104 I Picone

participants often are structural produsers blogging or reporting on a regularbasis through their own or collective news outlets The random acts ofjournalism Lasica speaks of are less represented Therefore it is not onlyinteresting to look at news produsage from a more personal perspective butalso to those users only casually engaging in productive news use They donot own their own news blog but rather contribute by voting on a news storyby sending an article to certain friends via email or by commenting on newssites or fora

The issues addressed here can be visualised on two dimensions usageproduction and individualcollective Whereas Bruns elaborates more on thecollective production of information this article would like to address thepersonal productive use of information more specifically regarding newsamongst regular news users More precisely the following research question isput forward

Q1 How do casual news produsers experience contributing to the news

This research question demands for a more qualitative approach to thematter The scope is not so much to quantify usersrsquo productive use of news(see Eurostat 2009 The Pew Research Centre 2009) but to understand whatthese activities mean to them We are interested in understanding productivenews use as a user experience embedded in an everyday context What does itconsist of in the mind of the user How do people fit it into their media useand other daily pursuits In order to answer these questions we need notonly to take into account motivational aspects but also situational andbroader social factors This brings us to the second research question

Q2 What motivational situational and social factors shape the userexperience of casual news produsers

It is important to note that we are chiefly interested in getting insights intoa practice not so much into the users themselves They form the entry pointsthrough which we can gather data on that practice (Boyd 2008) Furthermorewe hope insights into productive news use as a situated social practiceembedded in daily routines can help us evaluate if Brunsrsquos theory of produsageis found applicable to personal and casual productive use of information onthe one hand and on user-oriented research on the other hand

3 Online casual news produsage a semi-experimental digital ethnography based on a

Living Lab-approach

31 Methodology

In finding the right methodology to answer these questions different issueshad to be tackled

A first concern appeared inherent to the target group of our study The userresearch within the Fleet-project revolves around those aspects of user

Produsage as a form of self-publication 105

contribution that can be understood as individual casual productive usageSeen the rather personal nature of online news use the functionalitiescommonly offered on news sites like voting sharing and commenting form agood illustration of functionalities that are not aimed at creating a commonoutput but rather offer a platform for users to post their personal opinionsbeliefs or ramblings for others to read (or not) Central are not the bloggerscitizen journalists or other expert users of participative media but onlinenews users that occasionally cast a vote share an article or post a commenton a news site

Casual news produsers by definition only casually produse news Thismakes it difficult to pinpoint the moments where people engage in randomacts of journalism Through digital ethnography (Masten and Powman 2003Murthy 2008) it is possible to observe different news sites and to addressusers This allows researchers to get insight in specific acts of productive newsbut not in the underlying relations Therefore one would need to followcertain users through different activities in order to question them on allaspects Indeed as we mentioned the strength of the idea of produsage is thatit offers a way of understanding the dynamics underlying these different actsThis means observation is not sufficient Participants are needed that can befollowed during a certain time over different times situations and platformsboth online and offline In-depth interviews are proposed in order to dig intofactors emerging and in order to discover patters underlying different formsof productive news use

Therefore we chose to select participants according to maximum variationsampling a form of purposeful sampling aimed at getting a strongheterogeneity within a sample on the dimensions of interest (List 2004Polkinghorne 2005) This variation can be achieved on the level ofparticipantsrsquo experience with the researched practice (phenomenologicalsampling) or in their personal characteristics The rationale behind suchsampling is that through a strong variation in the sample of participantsrsquo datathey generate in this case the motivational situational and social factorsshaping their productive news use represent a fair amount of the availablepossibilities We get a wide spectrum of factors that are relevant amongst avariety of users Furthermore it allows discerning common patterns that cutacross the variations (Patton 1990) Hence it gives us insight in the factorsshaping the practice of productive news use amongst different relevant userprofiles

The next step is to determine how to select participants for a samplerepresenting a maximum variation This was achieved in two steps First weused the three dimensions shaping online news use identified by Nguyen(2008) orientation towards news new media-mindedness and Internetexperience Nguyen argues that these dimensions to a large extent determinethe way users engage with the news online Our sample thus had to consist ofparticipants with different kinds of profiles on these dimensions in order toincorporate a relevant variation of news users in our sample Eight possibleprofiles were identified (see Table 1)

106 I Picone

We chose to select users on the basis of a questionnaire consisting of 32questions relating to Nguyenrsquos three dimensions Flemish newspaper HetNieuwsblad published the survey on his news site There were 562 persons thatresponded to the questionnaire After cleaning the data 515 were willing toparticipate Their answers were coded in order to give them a score on everyone of the three dimensions Only the respondents scoring extremely highandor low on the three dimensions were selected constituting a shortlist ofapproximately 60 respondents corresponding to one of the eight profilesThirty-eight persons finally agreed to participate in the research (see Table 1)Within this final sample men and women coming from different social-economical backgrounds were distributed relatively evenly amongst theparticipants All were living in Flanders or Brussels and between 20 and 72years old

Whereas this group showed a strong variation on their experience withonline news not all of them were equally acquainted with productive onlinenews features Commenting voting or sharing news via mail etc arepractices that are not that common amongst average news consumers(Horowitz 2006 Osimo 2008 Eurostat 2009 The PEW Research Centre2009) Amongst the 38 participants most had shared a news article via emailsome had voted on a poll or article and few had commented on news sites

Table 1 Cross-tabulation of the different news user profiles according to a maximum variation

analysis (pseudonyms are used age between brackets)

Profile Short-term Long-term

1 Internet experience new media minded andnews-oriented

Gerard (46)Antje (59)Gina (26)Jessy (22)

Jan (45)Lina (28)

2 Internet experience new media minded andlittle news-oriented

Quentin (26) Pieter-Eric (23)Clara (26)

3 Internet experience little new media mindedand news-oriented

Anne-Marie (64)Pierre (46)

Edward (58)Marie (48)

4 Internet experience little new media mindedand little news-oriented

Christianne (50)Koenraad (46)

Anna (32)Alexandra (29)Truus (50)

5 Little Internet experience new media mindedand news-oriented

Francois (39)Kurt (41)Marjanne (58)

Tony (30)Piet (29)

6 Little Internet experience new media mindedand little news-oriented

Juliaan (19)Mark (29)

Pina (35)

7 Little Internet experience little new mediaminded and news-oriented

Anja (46)Robrecht (66)

Annette (55)Danny (63)Jeanne (63)Josef (78)John (38)

8 Little Internet experience little new mediaminded and little news-oriented

Cindy (37)Lukas (41)

Kristien (29)Veronique (33)Stan (35)

Produsage as a form of self-publication 107

Therefore we chose to work with two groups a short-term and a long-termone

The short-term group served as an explorative one in order to generateinformation on the way participants experienced productive news use Thegroup consisted of 18 participants They were questioned through a diary-interview Diaries were used to evaluate practices that could not beinvestigated through observation or intensive contact with the participants(Cohen et al 2006) Diaries allow more than just gathering information butmake participants reflect on their actions and describe them (Bolger et al2003 Jacobs and Van den Broeck 2008) The participants were asked to keeptrack of their media use during one week through a day per day paper diarywith closed and open questions The closed questions concerned the mediaand news sources they used that day They were also asked to fill in a dailyhour per hour schedule of their media-related and news-related activitiesThrough the open questions the participants were encouraged to share anythoughts or experiences concerning their media and news use that wouldseem relevant to them This allowed us to operate a more inductive way ofgenerating ideas One week seemed a relevant period as news habits generallyform a routine throughout the week except during the weekend whereFlemish users take more time for news (Glorieux 2006)

These reflections were then further investigated in the in-depth interviewsfollowing the diary period in order to get a more refined idea of why and howpeople give meaning to the different news sources they use The topic list ofeach interview was based on each participantrsquos personal account gatheredthrough the survey and through the diary The participants were confrontedwith the patterns of use emerging out of their diaries and asked to reflectabout what news and contributing to it means for them Special attention wasgiven to incongruence found within the diary or between the diary and thesurvey data of each participant in order to confront the person with it and digdeeper into these often paradoxical accounts A recurring example is thedifference between the time people estimate they spend online (as answered ina question of the survey) and the time they actually spend on it when loggingtheir own media use through the diaries

This first phase of data collection generated 18 seven-day diaries and 18corresponding in-depth interviews A first analysis took place using theladdering technique (Reynolds and Gutman 1988 Grunert and Grunert 1995Chen et al 2002) This technique aims at uncovering factors and processesunderlying the concrete answers given by participants This allows for moregeneral clusters of factors shaping casual acts of productive news use to beidentified With laddering the analysis already starts during the in-depthinterviews by always digging deeper into the motivational ladder of theparticipants The following example can give an idea of such a motivationalladder When confronted with a situation where a participant replies that he isnot interested to leave a comment online the researcher tries to find out whyThe participant answers it is too time-intensive and therefore does not like itStill digging deeper the researcher finds out contributing takes time because

108 I Picone

the participant finds himself not good at writing In the end not wanting tocontribute is not so much a question of interest but a question of beinginsecure and afraid of being publicly reproved when making a spelling orgrammatical mistake in an online contribution Applying this procedure toother situations different factors initially mentioned by participants seemedto lead up to the same underlying motivations That way broader clusters ofrelevant factors and motivations underlying productive news use as a wholecould be identified giving us the possibility to get an idea of what kind ofpractice productive news use is

The different relevant factors and the lsquolsquoladdersrsquorsquo they form that wereidentified at this point served as a first set of findings but were also used asinput to adjust complement and refine the topics to be further investigatedin the long-term phase Certain aspects seeming more important thanexpected or that emerged from the interviews were incorporated in thesecond phase in order to elicit an as wide as possible range of factors shapingproductive news use

Initially the long-term group consisting of 21 participants was alsoquestioned through a diary-interview following the same procedure as thefirst group They were then asked to use different forms of productive newsuse consecutively for three weeks each and during a nine-month period Asalready mentioned casually produsing news means that one is not active onnews produsage sites on a regular basis or one sticks to a certain form ofprodusage (eg only rating news) This would complicate the identificationof factors underlying productive news use as a whole Therefore theparticipants all had to be acquainted to a certain level with the relevantforms of news contribution

In a news context the main forms of productive news use can be identifiedas retrieving news on demand evaluating news sharing news and comment-ing on it (Picone 2008) The participants were consecutively introduced to thefollowing web sites or applications which altogether encompass all of theseforms

Google Reader an RSS-reader allowing users to personalise rate andshare news selection (on demandratesharing)

Zitabe a Flemish news site allowing users to personalise their home pagewith different widgets (on demandrate)

Nujijnl a Dutch news forum where people share links to news stories andrate and comment on othersrsquo links

Procontrabe a Flemish site where the administrator selects and introducesone news topic a day to evaluate and debate amongst users (ratingcommenting) (now offline)

Nieuwsbe a Flemish news site combining all of the above features

The participants were not introduced to these sites in a lab but in theeveryday setting they usually consult news according to a Living Labmethodology (Pierson et al 2005) We did not literally set up a Living Lab

Produsage as a form of self-publication 109

ie an environment for innovation and development where users are exposedto new ICT solutions in (semi-)realistic contexts (Foslashlstad 2008 p 116) Anexample of such a Living Lab would be the deployment of free wifi in a city ordistrict providing a sample of users with Wifi-enabled smartphones andregister their use of it We merely used a Living Lab-approach (Pierson et al2005) introducing participants to applications through a technology theyalready own The rationale behind it however is similar to that of a LivingLab set up namely to study the adoption of technology in daily situationsrather than in an experimental setting This approach is especially usefulwhen looking for factors that go beyond usability and interface By givingparticipants the opportunity to get acquainted to a certain extent with therelevant features researchers avoid the participantsrsquo accounts to revolvearound practical issues of ease-of-use or troubles understanding thesefeatures

In order to allow the participants to incorporate the different web sites intheir daily routines we let them use the applications for three weeks at leastbefore asking them to comment on it Through short mail questionnaires theywere asked for their first impressions likes and dislikes These answers thenserved again as input for an in-depth interview held once all sites andapplications were introduced During the whole period the researcher couldbe reached by phone or mail in order to give feedback on possible problemsparticipants experienced

To facilitate access to these applications and also to guarantee a certainlevel of privacy the participants were asked to use Gmail-addresses especiallyset up for them by the researchers We used these addresses to register theparticipants beforehand on the various sites and applications so they wouldonly need to login always with the same user name and password Theparticipants were aware of the fact that the researchers knew their passwordand would use it to regularly log into their accounts and monitor their use ofthe application This allowed us especially to monitor which kind ofinformation every participant was most keen on contributing to Further-more these observations served again as a way of detecting incongruencebetween what participants were saying and what they were actually doing

The long-term phase was concluded with a second in-depth interviewwhere the participants were asked about their experiences with the differentproductive features The diary-interview the mail questionnaires and thelogging reports served as input for the topic list of those interviews Thediary-interviews and the concluding interviews combined resulted in 42interviews being coded The same laddering technique was applied in order toelaborate motivational ladders for every participant The Living Lab-approach putting productive news use as a situated action at the centreallowed us to also investigate situational and social factors First all interviewrecords were coded according to the different motivational situational andsocial factors identified in the interviews These were clustered according tocommon underlying motivations forming the next rung of the ladder Theserungs were clustered in turn in order to find a higher rung We then compared

110 I Picone

the individual ladders of the 21 participants in order to look for recurringelements and common patterns Because of the maximum variation samplethis allowed us to come to a lsquolsquoladder of laddersrsquorsquo representing a fair amount ofpossible meanings and motivations for productive news use We got an idea ofwhat produsage means to users and how they shape it as a social practicerather than as a production process

It is not the scope of this article to give a detailed overview of all theidentified factors and personal ladders but rather to look at the underlyingmotivational clusters and what they tell us on the practice of productive newsuse In others words we will not present the bottom rungs of the motivationaland situational ladders for productive news use but rather the top ones Thispermits us to come to more theoretical propositions about productive newsuse through the principle of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967)Concretely we look for theoretical propositions to emerge from empiricalanalysis We did not start with a preconceived theory that needs to be provenbut rather with a general area of study that needs elaboration (Razavi andIverson 2007) In this study this area is formed by Brunsrsquos insights on newsprodusage

32 Findings

A first important element emerging from the data analysis is that dedicationpassion and perseverance what Bruns sees at the centre of produsage as aPro-Am activity are reflected in the participantsrsquo answers Contributingonline even simply voting on a news story by clicking on a checkbox next toit requires a certain effort Certain participants felt like all these lsquolsquonewfeaturesrsquorsquo were simply too lsquolsquodemandingrsquorsquo However our participants beingcasual produsers these emotions seem too strong to express their engage-ment Rather we prefer to speak of a form of investment needed in order tocontribute to the news The motivational situational and social factorsidentified through the analysis of the data and presented below can beunderstood as elements inciting or withholding users to deliver the invest-ment productive news use necessarily requires We now go through the threetop lsquolsquorungsrsquorsquo of the motivational ladder of productive news use amongstcasual news produsers sets of factors are grouped into clusters that are inturn grouped into three broad dimensions

We identified a first set of factors about peoplersquos interest in a newsstory Participants seem to be keener on participating when the news itemrevolves on something that they are particularly interested in To a certainextent this corresponds to factors of newsworthiness as those of Galtungand Ruge (1965 Harcup and OrsquoNeil 2001) A second set of factors couldbe labelled as the vicinityspiritually and geographicallyto the newsitem Events involving places persons or themes someone is close to incitecontributions Participants were less keen on contributing to lsquolsquodistantrsquorsquostories unless they generated strong emotions both positive and negativeones a third set

Produsage as a form of self-publication 111

All these factors relate to the connection people have with the news storyThe stronger it is in terms of interest vicinity or emotion the more likelypeople seemed to engage with it

A fourth set of factors is more related to the mistakes that other users makewhen commenting on a news topic or more generally on the news siteParticipants seem sensitive to mistakes and tend to correct them This canalso bear on what someone can perceive as a mistake of judgement by othersin voting an article onto the most valued list or filling in an online poll Notonly the substance of lsquolsquonewsrsquorsquo generated by others also the general tenor ofreactions affects contribution which forms a fifth set of factors When othercontributors seem open to input and people feel like others may be interestedin what they have to say they are more likely to produse Then again ifas isthe case on different Flemish news sites (Picone and Depreeuw 2009)theother contributions look rather hostile or a harsh or depreciatory discussionis emerging in the comment section many participants seemed ratherreluctant to contribute

These sets of factors can be clustered as relating to the reactions of othersNot only news items but also other usersrsquo comments on the news can shapeusersrsquo willingness to contribute

These clusters all relate to the news content the actual story and the waypeople are relating to it They can be clustered in a content-related dimension

A sixth set of factors relates to the knowledge someone has about a certaintopic To what extent is the person not perforce an expert but at least abreastof the news topic discussed Professional or scholarly expertise makes it easierfor someone to contribute because it reduces the odds of being confrontedwith other users online who might point towards mistakes in onersquoscontribution A seventh set of factors also relate to what users know aboutthe news topic but more in terms of lsquolsquohands-onrsquorsquo expertise Even peopleaccidentally witnessing an event gain temporary credibility as a first-handwitness However not always do users need a thick understanding of the newstopic in order to have their say about it It does make it easier to contributebut users can be so amazed or shocked by a story that they want to expresstheir feelings or opinion about it This can be grouped in an eighth set offactors as people simply having something to say

All these sets can in turn be clustered as shaping usersrsquo orientation towardsself-expression

A ninth set of factors relates to people being lsquolsquoin the mood for produsagersquorsquoThe Living Lab-approach allowed us to take into account situationalelements During the study it became clear that users do not always feellike contributing Especially when online news is used between times or toquickly catch up with the news participants seemed not willing to reactextensively on it Also work stress domestic tasks and other time-consumingactivities shape a userrsquos mood for produsage Similar results are found in aDutch study on personalised news (Bierhoff and Eyck 2009) where theoutcome suggests that the level of personalisation in news applications shouldbe adaptable to the mood of users in order to truly obtain an added value

112 I Picone

Other participants show a more general pro or contra attitude towards newsprodusage that is less subject to mood swings They simply do not want topublicly react on news stories or comments made by others or conversely arevery keen on voicing their opinion It seems a matter of principle be it becausethey do not see the added value because they do not feel like spamming theInternet or even because they estimate it impolite to carp on others On a moregeneral level this seemed to relate to the fact of not being used to being askedto voice opinions online a 10th set of factors This can be linked to morestructural cultural or generational factors eg the Flemish catholic inspiredculture to lsquolsquothink twice before you speakrsquorsquo An interesting element here is thatwithholding participants to contribute is not so much the fact of having anopinion but of saying it out loud lsquolsquoWho am I to tell what others need tothinkrsquorsquo was a rhetorical question heard at different occasions amongst theparticipants Different participants were keen on having an opinion but felt asif they would be too intrusive when sharing it with strangers online

These sets of factors could form a cluster termed lsquolsquoattitude and moodrsquorsquorespectively pointing towards a more structural and situational affectiontowards the act of produsing news

An 11th set of factors refers to usersrsquo skills People with poor writing skillsmay be reluctant to contribute especially when the level of other contribu-tions is rather high Besides writing skills also narrative and argumentativeskills or the perceived lack of it were recurrent thresholds for contributingFurthermore different participants at this point applied the element ofmisjudgement mentioned before on their own ability being afraid of nothaving enough background to make an appropriate comment or judgementThis way a perceived lack of skills is not only a threshold to comment butalso to vote or to mark news as well This is related to a 12th set of factors Asalready mentioned people may be afraid of reactions by others on theircontribution which might withhold them from participating Here we see thelink with the potential public of an act of productive news use People thinkabout what others are likely to think about their contribution It isremarkable to note that various participants felt much more comfortablesharing this kind of information with close friends than with strangers onlineIt seemed that the more they were able to anticipate the reactions of othersthe more they were keen on contributing Again not so much what they hadto say (or produce) but who might hear it and how they would react played arole at that moment

These two sets of factors can be clustered under the idea of self-confidenceas they refer to the degree to which a user is confident voicing his opinion

All these factors relate to the personal dispositions of the user hisherskills attitude mood and background or in general a more personal dimen-sion and how this shapes hisher decision to engage with the news or not

A 12th set of factors relates to the idea of the potential public of a userrsquoscontribution Being able to assess onersquos potential public and how they willreact to onersquos contribution played an important role when consideringwhether or not to share mark or comment news stories This is what makes

Produsage as a form of self-publication 113

sharing news with friends via Facebook or mail and certainly face to facemore accessible than putting it online where virtually everybody can see it itis easier to assess whether friends will like it than it is to estimate whether asignificant part of a news sitersquos audience will appreciate it

These factors can be clustered under the term potential public In generalthe more one is able to assess what hisher potential public may like the morelikely heshe is to contribute

Building on the idea of the potential public we found a 13th set of factorsrevolving around the fact that various participants expected their contribu-tion one way or another to form an added value for the people who wouldread it (eg when they could advise others on a certain topic) This can belinked to Thorsonrsquos (2008) research on the most-emailed article list on theNew York Times web site The author concludes that news stories withpractical tips are more likely to be emailed to others The more usefulinformation is the more likely the potential public of the information is toappreciate it Such contributions however were more likely to be shared onlifestyle sections than on the hard news sections A similar set of factors wasfound concerning hard news Users then did not want to help others butmake them aware of certain aspects they think are important another angleto a story elements that need nuance the existence of other stakeholders withdifferent views and so on all with the intention to broaden other usersrsquohorizon Voting for certain articles in order for them to reach the most votedsection is a good example of this A 15th set of factors can be viewed as goingeven a step further by not only raising awareness for certain issues butgaining interest from other users by interacting through comment sections orlinking to other sites concerning the issue

All these sets can be clustered as a form of altruism where users want toshow commitment to the broader community they belong to

A final set of factors could be named lsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo Especially on news sitescomment sections tend to take the form of a wailing wall everyone can postopinions contributions and complaints but usually nothing happens with itFor many participants the fact that their contribution would not be takeninto account or would not have any impact seemed to be a major thresholdto participate Why exert one if it is a lost call anyway

These clusters in turn seem to revolve around a social dimension They allcome forth out of a social reflex users have with their potential public orsociety as a whole

321 Conclusion understanding produsage as self-publication The 16 different setsof factors the eight clusters they are organised in and the three overarchingdimensions represent a relevant set of motivational situational and socialfactors shaping the practice of productive news use (Q2) These dimensionsrelating to casual produsage could be pursued further to structuralprodusage as visualised in Figure 1 The passion and dedication of Pro-Ams could be considered as a more intense connection or affection towardsthe idea of information production lsquolsquothinking by writingrsquorsquo lsquolsquoto networkrsquorsquo or

114 I Picone

lsquolsquoto improve writing skillsrsquorsquo could be seen as elements of self-expression orself-development and the impending loss of values driving citizen journalistscould be regarded as a strong social reflex towards a potential public thatneeds to be better informed (see Figure 1)

How can these different sets of factors the clusters they are grouped in andthe dimensions they are categorised in now shed light on produsage as asocial practice from a user perspective more precisely the perspective ofcasual news produsers

A first element that becomes clear through this research is that knowledgeand skills do play an important role to engage with the news also amongstcasual produsers However they are not the only factors relating to the userrsquosindividual dispositions Also self-expression and self-confidence are relevantaspects Interesting is that these elements are interpreted in relation to thepotential public of a userrsquos contribution It is not so much the difficulty ofwriting a comment that holds users back from voting sharing or reacting toa news story but other usersrsquo response to it Users do not express themselvesby producing an opinion but by publicising it

Figure 1 Motivational situational and social factors shaping productive news use

Produsage as a form of self-publication 115

A second interesting element is the identification of situational factors thatdo not only relate to the availability of certain technological artefacts at agiven moment in time but also to the mood and attitude of users in a certaincontext Also the attitude of users towards productive news use seems to acertain extent rooted in cultural values Cultural factors play an importantrole in the way people use news (Vandenbrande 2002 Gasher 2007) and itseems this is also applicable to the productive use of it But remarkable is thata prudent attitude towards productive news use does not in the first placerefer to the articulation of opinions on news stories but to enforcing onersquosown opinion to others Again onersquos concern seems to lie with the potentialpublic and how this public will perceive onersquos contribution and consequentlyoneself

A third important outcome is precisely the emerging importance of usersrsquopotential public when contributing Also the factors lsquolsquoaltruismrsquorsquo andlsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo show that casual produsers attach great importance to the factthat their contribution needs to make a difference In many occasions if theywould have the impression their contribution is not adding anything to thedebate is not reaching anybody or is not helpful or meaningful to others theyask themselves why it would be worth the investment The idea of leveragetakes this a step further referring to the intention of actually having animpact on the issues at stake in society through contributions

To sum up casual produsers seem to treat other users as an audience ofwhich they do not know the reach This potential public plays an importantrole as produsers adapt their contributions to the perceived likes and needs ofit The idea of users reflecting on the lsquolsquoimpactrsquorsquo of their contribution on theirpotential public can be denominated a social reflex This is more than justaltruism It is a reflection on how others are going to perceive the publicationof a personal expression An interesting link is found between this way ofcommunicating online and the notion of performance as defined by Goffman1959 Burnett and Marshall 2003 and Robinson 2007 Performance is everyactivity that takes place during a period of exhibition to a public and that isadapted to the common context of interaction in order to be understood bythat public The performance not only consists of what a person exhibits andhow but also of hisher profile biography the conversation context and howthey both match (Robinson 2007)

Subsequently the user-driven production of information online could beunderstood as a form of self-performance or more suitably self-publicationWe would argue that from a user perspective produsage is not so much aboutthe production of information but rather about the self-publication ofinformation What makes a blog unique is not the fact that users areproducing a diary it is the fact that they can publish it to a potential public ofmillions The true potential of user-generated content lies in the fact that thishappens publicly that this process takes the form of a public performancethat everyone can witness and react to In other words when looking atproductive news use the question is not so much why people do or do notwant to produce information but rather if they want to publicise themselves

116 I Picone

Is the collaborative user-driven production of information as intended byBruns something different from the personal experience of self-publication ofinformation We would argue that they are the both sides of the same pictureWhile Bruns looks at the phenomenon of user-generated content from apoliticaleconomic perspective (from production to produsage) approachingit as a form of self-publication enables us to treat it as a user-experience as asituated social practice (from usage to produsage) We believe it is importantif we want to fully grasp this phenomenon to apply both perspectivesProdusage should not be solely understood as an alternative model for theproduction of information (Bruns 2008) but also as an alternative way ofusing information

Talking about self-publication gives us the opportunity to take intoaccount the stories that do not get to be collectively engaged upon thosecontributions people do not want others to further evaluate and completethose contributions that are not fit for hive mind treatment or the verydistributed acts of produsage that take place in the loosest communitieswhere information is merely being shared without being evaluated and soon The idea of self-publication helps us to understand why certain users arenot necessarily willing to contribute to a shared effort of informationproduction even though they have the skills and knowledge to do so Inother words even if it would be easy and not time consuming why wouldthey not contribute Because they experience it as self-publication and theydo not want or are not comfortable engaging in this practice

Produsage in other words should not only be seen as an alternative way ofproducing information but also as an alternative complementary way ofusing it as the fluid ad hoc adoption of a lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo news logic amongstregular news user shows This kind of distributed casual contribution withindecentralised communities such as news sites could be considered casualprodusage When these efforts take a more structural form the form of acollective hive mind driven production of information we could speak ofstructural produsage as intended by Bruns Self-publication as a lsquolsquoprodu-siversquorsquo logic is finding its way into the daily news use of people and in theirmedia use in general As such it should be a point of interest for scientistsresearching (news) produsage too This lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo logic amongst news usersis not replacing the mere use of traditional news it is complementing itHowever looking at news use without taking the produsive logic into accountwould mean to overlook a great deal of ways in which people are using news

The adaptations from a user-oriented perspective on Brunsrsquos theoryproposed in this paper should not be seen as solely a theoretical reflectionIn reality they are the fruit of an iterative process where findings emergingfrom the data analysis are constantly related to theory in the course of thequalitative study and subsequently they are grounded in practice Still theyare open to discussion It could be a valuable argument not to broadenprodusage as to include casual random non-collective contributions frommainly consuming users Maybe produsage should point only towards thecollective user-driven production of information in order to preserve the link

Produsage as a form of self-publication 117

with the specificity of this kind of process excluding other forms of user-generated content From a production point of view this is arguable Whenlooking at the impact of this form of production it is clear that the effect isessentially visible when singular users combine their engagement Not somuch this or that blog makes the blogosphere influential but specifically thenetworked effect that one message can have when it is endorsed by thousandsof bloggers

Still the practice of self-publication what we identified as the nature ofprodusage as a user experience is an important social evolution that cannotbe neglected We believe produsage is a strong conceptualisation that has thepotential to become an important framework to understand the evolutionsunderlying a large array of currently emerging practices and innovations in aworld not necessarily without borders but with different boundaries andmore cross-boundary work (Bockszkowski 2004) By not merely looking atprodusage as a practice where production outweighs consumption but also asa practice where usage can outweigh production and even more as acontinuum between both dimensions we believe we could come to a more in-depth holistic understanding of this process With this article we hope tohave given a valuable first impetus in that direction

Acknowledgements

This research took place within the framework of the FLEET (Flemish E-publishing Trends

project funded by the Flemish Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) This

interdisciplinary research project aims at generating fundamental scientific knowledge about

the e-publishing sector in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium More information and

research outcomes can be found at wwwfleetprojectbe

References

M Ames and M Naaman lsquolsquoWhy we tag Motivations for annotation in mobile and online mediarsquorsquo Paper

presented at the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 28 April3 May 2007 San

Jose California

JA Anderson lsquolsquoThe pragmatics of audience in research and theoryrsquorsquo in The Audience and its Landscape

J Hay L Grossberg and E Wartella (Eds) Oxford Westview Press pp 7593 1996

J Bierhoff and A Eyck lsquolsquoDesigning the digital dailyrsquorsquo Paper presented at the International Conference

New Media amp Information Convergences amp Divergences 69 May 2009 Athens

N Bolger A Davis and E Rafaeli lsquolsquoDiary Methods capturing life as it is livedrsquorsquo Annual Review of

Psychology 54 pp 579616 2003

PJ Boczkowski Digitizing the News Innovation in Online Newspapers Cambridge MIT Press 2004

DM Boyd Taken Out of Context American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics [unpublished doctoral

thesis] University of California 2008

A Bruns Blogs Wikipedia Second Life and Beyond From Production to Produsage New York Peter

Lang 2008

A Bruns lsquolsquoProdusage Towards a broader framework for user-led content creationrsquorsquo Proceedings of the

2007 Conference on Creativity and Cognition New York ACM Press pp 99106 2007a

A Bruns lsquolsquoThe future is user-led The path towards widespread Produsagersquorsquo Paper presented at the

PerthDAC Conference Perth 1518 September 2007b Western Australia

A Bruns lsquolsquoTowards produsage Futures for user-led content productionrsquorsquo Paper presented at the Cultural

Attitudes towards Communication and Technology Conference 28 June1 July 2006 Tartu Estonia

118 I Picone

and empirically support this Therefore while Brunsrsquos theory explains thedynamic from production to produsage we would like to explore the dynamicfrom usage to produsage Our focus lies on the shift from traditional forms ofnews consumption to the productive use of information

Bruns (2008) does pay attention to this dynamic to a certain extent Heshows that theoretical models making the distinction between producersdistributors and consumers are no longer tenable for the analysis ofinformation goods and services Indeed when looking at news services todaytreating users as merely the consumers of information would cause us tooverlook a great deal of user practices But how are these productive practicesshaped And in relation to news how must we understand the productiveinvolvement of users in their news use

When asking these questions however different elements of Brunsrsquosconceptual framework seem difficult Generally speaking he employs amacro-perspective His focus is not on the way produsers contribute but moreon the networked distributed and decentralised collective outcome that isthe result of it (Bruns 2008) More precisely Bruns conceptualises produsageas user-driven production of information rather than as a productive way ofusing information and he defines produsage to a large extent as a collectiveactivity excluding more individual ways of information production In orderto apply Brunsrsquos theory of produsage to user research these issues have to beaddressed

22 The need to refine produsage for user-oriented studies

First as Bruns is especially interested in the ways in which users are producinginformation he pays less attention to how people are using it We could arguethat Brunsrsquos concerns lie with user-driven information production whereas wewould like to investigate production-driven information usage Bruns does notignore this perspective as his reflections on produsers as Professional Amateurs(Pro-Ams) show He describes produsers as Pro-Ams as conceptualised byLeadbeater and Miller (2004) They act as volunteers who invest time andenergy in the pursuit of their engagement Pro-Am activities demand dedica-tion passion and perseverance and Pro-Ams are confronted with fears risksopportunities and setbacks Nevertheless this investment gives them culturalcapital knowledge and appreciation by others From a user-oriented researchperspective it would be interesting however to dig deeper into these fears risksopportunities and setbacks and their underlying dynamics Two elements inparticular deserve our attention when is a user a Pro-Am and which factorsshape these fears and opportunities

By presenting produsage communities as ad hoc meritocracies based onfluid and equipotential participation Bruns acknowledges the fact that notevery member of a produsage community is a produser at all times and somemembers rather casually contribute when their specific skills allow them to(Bruns 2008) JD Lasica (Hutchinson et al 2003) relates this to news Whenlooking at user-generated news content he not only sees citizen journalism

102 I Picone

and news blogs as important actors of change He also speaks of lsquolsquorandomacts of journalismrsquorsquo to refer to news content generated by people who do notpursue amateur journalism but who happen to witness the news live orhappen to have a piece of information they think is worth sharing WhenBruns refers to Lasicarsquos random acts of journalism however he does so topoint out how collective collaborative processes of citizen journalismengender ad hoc communities of governance rather than to elaborate onthis casual form of produsage

Bruns considers the specific knowledge and skills somebody has concern-ing a certain topic as important elements shaping produsage These arecertainly important factors but surely not the sole ones explaining produsageIn their research on communities of interest Nonnecke et al (2006) find that25 of the lurkers among their participants ie users being in the communitywithout contributingor produsing for that matterhave something to sayand 13 are actually willing to contribute In other words they have ideas ona certain topic and want to contribute but still they decide not to do so Whatis withholding them Other factors are likely to play a role when users engagein random acts of journalism Furthermore we know little about how thesemotivations interact amongst each other but also with situational factors Ifprodusage can be an ad hoc activity the way in which it is embedded in thedaily routines of users or situational factors like mood stress time pressureplace and so on must also be taken into account All these elements help toclarify what the practice of produsage means for those users undertaking it

In order to point out the difference between casual contributions to ratherdistributed and decentralised communities of produsage (where usageoutweighs production) and contribution to communities of produsagestructured around the collective production of information by hive minds(where production outweighs usage) we could speak about casual respec-tively structural produsage Applied to news produsage examples of casualnews produsage would be to leave a reaction in the comment section of anonline article to share a news fact with friends or to write an email to theeditor Structural produsage would then be contributing regularly to a citizenjournalism news site reporting news stories on a blog or being a frequenterin a news community like Diggcom

Second Bruns (2008) generally speaks of produsers in terms of acommunity He refers to JC Herzrsquo hive minds or Von Hippelrsquos (2005)information communities as the driver of produsage Produsage is a collectiveeffort Bruns (2008 p 16) states about his book lsquolsquofundamentally then [it] isabout a variety of such hive minds such information communities and theirpatterns and protocols of interaction and collaboration [ ]rsquorsquo Whenanalysing news produsage Bruns describes the open news story developmentwithin citizen journalism produser communities It starts with users having anitch to scratch subsequently initiating a story sharing it with the communityand letting the community take it from there evaluating discussing andadding depth to the story for it to become a collective and qualitative piece ofwork (Bruns 2008)

Produsage as a form of self-publication 103

However this process is the ideal type A contribution by users does notnecessarily follow this path Comment sections of news eg often take theform of a rather chaotic listing of different opinions and ramblings notnecessarily building up one on another and rarely resulting in a newimproved story being further prodused in the blogosphere For everysuccessful collectively produced act of citizen journalism a myriad ofunsuccessful postings seem to be possible especially on sites where mainlycasual produsage takes place like news sites Would this mean that a user isprodusing when hisher story is being engaged on but is not when this is notthe case

One could argue whether the collective engagement on a casual produserrsquoscontribution is a necessary condition to speak of produsage When usersdecide to react to a news story or post a story on their blog do they expectthis to be further processed by the community Brunsrsquos ideas on produsageremain rather vague on this aspect Bruns certainly sees the blogosphere as acommunity of produsage but it is less clear if he considers the individual actof blogging as a way of produsing information It is worth looking at whatother studies tell about how users perceive this Based on their research onbloggersrsquo motivations to post stories Nardi et al (2004a) consider blogs as abroadcast medium of little interactivity suggesting that bloggers wantinteraction with their public but equally want to remain in control of whatothers do with their writings Asked on what basis bloggers see their blog assuccessful 75 of American bloggers point to personal satisfaction whereasonly 58 and 53 say the amount of comments respectively the number ofdaily visitors matters the most (Technorati 2008)

If we consider this individual form of user-generated content production asprodusage here too knowledge and skills do not seem to be the only reasonsfor individual users to contribute or not Synthesising different studies onblogger motivations the following main motivations can be identified (1) todocument onersquos life (and inform others about it) (2) share comments andopinions (to influence others) (3) to express onersquos self or onersquos emotions(blogging like a catharsis) (4) thinking by writing (5) socialise or expand ormaintain onersquos network (to receive feedback from others) (6) improve writingskills and (7) self-documentation (compile useful information online) Whenlooking at news bloggers or citizen journalists an important factor is theexperience of an impending loss of journalistic values Citizen journalists actbecause they believe mainstream journalists no longer meet the necessarystandards of speed content and quality (Bruns 2005 Ryfe and Mensing2007)

This broad categorisation of possible personal motivations to contribute tothe blogosphere already gives an indication of the different meanings thatusers can give to the practices of putting information online Howeverdifferent studies on citizen journalism look at bloggers or other lsquolsquoexpertcontributorsrsquorsquo (see eg Domingo et al 2007 Paulussen et al 2007 Deuze2008) Research on news produsage seems to focus mainly on these lead usersof news participation When looking at news bloggers or citizen journalists

104 I Picone

participants often are structural produsers blogging or reporting on a regularbasis through their own or collective news outlets The random acts ofjournalism Lasica speaks of are less represented Therefore it is not onlyinteresting to look at news produsage from a more personal perspective butalso to those users only casually engaging in productive news use They donot own their own news blog but rather contribute by voting on a news storyby sending an article to certain friends via email or by commenting on newssites or fora

The issues addressed here can be visualised on two dimensions usageproduction and individualcollective Whereas Bruns elaborates more on thecollective production of information this article would like to address thepersonal productive use of information more specifically regarding newsamongst regular news users More precisely the following research question isput forward

Q1 How do casual news produsers experience contributing to the news

This research question demands for a more qualitative approach to thematter The scope is not so much to quantify usersrsquo productive use of news(see Eurostat 2009 The Pew Research Centre 2009) but to understand whatthese activities mean to them We are interested in understanding productivenews use as a user experience embedded in an everyday context What does itconsist of in the mind of the user How do people fit it into their media useand other daily pursuits In order to answer these questions we need notonly to take into account motivational aspects but also situational andbroader social factors This brings us to the second research question

Q2 What motivational situational and social factors shape the userexperience of casual news produsers

It is important to note that we are chiefly interested in getting insights intoa practice not so much into the users themselves They form the entry pointsthrough which we can gather data on that practice (Boyd 2008) Furthermorewe hope insights into productive news use as a situated social practiceembedded in daily routines can help us evaluate if Brunsrsquos theory of produsageis found applicable to personal and casual productive use of information onthe one hand and on user-oriented research on the other hand

3 Online casual news produsage a semi-experimental digital ethnography based on a

Living Lab-approach

31 Methodology

In finding the right methodology to answer these questions different issueshad to be tackled

A first concern appeared inherent to the target group of our study The userresearch within the Fleet-project revolves around those aspects of user

Produsage as a form of self-publication 105

contribution that can be understood as individual casual productive usageSeen the rather personal nature of online news use the functionalitiescommonly offered on news sites like voting sharing and commenting form agood illustration of functionalities that are not aimed at creating a commonoutput but rather offer a platform for users to post their personal opinionsbeliefs or ramblings for others to read (or not) Central are not the bloggerscitizen journalists or other expert users of participative media but onlinenews users that occasionally cast a vote share an article or post a commenton a news site

Casual news produsers by definition only casually produse news Thismakes it difficult to pinpoint the moments where people engage in randomacts of journalism Through digital ethnography (Masten and Powman 2003Murthy 2008) it is possible to observe different news sites and to addressusers This allows researchers to get insight in specific acts of productive newsbut not in the underlying relations Therefore one would need to followcertain users through different activities in order to question them on allaspects Indeed as we mentioned the strength of the idea of produsage is thatit offers a way of understanding the dynamics underlying these different actsThis means observation is not sufficient Participants are needed that can befollowed during a certain time over different times situations and platformsboth online and offline In-depth interviews are proposed in order to dig intofactors emerging and in order to discover patters underlying different formsof productive news use

Therefore we chose to select participants according to maximum variationsampling a form of purposeful sampling aimed at getting a strongheterogeneity within a sample on the dimensions of interest (List 2004Polkinghorne 2005) This variation can be achieved on the level ofparticipantsrsquo experience with the researched practice (phenomenologicalsampling) or in their personal characteristics The rationale behind suchsampling is that through a strong variation in the sample of participantsrsquo datathey generate in this case the motivational situational and social factorsshaping their productive news use represent a fair amount of the availablepossibilities We get a wide spectrum of factors that are relevant amongst avariety of users Furthermore it allows discerning common patterns that cutacross the variations (Patton 1990) Hence it gives us insight in the factorsshaping the practice of productive news use amongst different relevant userprofiles

The next step is to determine how to select participants for a samplerepresenting a maximum variation This was achieved in two steps First weused the three dimensions shaping online news use identified by Nguyen(2008) orientation towards news new media-mindedness and Internetexperience Nguyen argues that these dimensions to a large extent determinethe way users engage with the news online Our sample thus had to consist ofparticipants with different kinds of profiles on these dimensions in order toincorporate a relevant variation of news users in our sample Eight possibleprofiles were identified (see Table 1)

106 I Picone

We chose to select users on the basis of a questionnaire consisting of 32questions relating to Nguyenrsquos three dimensions Flemish newspaper HetNieuwsblad published the survey on his news site There were 562 persons thatresponded to the questionnaire After cleaning the data 515 were willing toparticipate Their answers were coded in order to give them a score on everyone of the three dimensions Only the respondents scoring extremely highandor low on the three dimensions were selected constituting a shortlist ofapproximately 60 respondents corresponding to one of the eight profilesThirty-eight persons finally agreed to participate in the research (see Table 1)Within this final sample men and women coming from different social-economical backgrounds were distributed relatively evenly amongst theparticipants All were living in Flanders or Brussels and between 20 and 72years old

Whereas this group showed a strong variation on their experience withonline news not all of them were equally acquainted with productive onlinenews features Commenting voting or sharing news via mail etc arepractices that are not that common amongst average news consumers(Horowitz 2006 Osimo 2008 Eurostat 2009 The PEW Research Centre2009) Amongst the 38 participants most had shared a news article via emailsome had voted on a poll or article and few had commented on news sites

Table 1 Cross-tabulation of the different news user profiles according to a maximum variation

analysis (pseudonyms are used age between brackets)

Profile Short-term Long-term

1 Internet experience new media minded andnews-oriented

Gerard (46)Antje (59)Gina (26)Jessy (22)

Jan (45)Lina (28)

2 Internet experience new media minded andlittle news-oriented

Quentin (26) Pieter-Eric (23)Clara (26)

3 Internet experience little new media mindedand news-oriented

Anne-Marie (64)Pierre (46)

Edward (58)Marie (48)

4 Internet experience little new media mindedand little news-oriented

Christianne (50)Koenraad (46)

Anna (32)Alexandra (29)Truus (50)

5 Little Internet experience new media mindedand news-oriented

Francois (39)Kurt (41)Marjanne (58)

Tony (30)Piet (29)

6 Little Internet experience new media mindedand little news-oriented

Juliaan (19)Mark (29)

Pina (35)

7 Little Internet experience little new mediaminded and news-oriented

Anja (46)Robrecht (66)

Annette (55)Danny (63)Jeanne (63)Josef (78)John (38)

8 Little Internet experience little new mediaminded and little news-oriented

Cindy (37)Lukas (41)

Kristien (29)Veronique (33)Stan (35)

Produsage as a form of self-publication 107

Therefore we chose to work with two groups a short-term and a long-termone

The short-term group served as an explorative one in order to generateinformation on the way participants experienced productive news use Thegroup consisted of 18 participants They were questioned through a diary-interview Diaries were used to evaluate practices that could not beinvestigated through observation or intensive contact with the participants(Cohen et al 2006) Diaries allow more than just gathering information butmake participants reflect on their actions and describe them (Bolger et al2003 Jacobs and Van den Broeck 2008) The participants were asked to keeptrack of their media use during one week through a day per day paper diarywith closed and open questions The closed questions concerned the mediaand news sources they used that day They were also asked to fill in a dailyhour per hour schedule of their media-related and news-related activitiesThrough the open questions the participants were encouraged to share anythoughts or experiences concerning their media and news use that wouldseem relevant to them This allowed us to operate a more inductive way ofgenerating ideas One week seemed a relevant period as news habits generallyform a routine throughout the week except during the weekend whereFlemish users take more time for news (Glorieux 2006)

These reflections were then further investigated in the in-depth interviewsfollowing the diary period in order to get a more refined idea of why and howpeople give meaning to the different news sources they use The topic list ofeach interview was based on each participantrsquos personal account gatheredthrough the survey and through the diary The participants were confrontedwith the patterns of use emerging out of their diaries and asked to reflectabout what news and contributing to it means for them Special attention wasgiven to incongruence found within the diary or between the diary and thesurvey data of each participant in order to confront the person with it and digdeeper into these often paradoxical accounts A recurring example is thedifference between the time people estimate they spend online (as answered ina question of the survey) and the time they actually spend on it when loggingtheir own media use through the diaries

This first phase of data collection generated 18 seven-day diaries and 18corresponding in-depth interviews A first analysis took place using theladdering technique (Reynolds and Gutman 1988 Grunert and Grunert 1995Chen et al 2002) This technique aims at uncovering factors and processesunderlying the concrete answers given by participants This allows for moregeneral clusters of factors shaping casual acts of productive news use to beidentified With laddering the analysis already starts during the in-depthinterviews by always digging deeper into the motivational ladder of theparticipants The following example can give an idea of such a motivationalladder When confronted with a situation where a participant replies that he isnot interested to leave a comment online the researcher tries to find out whyThe participant answers it is too time-intensive and therefore does not like itStill digging deeper the researcher finds out contributing takes time because

108 I Picone

the participant finds himself not good at writing In the end not wanting tocontribute is not so much a question of interest but a question of beinginsecure and afraid of being publicly reproved when making a spelling orgrammatical mistake in an online contribution Applying this procedure toother situations different factors initially mentioned by participants seemedto lead up to the same underlying motivations That way broader clusters ofrelevant factors and motivations underlying productive news use as a wholecould be identified giving us the possibility to get an idea of what kind ofpractice productive news use is

The different relevant factors and the lsquolsquoladdersrsquorsquo they form that wereidentified at this point served as a first set of findings but were also used asinput to adjust complement and refine the topics to be further investigatedin the long-term phase Certain aspects seeming more important thanexpected or that emerged from the interviews were incorporated in thesecond phase in order to elicit an as wide as possible range of factors shapingproductive news use

Initially the long-term group consisting of 21 participants was alsoquestioned through a diary-interview following the same procedure as thefirst group They were then asked to use different forms of productive newsuse consecutively for three weeks each and during a nine-month period Asalready mentioned casually produsing news means that one is not active onnews produsage sites on a regular basis or one sticks to a certain form ofprodusage (eg only rating news) This would complicate the identificationof factors underlying productive news use as a whole Therefore theparticipants all had to be acquainted to a certain level with the relevantforms of news contribution

In a news context the main forms of productive news use can be identifiedas retrieving news on demand evaluating news sharing news and comment-ing on it (Picone 2008) The participants were consecutively introduced to thefollowing web sites or applications which altogether encompass all of theseforms

Google Reader an RSS-reader allowing users to personalise rate andshare news selection (on demandratesharing)

Zitabe a Flemish news site allowing users to personalise their home pagewith different widgets (on demandrate)

Nujijnl a Dutch news forum where people share links to news stories andrate and comment on othersrsquo links

Procontrabe a Flemish site where the administrator selects and introducesone news topic a day to evaluate and debate amongst users (ratingcommenting) (now offline)

Nieuwsbe a Flemish news site combining all of the above features

The participants were not introduced to these sites in a lab but in theeveryday setting they usually consult news according to a Living Labmethodology (Pierson et al 2005) We did not literally set up a Living Lab

Produsage as a form of self-publication 109

ie an environment for innovation and development where users are exposedto new ICT solutions in (semi-)realistic contexts (Foslashlstad 2008 p 116) Anexample of such a Living Lab would be the deployment of free wifi in a city ordistrict providing a sample of users with Wifi-enabled smartphones andregister their use of it We merely used a Living Lab-approach (Pierson et al2005) introducing participants to applications through a technology theyalready own The rationale behind it however is similar to that of a LivingLab set up namely to study the adoption of technology in daily situationsrather than in an experimental setting This approach is especially usefulwhen looking for factors that go beyond usability and interface By givingparticipants the opportunity to get acquainted to a certain extent with therelevant features researchers avoid the participantsrsquo accounts to revolvearound practical issues of ease-of-use or troubles understanding thesefeatures

In order to allow the participants to incorporate the different web sites intheir daily routines we let them use the applications for three weeks at leastbefore asking them to comment on it Through short mail questionnaires theywere asked for their first impressions likes and dislikes These answers thenserved again as input for an in-depth interview held once all sites andapplications were introduced During the whole period the researcher couldbe reached by phone or mail in order to give feedback on possible problemsparticipants experienced

To facilitate access to these applications and also to guarantee a certainlevel of privacy the participants were asked to use Gmail-addresses especiallyset up for them by the researchers We used these addresses to register theparticipants beforehand on the various sites and applications so they wouldonly need to login always with the same user name and password Theparticipants were aware of the fact that the researchers knew their passwordand would use it to regularly log into their accounts and monitor their use ofthe application This allowed us especially to monitor which kind ofinformation every participant was most keen on contributing to Further-more these observations served again as a way of detecting incongruencebetween what participants were saying and what they were actually doing

The long-term phase was concluded with a second in-depth interviewwhere the participants were asked about their experiences with the differentproductive features The diary-interview the mail questionnaires and thelogging reports served as input for the topic list of those interviews Thediary-interviews and the concluding interviews combined resulted in 42interviews being coded The same laddering technique was applied in order toelaborate motivational ladders for every participant The Living Lab-approach putting productive news use as a situated action at the centreallowed us to also investigate situational and social factors First all interviewrecords were coded according to the different motivational situational andsocial factors identified in the interviews These were clustered according tocommon underlying motivations forming the next rung of the ladder Theserungs were clustered in turn in order to find a higher rung We then compared

110 I Picone

the individual ladders of the 21 participants in order to look for recurringelements and common patterns Because of the maximum variation samplethis allowed us to come to a lsquolsquoladder of laddersrsquorsquo representing a fair amount ofpossible meanings and motivations for productive news use We got an idea ofwhat produsage means to users and how they shape it as a social practicerather than as a production process

It is not the scope of this article to give a detailed overview of all theidentified factors and personal ladders but rather to look at the underlyingmotivational clusters and what they tell us on the practice of productive newsuse In others words we will not present the bottom rungs of the motivationaland situational ladders for productive news use but rather the top ones Thispermits us to come to more theoretical propositions about productive newsuse through the principle of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967)Concretely we look for theoretical propositions to emerge from empiricalanalysis We did not start with a preconceived theory that needs to be provenbut rather with a general area of study that needs elaboration (Razavi andIverson 2007) In this study this area is formed by Brunsrsquos insights on newsprodusage

32 Findings

A first important element emerging from the data analysis is that dedicationpassion and perseverance what Bruns sees at the centre of produsage as aPro-Am activity are reflected in the participantsrsquo answers Contributingonline even simply voting on a news story by clicking on a checkbox next toit requires a certain effort Certain participants felt like all these lsquolsquonewfeaturesrsquorsquo were simply too lsquolsquodemandingrsquorsquo However our participants beingcasual produsers these emotions seem too strong to express their engage-ment Rather we prefer to speak of a form of investment needed in order tocontribute to the news The motivational situational and social factorsidentified through the analysis of the data and presented below can beunderstood as elements inciting or withholding users to deliver the invest-ment productive news use necessarily requires We now go through the threetop lsquolsquorungsrsquorsquo of the motivational ladder of productive news use amongstcasual news produsers sets of factors are grouped into clusters that are inturn grouped into three broad dimensions

We identified a first set of factors about peoplersquos interest in a newsstory Participants seem to be keener on participating when the news itemrevolves on something that they are particularly interested in To a certainextent this corresponds to factors of newsworthiness as those of Galtungand Ruge (1965 Harcup and OrsquoNeil 2001) A second set of factors couldbe labelled as the vicinityspiritually and geographicallyto the newsitem Events involving places persons or themes someone is close to incitecontributions Participants were less keen on contributing to lsquolsquodistantrsquorsquostories unless they generated strong emotions both positive and negativeones a third set

Produsage as a form of self-publication 111

All these factors relate to the connection people have with the news storyThe stronger it is in terms of interest vicinity or emotion the more likelypeople seemed to engage with it

A fourth set of factors is more related to the mistakes that other users makewhen commenting on a news topic or more generally on the news siteParticipants seem sensitive to mistakes and tend to correct them This canalso bear on what someone can perceive as a mistake of judgement by othersin voting an article onto the most valued list or filling in an online poll Notonly the substance of lsquolsquonewsrsquorsquo generated by others also the general tenor ofreactions affects contribution which forms a fifth set of factors When othercontributors seem open to input and people feel like others may be interestedin what they have to say they are more likely to produse Then again ifas isthe case on different Flemish news sites (Picone and Depreeuw 2009)theother contributions look rather hostile or a harsh or depreciatory discussionis emerging in the comment section many participants seemed ratherreluctant to contribute

These sets of factors can be clustered as relating to the reactions of othersNot only news items but also other usersrsquo comments on the news can shapeusersrsquo willingness to contribute

These clusters all relate to the news content the actual story and the waypeople are relating to it They can be clustered in a content-related dimension

A sixth set of factors relates to the knowledge someone has about a certaintopic To what extent is the person not perforce an expert but at least abreastof the news topic discussed Professional or scholarly expertise makes it easierfor someone to contribute because it reduces the odds of being confrontedwith other users online who might point towards mistakes in onersquoscontribution A seventh set of factors also relate to what users know aboutthe news topic but more in terms of lsquolsquohands-onrsquorsquo expertise Even peopleaccidentally witnessing an event gain temporary credibility as a first-handwitness However not always do users need a thick understanding of the newstopic in order to have their say about it It does make it easier to contributebut users can be so amazed or shocked by a story that they want to expresstheir feelings or opinion about it This can be grouped in an eighth set offactors as people simply having something to say

All these sets can in turn be clustered as shaping usersrsquo orientation towardsself-expression

A ninth set of factors relates to people being lsquolsquoin the mood for produsagersquorsquoThe Living Lab-approach allowed us to take into account situationalelements During the study it became clear that users do not always feellike contributing Especially when online news is used between times or toquickly catch up with the news participants seemed not willing to reactextensively on it Also work stress domestic tasks and other time-consumingactivities shape a userrsquos mood for produsage Similar results are found in aDutch study on personalised news (Bierhoff and Eyck 2009) where theoutcome suggests that the level of personalisation in news applications shouldbe adaptable to the mood of users in order to truly obtain an added value

112 I Picone

Other participants show a more general pro or contra attitude towards newsprodusage that is less subject to mood swings They simply do not want topublicly react on news stories or comments made by others or conversely arevery keen on voicing their opinion It seems a matter of principle be it becausethey do not see the added value because they do not feel like spamming theInternet or even because they estimate it impolite to carp on others On a moregeneral level this seemed to relate to the fact of not being used to being askedto voice opinions online a 10th set of factors This can be linked to morestructural cultural or generational factors eg the Flemish catholic inspiredculture to lsquolsquothink twice before you speakrsquorsquo An interesting element here is thatwithholding participants to contribute is not so much the fact of having anopinion but of saying it out loud lsquolsquoWho am I to tell what others need tothinkrsquorsquo was a rhetorical question heard at different occasions amongst theparticipants Different participants were keen on having an opinion but felt asif they would be too intrusive when sharing it with strangers online

These sets of factors could form a cluster termed lsquolsquoattitude and moodrsquorsquorespectively pointing towards a more structural and situational affectiontowards the act of produsing news

An 11th set of factors refers to usersrsquo skills People with poor writing skillsmay be reluctant to contribute especially when the level of other contribu-tions is rather high Besides writing skills also narrative and argumentativeskills or the perceived lack of it were recurrent thresholds for contributingFurthermore different participants at this point applied the element ofmisjudgement mentioned before on their own ability being afraid of nothaving enough background to make an appropriate comment or judgementThis way a perceived lack of skills is not only a threshold to comment butalso to vote or to mark news as well This is related to a 12th set of factors Asalready mentioned people may be afraid of reactions by others on theircontribution which might withhold them from participating Here we see thelink with the potential public of an act of productive news use People thinkabout what others are likely to think about their contribution It isremarkable to note that various participants felt much more comfortablesharing this kind of information with close friends than with strangers onlineIt seemed that the more they were able to anticipate the reactions of othersthe more they were keen on contributing Again not so much what they hadto say (or produce) but who might hear it and how they would react played arole at that moment

These two sets of factors can be clustered under the idea of self-confidenceas they refer to the degree to which a user is confident voicing his opinion

All these factors relate to the personal dispositions of the user hisherskills attitude mood and background or in general a more personal dimen-sion and how this shapes hisher decision to engage with the news or not

A 12th set of factors relates to the idea of the potential public of a userrsquoscontribution Being able to assess onersquos potential public and how they willreact to onersquos contribution played an important role when consideringwhether or not to share mark or comment news stories This is what makes

Produsage as a form of self-publication 113

sharing news with friends via Facebook or mail and certainly face to facemore accessible than putting it online where virtually everybody can see it itis easier to assess whether friends will like it than it is to estimate whether asignificant part of a news sitersquos audience will appreciate it

These factors can be clustered under the term potential public In generalthe more one is able to assess what hisher potential public may like the morelikely heshe is to contribute

Building on the idea of the potential public we found a 13th set of factorsrevolving around the fact that various participants expected their contribu-tion one way or another to form an added value for the people who wouldread it (eg when they could advise others on a certain topic) This can belinked to Thorsonrsquos (2008) research on the most-emailed article list on theNew York Times web site The author concludes that news stories withpractical tips are more likely to be emailed to others The more usefulinformation is the more likely the potential public of the information is toappreciate it Such contributions however were more likely to be shared onlifestyle sections than on the hard news sections A similar set of factors wasfound concerning hard news Users then did not want to help others butmake them aware of certain aspects they think are important another angleto a story elements that need nuance the existence of other stakeholders withdifferent views and so on all with the intention to broaden other usersrsquohorizon Voting for certain articles in order for them to reach the most votedsection is a good example of this A 15th set of factors can be viewed as goingeven a step further by not only raising awareness for certain issues butgaining interest from other users by interacting through comment sections orlinking to other sites concerning the issue

All these sets can be clustered as a form of altruism where users want toshow commitment to the broader community they belong to

A final set of factors could be named lsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo Especially on news sitescomment sections tend to take the form of a wailing wall everyone can postopinions contributions and complaints but usually nothing happens with itFor many participants the fact that their contribution would not be takeninto account or would not have any impact seemed to be a major thresholdto participate Why exert one if it is a lost call anyway

These clusters in turn seem to revolve around a social dimension They allcome forth out of a social reflex users have with their potential public orsociety as a whole

321 Conclusion understanding produsage as self-publication The 16 different setsof factors the eight clusters they are organised in and the three overarchingdimensions represent a relevant set of motivational situational and socialfactors shaping the practice of productive news use (Q2) These dimensionsrelating to casual produsage could be pursued further to structuralprodusage as visualised in Figure 1 The passion and dedication of Pro-Ams could be considered as a more intense connection or affection towardsthe idea of information production lsquolsquothinking by writingrsquorsquo lsquolsquoto networkrsquorsquo or

114 I Picone

lsquolsquoto improve writing skillsrsquorsquo could be seen as elements of self-expression orself-development and the impending loss of values driving citizen journalistscould be regarded as a strong social reflex towards a potential public thatneeds to be better informed (see Figure 1)

How can these different sets of factors the clusters they are grouped in andthe dimensions they are categorised in now shed light on produsage as asocial practice from a user perspective more precisely the perspective ofcasual news produsers

A first element that becomes clear through this research is that knowledgeand skills do play an important role to engage with the news also amongstcasual produsers However they are not the only factors relating to the userrsquosindividual dispositions Also self-expression and self-confidence are relevantaspects Interesting is that these elements are interpreted in relation to thepotential public of a userrsquos contribution It is not so much the difficulty ofwriting a comment that holds users back from voting sharing or reacting toa news story but other usersrsquo response to it Users do not express themselvesby producing an opinion but by publicising it

Figure 1 Motivational situational and social factors shaping productive news use

Produsage as a form of self-publication 115

A second interesting element is the identification of situational factors thatdo not only relate to the availability of certain technological artefacts at agiven moment in time but also to the mood and attitude of users in a certaincontext Also the attitude of users towards productive news use seems to acertain extent rooted in cultural values Cultural factors play an importantrole in the way people use news (Vandenbrande 2002 Gasher 2007) and itseems this is also applicable to the productive use of it But remarkable is thata prudent attitude towards productive news use does not in the first placerefer to the articulation of opinions on news stories but to enforcing onersquosown opinion to others Again onersquos concern seems to lie with the potentialpublic and how this public will perceive onersquos contribution and consequentlyoneself

A third important outcome is precisely the emerging importance of usersrsquopotential public when contributing Also the factors lsquolsquoaltruismrsquorsquo andlsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo show that casual produsers attach great importance to the factthat their contribution needs to make a difference In many occasions if theywould have the impression their contribution is not adding anything to thedebate is not reaching anybody or is not helpful or meaningful to others theyask themselves why it would be worth the investment The idea of leveragetakes this a step further referring to the intention of actually having animpact on the issues at stake in society through contributions

To sum up casual produsers seem to treat other users as an audience ofwhich they do not know the reach This potential public plays an importantrole as produsers adapt their contributions to the perceived likes and needs ofit The idea of users reflecting on the lsquolsquoimpactrsquorsquo of their contribution on theirpotential public can be denominated a social reflex This is more than justaltruism It is a reflection on how others are going to perceive the publicationof a personal expression An interesting link is found between this way ofcommunicating online and the notion of performance as defined by Goffman1959 Burnett and Marshall 2003 and Robinson 2007 Performance is everyactivity that takes place during a period of exhibition to a public and that isadapted to the common context of interaction in order to be understood bythat public The performance not only consists of what a person exhibits andhow but also of hisher profile biography the conversation context and howthey both match (Robinson 2007)

Subsequently the user-driven production of information online could beunderstood as a form of self-performance or more suitably self-publicationWe would argue that from a user perspective produsage is not so much aboutthe production of information but rather about the self-publication ofinformation What makes a blog unique is not the fact that users areproducing a diary it is the fact that they can publish it to a potential public ofmillions The true potential of user-generated content lies in the fact that thishappens publicly that this process takes the form of a public performancethat everyone can witness and react to In other words when looking atproductive news use the question is not so much why people do or do notwant to produce information but rather if they want to publicise themselves

116 I Picone

Is the collaborative user-driven production of information as intended byBruns something different from the personal experience of self-publication ofinformation We would argue that they are the both sides of the same pictureWhile Bruns looks at the phenomenon of user-generated content from apoliticaleconomic perspective (from production to produsage) approachingit as a form of self-publication enables us to treat it as a user-experience as asituated social practice (from usage to produsage) We believe it is importantif we want to fully grasp this phenomenon to apply both perspectivesProdusage should not be solely understood as an alternative model for theproduction of information (Bruns 2008) but also as an alternative way ofusing information

Talking about self-publication gives us the opportunity to take intoaccount the stories that do not get to be collectively engaged upon thosecontributions people do not want others to further evaluate and completethose contributions that are not fit for hive mind treatment or the verydistributed acts of produsage that take place in the loosest communitieswhere information is merely being shared without being evaluated and soon The idea of self-publication helps us to understand why certain users arenot necessarily willing to contribute to a shared effort of informationproduction even though they have the skills and knowledge to do so Inother words even if it would be easy and not time consuming why wouldthey not contribute Because they experience it as self-publication and theydo not want or are not comfortable engaging in this practice

Produsage in other words should not only be seen as an alternative way ofproducing information but also as an alternative complementary way ofusing it as the fluid ad hoc adoption of a lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo news logic amongstregular news user shows This kind of distributed casual contribution withindecentralised communities such as news sites could be considered casualprodusage When these efforts take a more structural form the form of acollective hive mind driven production of information we could speak ofstructural produsage as intended by Bruns Self-publication as a lsquolsquoprodu-siversquorsquo logic is finding its way into the daily news use of people and in theirmedia use in general As such it should be a point of interest for scientistsresearching (news) produsage too This lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo logic amongst news usersis not replacing the mere use of traditional news it is complementing itHowever looking at news use without taking the produsive logic into accountwould mean to overlook a great deal of ways in which people are using news

The adaptations from a user-oriented perspective on Brunsrsquos theoryproposed in this paper should not be seen as solely a theoretical reflectionIn reality they are the fruit of an iterative process where findings emergingfrom the data analysis are constantly related to theory in the course of thequalitative study and subsequently they are grounded in practice Still theyare open to discussion It could be a valuable argument not to broadenprodusage as to include casual random non-collective contributions frommainly consuming users Maybe produsage should point only towards thecollective user-driven production of information in order to preserve the link

Produsage as a form of self-publication 117

with the specificity of this kind of process excluding other forms of user-generated content From a production point of view this is arguable Whenlooking at the impact of this form of production it is clear that the effect isessentially visible when singular users combine their engagement Not somuch this or that blog makes the blogosphere influential but specifically thenetworked effect that one message can have when it is endorsed by thousandsof bloggers

Still the practice of self-publication what we identified as the nature ofprodusage as a user experience is an important social evolution that cannotbe neglected We believe produsage is a strong conceptualisation that has thepotential to become an important framework to understand the evolutionsunderlying a large array of currently emerging practices and innovations in aworld not necessarily without borders but with different boundaries andmore cross-boundary work (Bockszkowski 2004) By not merely looking atprodusage as a practice where production outweighs consumption but also asa practice where usage can outweigh production and even more as acontinuum between both dimensions we believe we could come to a more in-depth holistic understanding of this process With this article we hope tohave given a valuable first impetus in that direction

Acknowledgements

This research took place within the framework of the FLEET (Flemish E-publishing Trends

project funded by the Flemish Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) This

interdisciplinary research project aims at generating fundamental scientific knowledge about

the e-publishing sector in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium More information and

research outcomes can be found at wwwfleetprojectbe

References

M Ames and M Naaman lsquolsquoWhy we tag Motivations for annotation in mobile and online mediarsquorsquo Paper

presented at the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 28 April3 May 2007 San

Jose California

JA Anderson lsquolsquoThe pragmatics of audience in research and theoryrsquorsquo in The Audience and its Landscape

J Hay L Grossberg and E Wartella (Eds) Oxford Westview Press pp 7593 1996

J Bierhoff and A Eyck lsquolsquoDesigning the digital dailyrsquorsquo Paper presented at the International Conference

New Media amp Information Convergences amp Divergences 69 May 2009 Athens

N Bolger A Davis and E Rafaeli lsquolsquoDiary Methods capturing life as it is livedrsquorsquo Annual Review of

Psychology 54 pp 579616 2003

PJ Boczkowski Digitizing the News Innovation in Online Newspapers Cambridge MIT Press 2004

DM Boyd Taken Out of Context American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics [unpublished doctoral

thesis] University of California 2008

A Bruns Blogs Wikipedia Second Life and Beyond From Production to Produsage New York Peter

Lang 2008

A Bruns lsquolsquoProdusage Towards a broader framework for user-led content creationrsquorsquo Proceedings of the

2007 Conference on Creativity and Cognition New York ACM Press pp 99106 2007a

A Bruns lsquolsquoThe future is user-led The path towards widespread Produsagersquorsquo Paper presented at the

PerthDAC Conference Perth 1518 September 2007b Western Australia

A Bruns lsquolsquoTowards produsage Futures for user-led content productionrsquorsquo Paper presented at the Cultural

Attitudes towards Communication and Technology Conference 28 June1 July 2006 Tartu Estonia

118 I Picone

and news blogs as important actors of change He also speaks of lsquolsquorandomacts of journalismrsquorsquo to refer to news content generated by people who do notpursue amateur journalism but who happen to witness the news live orhappen to have a piece of information they think is worth sharing WhenBruns refers to Lasicarsquos random acts of journalism however he does so topoint out how collective collaborative processes of citizen journalismengender ad hoc communities of governance rather than to elaborate onthis casual form of produsage

Bruns considers the specific knowledge and skills somebody has concern-ing a certain topic as important elements shaping produsage These arecertainly important factors but surely not the sole ones explaining produsageIn their research on communities of interest Nonnecke et al (2006) find that25 of the lurkers among their participants ie users being in the communitywithout contributingor produsing for that matterhave something to sayand 13 are actually willing to contribute In other words they have ideas ona certain topic and want to contribute but still they decide not to do so Whatis withholding them Other factors are likely to play a role when users engagein random acts of journalism Furthermore we know little about how thesemotivations interact amongst each other but also with situational factors Ifprodusage can be an ad hoc activity the way in which it is embedded in thedaily routines of users or situational factors like mood stress time pressureplace and so on must also be taken into account All these elements help toclarify what the practice of produsage means for those users undertaking it

In order to point out the difference between casual contributions to ratherdistributed and decentralised communities of produsage (where usageoutweighs production) and contribution to communities of produsagestructured around the collective production of information by hive minds(where production outweighs usage) we could speak about casual respec-tively structural produsage Applied to news produsage examples of casualnews produsage would be to leave a reaction in the comment section of anonline article to share a news fact with friends or to write an email to theeditor Structural produsage would then be contributing regularly to a citizenjournalism news site reporting news stories on a blog or being a frequenterin a news community like Diggcom

Second Bruns (2008) generally speaks of produsers in terms of acommunity He refers to JC Herzrsquo hive minds or Von Hippelrsquos (2005)information communities as the driver of produsage Produsage is a collectiveeffort Bruns (2008 p 16) states about his book lsquolsquofundamentally then [it] isabout a variety of such hive minds such information communities and theirpatterns and protocols of interaction and collaboration [ ]rsquorsquo Whenanalysing news produsage Bruns describes the open news story developmentwithin citizen journalism produser communities It starts with users having anitch to scratch subsequently initiating a story sharing it with the communityand letting the community take it from there evaluating discussing andadding depth to the story for it to become a collective and qualitative piece ofwork (Bruns 2008)

Produsage as a form of self-publication 103

However this process is the ideal type A contribution by users does notnecessarily follow this path Comment sections of news eg often take theform of a rather chaotic listing of different opinions and ramblings notnecessarily building up one on another and rarely resulting in a newimproved story being further prodused in the blogosphere For everysuccessful collectively produced act of citizen journalism a myriad ofunsuccessful postings seem to be possible especially on sites where mainlycasual produsage takes place like news sites Would this mean that a user isprodusing when hisher story is being engaged on but is not when this is notthe case

One could argue whether the collective engagement on a casual produserrsquoscontribution is a necessary condition to speak of produsage When usersdecide to react to a news story or post a story on their blog do they expectthis to be further processed by the community Brunsrsquos ideas on produsageremain rather vague on this aspect Bruns certainly sees the blogosphere as acommunity of produsage but it is less clear if he considers the individual actof blogging as a way of produsing information It is worth looking at whatother studies tell about how users perceive this Based on their research onbloggersrsquo motivations to post stories Nardi et al (2004a) consider blogs as abroadcast medium of little interactivity suggesting that bloggers wantinteraction with their public but equally want to remain in control of whatothers do with their writings Asked on what basis bloggers see their blog assuccessful 75 of American bloggers point to personal satisfaction whereasonly 58 and 53 say the amount of comments respectively the number ofdaily visitors matters the most (Technorati 2008)

If we consider this individual form of user-generated content production asprodusage here too knowledge and skills do not seem to be the only reasonsfor individual users to contribute or not Synthesising different studies onblogger motivations the following main motivations can be identified (1) todocument onersquos life (and inform others about it) (2) share comments andopinions (to influence others) (3) to express onersquos self or onersquos emotions(blogging like a catharsis) (4) thinking by writing (5) socialise or expand ormaintain onersquos network (to receive feedback from others) (6) improve writingskills and (7) self-documentation (compile useful information online) Whenlooking at news bloggers or citizen journalists an important factor is theexperience of an impending loss of journalistic values Citizen journalists actbecause they believe mainstream journalists no longer meet the necessarystandards of speed content and quality (Bruns 2005 Ryfe and Mensing2007)

This broad categorisation of possible personal motivations to contribute tothe blogosphere already gives an indication of the different meanings thatusers can give to the practices of putting information online Howeverdifferent studies on citizen journalism look at bloggers or other lsquolsquoexpertcontributorsrsquorsquo (see eg Domingo et al 2007 Paulussen et al 2007 Deuze2008) Research on news produsage seems to focus mainly on these lead usersof news participation When looking at news bloggers or citizen journalists

104 I Picone

participants often are structural produsers blogging or reporting on a regularbasis through their own or collective news outlets The random acts ofjournalism Lasica speaks of are less represented Therefore it is not onlyinteresting to look at news produsage from a more personal perspective butalso to those users only casually engaging in productive news use They donot own their own news blog but rather contribute by voting on a news storyby sending an article to certain friends via email or by commenting on newssites or fora

The issues addressed here can be visualised on two dimensions usageproduction and individualcollective Whereas Bruns elaborates more on thecollective production of information this article would like to address thepersonal productive use of information more specifically regarding newsamongst regular news users More precisely the following research question isput forward

Q1 How do casual news produsers experience contributing to the news

This research question demands for a more qualitative approach to thematter The scope is not so much to quantify usersrsquo productive use of news(see Eurostat 2009 The Pew Research Centre 2009) but to understand whatthese activities mean to them We are interested in understanding productivenews use as a user experience embedded in an everyday context What does itconsist of in the mind of the user How do people fit it into their media useand other daily pursuits In order to answer these questions we need notonly to take into account motivational aspects but also situational andbroader social factors This brings us to the second research question

Q2 What motivational situational and social factors shape the userexperience of casual news produsers

It is important to note that we are chiefly interested in getting insights intoa practice not so much into the users themselves They form the entry pointsthrough which we can gather data on that practice (Boyd 2008) Furthermorewe hope insights into productive news use as a situated social practiceembedded in daily routines can help us evaluate if Brunsrsquos theory of produsageis found applicable to personal and casual productive use of information onthe one hand and on user-oriented research on the other hand

3 Online casual news produsage a semi-experimental digital ethnography based on a

Living Lab-approach

31 Methodology

In finding the right methodology to answer these questions different issueshad to be tackled

A first concern appeared inherent to the target group of our study The userresearch within the Fleet-project revolves around those aspects of user

Produsage as a form of self-publication 105

contribution that can be understood as individual casual productive usageSeen the rather personal nature of online news use the functionalitiescommonly offered on news sites like voting sharing and commenting form agood illustration of functionalities that are not aimed at creating a commonoutput but rather offer a platform for users to post their personal opinionsbeliefs or ramblings for others to read (or not) Central are not the bloggerscitizen journalists or other expert users of participative media but onlinenews users that occasionally cast a vote share an article or post a commenton a news site

Casual news produsers by definition only casually produse news Thismakes it difficult to pinpoint the moments where people engage in randomacts of journalism Through digital ethnography (Masten and Powman 2003Murthy 2008) it is possible to observe different news sites and to addressusers This allows researchers to get insight in specific acts of productive newsbut not in the underlying relations Therefore one would need to followcertain users through different activities in order to question them on allaspects Indeed as we mentioned the strength of the idea of produsage is thatit offers a way of understanding the dynamics underlying these different actsThis means observation is not sufficient Participants are needed that can befollowed during a certain time over different times situations and platformsboth online and offline In-depth interviews are proposed in order to dig intofactors emerging and in order to discover patters underlying different formsof productive news use

Therefore we chose to select participants according to maximum variationsampling a form of purposeful sampling aimed at getting a strongheterogeneity within a sample on the dimensions of interest (List 2004Polkinghorne 2005) This variation can be achieved on the level ofparticipantsrsquo experience with the researched practice (phenomenologicalsampling) or in their personal characteristics The rationale behind suchsampling is that through a strong variation in the sample of participantsrsquo datathey generate in this case the motivational situational and social factorsshaping their productive news use represent a fair amount of the availablepossibilities We get a wide spectrum of factors that are relevant amongst avariety of users Furthermore it allows discerning common patterns that cutacross the variations (Patton 1990) Hence it gives us insight in the factorsshaping the practice of productive news use amongst different relevant userprofiles

The next step is to determine how to select participants for a samplerepresenting a maximum variation This was achieved in two steps First weused the three dimensions shaping online news use identified by Nguyen(2008) orientation towards news new media-mindedness and Internetexperience Nguyen argues that these dimensions to a large extent determinethe way users engage with the news online Our sample thus had to consist ofparticipants with different kinds of profiles on these dimensions in order toincorporate a relevant variation of news users in our sample Eight possibleprofiles were identified (see Table 1)

106 I Picone

We chose to select users on the basis of a questionnaire consisting of 32questions relating to Nguyenrsquos three dimensions Flemish newspaper HetNieuwsblad published the survey on his news site There were 562 persons thatresponded to the questionnaire After cleaning the data 515 were willing toparticipate Their answers were coded in order to give them a score on everyone of the three dimensions Only the respondents scoring extremely highandor low on the three dimensions were selected constituting a shortlist ofapproximately 60 respondents corresponding to one of the eight profilesThirty-eight persons finally agreed to participate in the research (see Table 1)Within this final sample men and women coming from different social-economical backgrounds were distributed relatively evenly amongst theparticipants All were living in Flanders or Brussels and between 20 and 72years old

Whereas this group showed a strong variation on their experience withonline news not all of them were equally acquainted with productive onlinenews features Commenting voting or sharing news via mail etc arepractices that are not that common amongst average news consumers(Horowitz 2006 Osimo 2008 Eurostat 2009 The PEW Research Centre2009) Amongst the 38 participants most had shared a news article via emailsome had voted on a poll or article and few had commented on news sites

Table 1 Cross-tabulation of the different news user profiles according to a maximum variation

analysis (pseudonyms are used age between brackets)

Profile Short-term Long-term

1 Internet experience new media minded andnews-oriented

Gerard (46)Antje (59)Gina (26)Jessy (22)

Jan (45)Lina (28)

2 Internet experience new media minded andlittle news-oriented

Quentin (26) Pieter-Eric (23)Clara (26)

3 Internet experience little new media mindedand news-oriented

Anne-Marie (64)Pierre (46)

Edward (58)Marie (48)

4 Internet experience little new media mindedand little news-oriented

Christianne (50)Koenraad (46)

Anna (32)Alexandra (29)Truus (50)

5 Little Internet experience new media mindedand news-oriented

Francois (39)Kurt (41)Marjanne (58)

Tony (30)Piet (29)

6 Little Internet experience new media mindedand little news-oriented

Juliaan (19)Mark (29)

Pina (35)

7 Little Internet experience little new mediaminded and news-oriented

Anja (46)Robrecht (66)

Annette (55)Danny (63)Jeanne (63)Josef (78)John (38)

8 Little Internet experience little new mediaminded and little news-oriented

Cindy (37)Lukas (41)

Kristien (29)Veronique (33)Stan (35)

Produsage as a form of self-publication 107

Therefore we chose to work with two groups a short-term and a long-termone

The short-term group served as an explorative one in order to generateinformation on the way participants experienced productive news use Thegroup consisted of 18 participants They were questioned through a diary-interview Diaries were used to evaluate practices that could not beinvestigated through observation or intensive contact with the participants(Cohen et al 2006) Diaries allow more than just gathering information butmake participants reflect on their actions and describe them (Bolger et al2003 Jacobs and Van den Broeck 2008) The participants were asked to keeptrack of their media use during one week through a day per day paper diarywith closed and open questions The closed questions concerned the mediaand news sources they used that day They were also asked to fill in a dailyhour per hour schedule of their media-related and news-related activitiesThrough the open questions the participants were encouraged to share anythoughts or experiences concerning their media and news use that wouldseem relevant to them This allowed us to operate a more inductive way ofgenerating ideas One week seemed a relevant period as news habits generallyform a routine throughout the week except during the weekend whereFlemish users take more time for news (Glorieux 2006)

These reflections were then further investigated in the in-depth interviewsfollowing the diary period in order to get a more refined idea of why and howpeople give meaning to the different news sources they use The topic list ofeach interview was based on each participantrsquos personal account gatheredthrough the survey and through the diary The participants were confrontedwith the patterns of use emerging out of their diaries and asked to reflectabout what news and contributing to it means for them Special attention wasgiven to incongruence found within the diary or between the diary and thesurvey data of each participant in order to confront the person with it and digdeeper into these often paradoxical accounts A recurring example is thedifference between the time people estimate they spend online (as answered ina question of the survey) and the time they actually spend on it when loggingtheir own media use through the diaries

This first phase of data collection generated 18 seven-day diaries and 18corresponding in-depth interviews A first analysis took place using theladdering technique (Reynolds and Gutman 1988 Grunert and Grunert 1995Chen et al 2002) This technique aims at uncovering factors and processesunderlying the concrete answers given by participants This allows for moregeneral clusters of factors shaping casual acts of productive news use to beidentified With laddering the analysis already starts during the in-depthinterviews by always digging deeper into the motivational ladder of theparticipants The following example can give an idea of such a motivationalladder When confronted with a situation where a participant replies that he isnot interested to leave a comment online the researcher tries to find out whyThe participant answers it is too time-intensive and therefore does not like itStill digging deeper the researcher finds out contributing takes time because

108 I Picone

the participant finds himself not good at writing In the end not wanting tocontribute is not so much a question of interest but a question of beinginsecure and afraid of being publicly reproved when making a spelling orgrammatical mistake in an online contribution Applying this procedure toother situations different factors initially mentioned by participants seemedto lead up to the same underlying motivations That way broader clusters ofrelevant factors and motivations underlying productive news use as a wholecould be identified giving us the possibility to get an idea of what kind ofpractice productive news use is

The different relevant factors and the lsquolsquoladdersrsquorsquo they form that wereidentified at this point served as a first set of findings but were also used asinput to adjust complement and refine the topics to be further investigatedin the long-term phase Certain aspects seeming more important thanexpected or that emerged from the interviews were incorporated in thesecond phase in order to elicit an as wide as possible range of factors shapingproductive news use

Initially the long-term group consisting of 21 participants was alsoquestioned through a diary-interview following the same procedure as thefirst group They were then asked to use different forms of productive newsuse consecutively for three weeks each and during a nine-month period Asalready mentioned casually produsing news means that one is not active onnews produsage sites on a regular basis or one sticks to a certain form ofprodusage (eg only rating news) This would complicate the identificationof factors underlying productive news use as a whole Therefore theparticipants all had to be acquainted to a certain level with the relevantforms of news contribution

In a news context the main forms of productive news use can be identifiedas retrieving news on demand evaluating news sharing news and comment-ing on it (Picone 2008) The participants were consecutively introduced to thefollowing web sites or applications which altogether encompass all of theseforms

Google Reader an RSS-reader allowing users to personalise rate andshare news selection (on demandratesharing)

Zitabe a Flemish news site allowing users to personalise their home pagewith different widgets (on demandrate)

Nujijnl a Dutch news forum where people share links to news stories andrate and comment on othersrsquo links

Procontrabe a Flemish site where the administrator selects and introducesone news topic a day to evaluate and debate amongst users (ratingcommenting) (now offline)

Nieuwsbe a Flemish news site combining all of the above features

The participants were not introduced to these sites in a lab but in theeveryday setting they usually consult news according to a Living Labmethodology (Pierson et al 2005) We did not literally set up a Living Lab

Produsage as a form of self-publication 109

ie an environment for innovation and development where users are exposedto new ICT solutions in (semi-)realistic contexts (Foslashlstad 2008 p 116) Anexample of such a Living Lab would be the deployment of free wifi in a city ordistrict providing a sample of users with Wifi-enabled smartphones andregister their use of it We merely used a Living Lab-approach (Pierson et al2005) introducing participants to applications through a technology theyalready own The rationale behind it however is similar to that of a LivingLab set up namely to study the adoption of technology in daily situationsrather than in an experimental setting This approach is especially usefulwhen looking for factors that go beyond usability and interface By givingparticipants the opportunity to get acquainted to a certain extent with therelevant features researchers avoid the participantsrsquo accounts to revolvearound practical issues of ease-of-use or troubles understanding thesefeatures

In order to allow the participants to incorporate the different web sites intheir daily routines we let them use the applications for three weeks at leastbefore asking them to comment on it Through short mail questionnaires theywere asked for their first impressions likes and dislikes These answers thenserved again as input for an in-depth interview held once all sites andapplications were introduced During the whole period the researcher couldbe reached by phone or mail in order to give feedback on possible problemsparticipants experienced

To facilitate access to these applications and also to guarantee a certainlevel of privacy the participants were asked to use Gmail-addresses especiallyset up for them by the researchers We used these addresses to register theparticipants beforehand on the various sites and applications so they wouldonly need to login always with the same user name and password Theparticipants were aware of the fact that the researchers knew their passwordand would use it to regularly log into their accounts and monitor their use ofthe application This allowed us especially to monitor which kind ofinformation every participant was most keen on contributing to Further-more these observations served again as a way of detecting incongruencebetween what participants were saying and what they were actually doing

The long-term phase was concluded with a second in-depth interviewwhere the participants were asked about their experiences with the differentproductive features The diary-interview the mail questionnaires and thelogging reports served as input for the topic list of those interviews Thediary-interviews and the concluding interviews combined resulted in 42interviews being coded The same laddering technique was applied in order toelaborate motivational ladders for every participant The Living Lab-approach putting productive news use as a situated action at the centreallowed us to also investigate situational and social factors First all interviewrecords were coded according to the different motivational situational andsocial factors identified in the interviews These were clustered according tocommon underlying motivations forming the next rung of the ladder Theserungs were clustered in turn in order to find a higher rung We then compared

110 I Picone

the individual ladders of the 21 participants in order to look for recurringelements and common patterns Because of the maximum variation samplethis allowed us to come to a lsquolsquoladder of laddersrsquorsquo representing a fair amount ofpossible meanings and motivations for productive news use We got an idea ofwhat produsage means to users and how they shape it as a social practicerather than as a production process

It is not the scope of this article to give a detailed overview of all theidentified factors and personal ladders but rather to look at the underlyingmotivational clusters and what they tell us on the practice of productive newsuse In others words we will not present the bottom rungs of the motivationaland situational ladders for productive news use but rather the top ones Thispermits us to come to more theoretical propositions about productive newsuse through the principle of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967)Concretely we look for theoretical propositions to emerge from empiricalanalysis We did not start with a preconceived theory that needs to be provenbut rather with a general area of study that needs elaboration (Razavi andIverson 2007) In this study this area is formed by Brunsrsquos insights on newsprodusage

32 Findings

A first important element emerging from the data analysis is that dedicationpassion and perseverance what Bruns sees at the centre of produsage as aPro-Am activity are reflected in the participantsrsquo answers Contributingonline even simply voting on a news story by clicking on a checkbox next toit requires a certain effort Certain participants felt like all these lsquolsquonewfeaturesrsquorsquo were simply too lsquolsquodemandingrsquorsquo However our participants beingcasual produsers these emotions seem too strong to express their engage-ment Rather we prefer to speak of a form of investment needed in order tocontribute to the news The motivational situational and social factorsidentified through the analysis of the data and presented below can beunderstood as elements inciting or withholding users to deliver the invest-ment productive news use necessarily requires We now go through the threetop lsquolsquorungsrsquorsquo of the motivational ladder of productive news use amongstcasual news produsers sets of factors are grouped into clusters that are inturn grouped into three broad dimensions

We identified a first set of factors about peoplersquos interest in a newsstory Participants seem to be keener on participating when the news itemrevolves on something that they are particularly interested in To a certainextent this corresponds to factors of newsworthiness as those of Galtungand Ruge (1965 Harcup and OrsquoNeil 2001) A second set of factors couldbe labelled as the vicinityspiritually and geographicallyto the newsitem Events involving places persons or themes someone is close to incitecontributions Participants were less keen on contributing to lsquolsquodistantrsquorsquostories unless they generated strong emotions both positive and negativeones a third set

Produsage as a form of self-publication 111

All these factors relate to the connection people have with the news storyThe stronger it is in terms of interest vicinity or emotion the more likelypeople seemed to engage with it

A fourth set of factors is more related to the mistakes that other users makewhen commenting on a news topic or more generally on the news siteParticipants seem sensitive to mistakes and tend to correct them This canalso bear on what someone can perceive as a mistake of judgement by othersin voting an article onto the most valued list or filling in an online poll Notonly the substance of lsquolsquonewsrsquorsquo generated by others also the general tenor ofreactions affects contribution which forms a fifth set of factors When othercontributors seem open to input and people feel like others may be interestedin what they have to say they are more likely to produse Then again ifas isthe case on different Flemish news sites (Picone and Depreeuw 2009)theother contributions look rather hostile or a harsh or depreciatory discussionis emerging in the comment section many participants seemed ratherreluctant to contribute

These sets of factors can be clustered as relating to the reactions of othersNot only news items but also other usersrsquo comments on the news can shapeusersrsquo willingness to contribute

These clusters all relate to the news content the actual story and the waypeople are relating to it They can be clustered in a content-related dimension

A sixth set of factors relates to the knowledge someone has about a certaintopic To what extent is the person not perforce an expert but at least abreastof the news topic discussed Professional or scholarly expertise makes it easierfor someone to contribute because it reduces the odds of being confrontedwith other users online who might point towards mistakes in onersquoscontribution A seventh set of factors also relate to what users know aboutthe news topic but more in terms of lsquolsquohands-onrsquorsquo expertise Even peopleaccidentally witnessing an event gain temporary credibility as a first-handwitness However not always do users need a thick understanding of the newstopic in order to have their say about it It does make it easier to contributebut users can be so amazed or shocked by a story that they want to expresstheir feelings or opinion about it This can be grouped in an eighth set offactors as people simply having something to say

All these sets can in turn be clustered as shaping usersrsquo orientation towardsself-expression

A ninth set of factors relates to people being lsquolsquoin the mood for produsagersquorsquoThe Living Lab-approach allowed us to take into account situationalelements During the study it became clear that users do not always feellike contributing Especially when online news is used between times or toquickly catch up with the news participants seemed not willing to reactextensively on it Also work stress domestic tasks and other time-consumingactivities shape a userrsquos mood for produsage Similar results are found in aDutch study on personalised news (Bierhoff and Eyck 2009) where theoutcome suggests that the level of personalisation in news applications shouldbe adaptable to the mood of users in order to truly obtain an added value

112 I Picone

Other participants show a more general pro or contra attitude towards newsprodusage that is less subject to mood swings They simply do not want topublicly react on news stories or comments made by others or conversely arevery keen on voicing their opinion It seems a matter of principle be it becausethey do not see the added value because they do not feel like spamming theInternet or even because they estimate it impolite to carp on others On a moregeneral level this seemed to relate to the fact of not being used to being askedto voice opinions online a 10th set of factors This can be linked to morestructural cultural or generational factors eg the Flemish catholic inspiredculture to lsquolsquothink twice before you speakrsquorsquo An interesting element here is thatwithholding participants to contribute is not so much the fact of having anopinion but of saying it out loud lsquolsquoWho am I to tell what others need tothinkrsquorsquo was a rhetorical question heard at different occasions amongst theparticipants Different participants were keen on having an opinion but felt asif they would be too intrusive when sharing it with strangers online

These sets of factors could form a cluster termed lsquolsquoattitude and moodrsquorsquorespectively pointing towards a more structural and situational affectiontowards the act of produsing news

An 11th set of factors refers to usersrsquo skills People with poor writing skillsmay be reluctant to contribute especially when the level of other contribu-tions is rather high Besides writing skills also narrative and argumentativeskills or the perceived lack of it were recurrent thresholds for contributingFurthermore different participants at this point applied the element ofmisjudgement mentioned before on their own ability being afraid of nothaving enough background to make an appropriate comment or judgementThis way a perceived lack of skills is not only a threshold to comment butalso to vote or to mark news as well This is related to a 12th set of factors Asalready mentioned people may be afraid of reactions by others on theircontribution which might withhold them from participating Here we see thelink with the potential public of an act of productive news use People thinkabout what others are likely to think about their contribution It isremarkable to note that various participants felt much more comfortablesharing this kind of information with close friends than with strangers onlineIt seemed that the more they were able to anticipate the reactions of othersthe more they were keen on contributing Again not so much what they hadto say (or produce) but who might hear it and how they would react played arole at that moment

These two sets of factors can be clustered under the idea of self-confidenceas they refer to the degree to which a user is confident voicing his opinion

All these factors relate to the personal dispositions of the user hisherskills attitude mood and background or in general a more personal dimen-sion and how this shapes hisher decision to engage with the news or not

A 12th set of factors relates to the idea of the potential public of a userrsquoscontribution Being able to assess onersquos potential public and how they willreact to onersquos contribution played an important role when consideringwhether or not to share mark or comment news stories This is what makes

Produsage as a form of self-publication 113

sharing news with friends via Facebook or mail and certainly face to facemore accessible than putting it online where virtually everybody can see it itis easier to assess whether friends will like it than it is to estimate whether asignificant part of a news sitersquos audience will appreciate it

These factors can be clustered under the term potential public In generalthe more one is able to assess what hisher potential public may like the morelikely heshe is to contribute

Building on the idea of the potential public we found a 13th set of factorsrevolving around the fact that various participants expected their contribu-tion one way or another to form an added value for the people who wouldread it (eg when they could advise others on a certain topic) This can belinked to Thorsonrsquos (2008) research on the most-emailed article list on theNew York Times web site The author concludes that news stories withpractical tips are more likely to be emailed to others The more usefulinformation is the more likely the potential public of the information is toappreciate it Such contributions however were more likely to be shared onlifestyle sections than on the hard news sections A similar set of factors wasfound concerning hard news Users then did not want to help others butmake them aware of certain aspects they think are important another angleto a story elements that need nuance the existence of other stakeholders withdifferent views and so on all with the intention to broaden other usersrsquohorizon Voting for certain articles in order for them to reach the most votedsection is a good example of this A 15th set of factors can be viewed as goingeven a step further by not only raising awareness for certain issues butgaining interest from other users by interacting through comment sections orlinking to other sites concerning the issue

All these sets can be clustered as a form of altruism where users want toshow commitment to the broader community they belong to

A final set of factors could be named lsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo Especially on news sitescomment sections tend to take the form of a wailing wall everyone can postopinions contributions and complaints but usually nothing happens with itFor many participants the fact that their contribution would not be takeninto account or would not have any impact seemed to be a major thresholdto participate Why exert one if it is a lost call anyway

These clusters in turn seem to revolve around a social dimension They allcome forth out of a social reflex users have with their potential public orsociety as a whole

321 Conclusion understanding produsage as self-publication The 16 different setsof factors the eight clusters they are organised in and the three overarchingdimensions represent a relevant set of motivational situational and socialfactors shaping the practice of productive news use (Q2) These dimensionsrelating to casual produsage could be pursued further to structuralprodusage as visualised in Figure 1 The passion and dedication of Pro-Ams could be considered as a more intense connection or affection towardsthe idea of information production lsquolsquothinking by writingrsquorsquo lsquolsquoto networkrsquorsquo or

114 I Picone

lsquolsquoto improve writing skillsrsquorsquo could be seen as elements of self-expression orself-development and the impending loss of values driving citizen journalistscould be regarded as a strong social reflex towards a potential public thatneeds to be better informed (see Figure 1)

How can these different sets of factors the clusters they are grouped in andthe dimensions they are categorised in now shed light on produsage as asocial practice from a user perspective more precisely the perspective ofcasual news produsers

A first element that becomes clear through this research is that knowledgeand skills do play an important role to engage with the news also amongstcasual produsers However they are not the only factors relating to the userrsquosindividual dispositions Also self-expression and self-confidence are relevantaspects Interesting is that these elements are interpreted in relation to thepotential public of a userrsquos contribution It is not so much the difficulty ofwriting a comment that holds users back from voting sharing or reacting toa news story but other usersrsquo response to it Users do not express themselvesby producing an opinion but by publicising it

Figure 1 Motivational situational and social factors shaping productive news use

Produsage as a form of self-publication 115

A second interesting element is the identification of situational factors thatdo not only relate to the availability of certain technological artefacts at agiven moment in time but also to the mood and attitude of users in a certaincontext Also the attitude of users towards productive news use seems to acertain extent rooted in cultural values Cultural factors play an importantrole in the way people use news (Vandenbrande 2002 Gasher 2007) and itseems this is also applicable to the productive use of it But remarkable is thata prudent attitude towards productive news use does not in the first placerefer to the articulation of opinions on news stories but to enforcing onersquosown opinion to others Again onersquos concern seems to lie with the potentialpublic and how this public will perceive onersquos contribution and consequentlyoneself

A third important outcome is precisely the emerging importance of usersrsquopotential public when contributing Also the factors lsquolsquoaltruismrsquorsquo andlsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo show that casual produsers attach great importance to the factthat their contribution needs to make a difference In many occasions if theywould have the impression their contribution is not adding anything to thedebate is not reaching anybody or is not helpful or meaningful to others theyask themselves why it would be worth the investment The idea of leveragetakes this a step further referring to the intention of actually having animpact on the issues at stake in society through contributions

To sum up casual produsers seem to treat other users as an audience ofwhich they do not know the reach This potential public plays an importantrole as produsers adapt their contributions to the perceived likes and needs ofit The idea of users reflecting on the lsquolsquoimpactrsquorsquo of their contribution on theirpotential public can be denominated a social reflex This is more than justaltruism It is a reflection on how others are going to perceive the publicationof a personal expression An interesting link is found between this way ofcommunicating online and the notion of performance as defined by Goffman1959 Burnett and Marshall 2003 and Robinson 2007 Performance is everyactivity that takes place during a period of exhibition to a public and that isadapted to the common context of interaction in order to be understood bythat public The performance not only consists of what a person exhibits andhow but also of hisher profile biography the conversation context and howthey both match (Robinson 2007)

Subsequently the user-driven production of information online could beunderstood as a form of self-performance or more suitably self-publicationWe would argue that from a user perspective produsage is not so much aboutthe production of information but rather about the self-publication ofinformation What makes a blog unique is not the fact that users areproducing a diary it is the fact that they can publish it to a potential public ofmillions The true potential of user-generated content lies in the fact that thishappens publicly that this process takes the form of a public performancethat everyone can witness and react to In other words when looking atproductive news use the question is not so much why people do or do notwant to produce information but rather if they want to publicise themselves

116 I Picone

Is the collaborative user-driven production of information as intended byBruns something different from the personal experience of self-publication ofinformation We would argue that they are the both sides of the same pictureWhile Bruns looks at the phenomenon of user-generated content from apoliticaleconomic perspective (from production to produsage) approachingit as a form of self-publication enables us to treat it as a user-experience as asituated social practice (from usage to produsage) We believe it is importantif we want to fully grasp this phenomenon to apply both perspectivesProdusage should not be solely understood as an alternative model for theproduction of information (Bruns 2008) but also as an alternative way ofusing information

Talking about self-publication gives us the opportunity to take intoaccount the stories that do not get to be collectively engaged upon thosecontributions people do not want others to further evaluate and completethose contributions that are not fit for hive mind treatment or the verydistributed acts of produsage that take place in the loosest communitieswhere information is merely being shared without being evaluated and soon The idea of self-publication helps us to understand why certain users arenot necessarily willing to contribute to a shared effort of informationproduction even though they have the skills and knowledge to do so Inother words even if it would be easy and not time consuming why wouldthey not contribute Because they experience it as self-publication and theydo not want or are not comfortable engaging in this practice

Produsage in other words should not only be seen as an alternative way ofproducing information but also as an alternative complementary way ofusing it as the fluid ad hoc adoption of a lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo news logic amongstregular news user shows This kind of distributed casual contribution withindecentralised communities such as news sites could be considered casualprodusage When these efforts take a more structural form the form of acollective hive mind driven production of information we could speak ofstructural produsage as intended by Bruns Self-publication as a lsquolsquoprodu-siversquorsquo logic is finding its way into the daily news use of people and in theirmedia use in general As such it should be a point of interest for scientistsresearching (news) produsage too This lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo logic amongst news usersis not replacing the mere use of traditional news it is complementing itHowever looking at news use without taking the produsive logic into accountwould mean to overlook a great deal of ways in which people are using news

The adaptations from a user-oriented perspective on Brunsrsquos theoryproposed in this paper should not be seen as solely a theoretical reflectionIn reality they are the fruit of an iterative process where findings emergingfrom the data analysis are constantly related to theory in the course of thequalitative study and subsequently they are grounded in practice Still theyare open to discussion It could be a valuable argument not to broadenprodusage as to include casual random non-collective contributions frommainly consuming users Maybe produsage should point only towards thecollective user-driven production of information in order to preserve the link

Produsage as a form of self-publication 117

with the specificity of this kind of process excluding other forms of user-generated content From a production point of view this is arguable Whenlooking at the impact of this form of production it is clear that the effect isessentially visible when singular users combine their engagement Not somuch this or that blog makes the blogosphere influential but specifically thenetworked effect that one message can have when it is endorsed by thousandsof bloggers

Still the practice of self-publication what we identified as the nature ofprodusage as a user experience is an important social evolution that cannotbe neglected We believe produsage is a strong conceptualisation that has thepotential to become an important framework to understand the evolutionsunderlying a large array of currently emerging practices and innovations in aworld not necessarily without borders but with different boundaries andmore cross-boundary work (Bockszkowski 2004) By not merely looking atprodusage as a practice where production outweighs consumption but also asa practice where usage can outweigh production and even more as acontinuum between both dimensions we believe we could come to a more in-depth holistic understanding of this process With this article we hope tohave given a valuable first impetus in that direction

Acknowledgements

This research took place within the framework of the FLEET (Flemish E-publishing Trends

project funded by the Flemish Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) This

interdisciplinary research project aims at generating fundamental scientific knowledge about

the e-publishing sector in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium More information and

research outcomes can be found at wwwfleetprojectbe

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M Ames and M Naaman lsquolsquoWhy we tag Motivations for annotation in mobile and online mediarsquorsquo Paper

presented at the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 28 April3 May 2007 San

Jose California

JA Anderson lsquolsquoThe pragmatics of audience in research and theoryrsquorsquo in The Audience and its Landscape

J Hay L Grossberg and E Wartella (Eds) Oxford Westview Press pp 7593 1996

J Bierhoff and A Eyck lsquolsquoDesigning the digital dailyrsquorsquo Paper presented at the International Conference

New Media amp Information Convergences amp Divergences 69 May 2009 Athens

N Bolger A Davis and E Rafaeli lsquolsquoDiary Methods capturing life as it is livedrsquorsquo Annual Review of

Psychology 54 pp 579616 2003

PJ Boczkowski Digitizing the News Innovation in Online Newspapers Cambridge MIT Press 2004

DM Boyd Taken Out of Context American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics [unpublished doctoral

thesis] University of California 2008

A Bruns Blogs Wikipedia Second Life and Beyond From Production to Produsage New York Peter

Lang 2008

A Bruns lsquolsquoProdusage Towards a broader framework for user-led content creationrsquorsquo Proceedings of the

2007 Conference on Creativity and Cognition New York ACM Press pp 99106 2007a

A Bruns lsquolsquoThe future is user-led The path towards widespread Produsagersquorsquo Paper presented at the

PerthDAC Conference Perth 1518 September 2007b Western Australia

A Bruns lsquolsquoTowards produsage Futures for user-led content productionrsquorsquo Paper presented at the Cultural

Attitudes towards Communication and Technology Conference 28 June1 July 2006 Tartu Estonia

118 I Picone

However this process is the ideal type A contribution by users does notnecessarily follow this path Comment sections of news eg often take theform of a rather chaotic listing of different opinions and ramblings notnecessarily building up one on another and rarely resulting in a newimproved story being further prodused in the blogosphere For everysuccessful collectively produced act of citizen journalism a myriad ofunsuccessful postings seem to be possible especially on sites where mainlycasual produsage takes place like news sites Would this mean that a user isprodusing when hisher story is being engaged on but is not when this is notthe case

One could argue whether the collective engagement on a casual produserrsquoscontribution is a necessary condition to speak of produsage When usersdecide to react to a news story or post a story on their blog do they expectthis to be further processed by the community Brunsrsquos ideas on produsageremain rather vague on this aspect Bruns certainly sees the blogosphere as acommunity of produsage but it is less clear if he considers the individual actof blogging as a way of produsing information It is worth looking at whatother studies tell about how users perceive this Based on their research onbloggersrsquo motivations to post stories Nardi et al (2004a) consider blogs as abroadcast medium of little interactivity suggesting that bloggers wantinteraction with their public but equally want to remain in control of whatothers do with their writings Asked on what basis bloggers see their blog assuccessful 75 of American bloggers point to personal satisfaction whereasonly 58 and 53 say the amount of comments respectively the number ofdaily visitors matters the most (Technorati 2008)

If we consider this individual form of user-generated content production asprodusage here too knowledge and skills do not seem to be the only reasonsfor individual users to contribute or not Synthesising different studies onblogger motivations the following main motivations can be identified (1) todocument onersquos life (and inform others about it) (2) share comments andopinions (to influence others) (3) to express onersquos self or onersquos emotions(blogging like a catharsis) (4) thinking by writing (5) socialise or expand ormaintain onersquos network (to receive feedback from others) (6) improve writingskills and (7) self-documentation (compile useful information online) Whenlooking at news bloggers or citizen journalists an important factor is theexperience of an impending loss of journalistic values Citizen journalists actbecause they believe mainstream journalists no longer meet the necessarystandards of speed content and quality (Bruns 2005 Ryfe and Mensing2007)

This broad categorisation of possible personal motivations to contribute tothe blogosphere already gives an indication of the different meanings thatusers can give to the practices of putting information online Howeverdifferent studies on citizen journalism look at bloggers or other lsquolsquoexpertcontributorsrsquorsquo (see eg Domingo et al 2007 Paulussen et al 2007 Deuze2008) Research on news produsage seems to focus mainly on these lead usersof news participation When looking at news bloggers or citizen journalists

104 I Picone

participants often are structural produsers blogging or reporting on a regularbasis through their own or collective news outlets The random acts ofjournalism Lasica speaks of are less represented Therefore it is not onlyinteresting to look at news produsage from a more personal perspective butalso to those users only casually engaging in productive news use They donot own their own news blog but rather contribute by voting on a news storyby sending an article to certain friends via email or by commenting on newssites or fora

The issues addressed here can be visualised on two dimensions usageproduction and individualcollective Whereas Bruns elaborates more on thecollective production of information this article would like to address thepersonal productive use of information more specifically regarding newsamongst regular news users More precisely the following research question isput forward

Q1 How do casual news produsers experience contributing to the news

This research question demands for a more qualitative approach to thematter The scope is not so much to quantify usersrsquo productive use of news(see Eurostat 2009 The Pew Research Centre 2009) but to understand whatthese activities mean to them We are interested in understanding productivenews use as a user experience embedded in an everyday context What does itconsist of in the mind of the user How do people fit it into their media useand other daily pursuits In order to answer these questions we need notonly to take into account motivational aspects but also situational andbroader social factors This brings us to the second research question

Q2 What motivational situational and social factors shape the userexperience of casual news produsers

It is important to note that we are chiefly interested in getting insights intoa practice not so much into the users themselves They form the entry pointsthrough which we can gather data on that practice (Boyd 2008) Furthermorewe hope insights into productive news use as a situated social practiceembedded in daily routines can help us evaluate if Brunsrsquos theory of produsageis found applicable to personal and casual productive use of information onthe one hand and on user-oriented research on the other hand

3 Online casual news produsage a semi-experimental digital ethnography based on a

Living Lab-approach

31 Methodology

In finding the right methodology to answer these questions different issueshad to be tackled

A first concern appeared inherent to the target group of our study The userresearch within the Fleet-project revolves around those aspects of user

Produsage as a form of self-publication 105

contribution that can be understood as individual casual productive usageSeen the rather personal nature of online news use the functionalitiescommonly offered on news sites like voting sharing and commenting form agood illustration of functionalities that are not aimed at creating a commonoutput but rather offer a platform for users to post their personal opinionsbeliefs or ramblings for others to read (or not) Central are not the bloggerscitizen journalists or other expert users of participative media but onlinenews users that occasionally cast a vote share an article or post a commenton a news site

Casual news produsers by definition only casually produse news Thismakes it difficult to pinpoint the moments where people engage in randomacts of journalism Through digital ethnography (Masten and Powman 2003Murthy 2008) it is possible to observe different news sites and to addressusers This allows researchers to get insight in specific acts of productive newsbut not in the underlying relations Therefore one would need to followcertain users through different activities in order to question them on allaspects Indeed as we mentioned the strength of the idea of produsage is thatit offers a way of understanding the dynamics underlying these different actsThis means observation is not sufficient Participants are needed that can befollowed during a certain time over different times situations and platformsboth online and offline In-depth interviews are proposed in order to dig intofactors emerging and in order to discover patters underlying different formsof productive news use

Therefore we chose to select participants according to maximum variationsampling a form of purposeful sampling aimed at getting a strongheterogeneity within a sample on the dimensions of interest (List 2004Polkinghorne 2005) This variation can be achieved on the level ofparticipantsrsquo experience with the researched practice (phenomenologicalsampling) or in their personal characteristics The rationale behind suchsampling is that through a strong variation in the sample of participantsrsquo datathey generate in this case the motivational situational and social factorsshaping their productive news use represent a fair amount of the availablepossibilities We get a wide spectrum of factors that are relevant amongst avariety of users Furthermore it allows discerning common patterns that cutacross the variations (Patton 1990) Hence it gives us insight in the factorsshaping the practice of productive news use amongst different relevant userprofiles

The next step is to determine how to select participants for a samplerepresenting a maximum variation This was achieved in two steps First weused the three dimensions shaping online news use identified by Nguyen(2008) orientation towards news new media-mindedness and Internetexperience Nguyen argues that these dimensions to a large extent determinethe way users engage with the news online Our sample thus had to consist ofparticipants with different kinds of profiles on these dimensions in order toincorporate a relevant variation of news users in our sample Eight possibleprofiles were identified (see Table 1)

106 I Picone

We chose to select users on the basis of a questionnaire consisting of 32questions relating to Nguyenrsquos three dimensions Flemish newspaper HetNieuwsblad published the survey on his news site There were 562 persons thatresponded to the questionnaire After cleaning the data 515 were willing toparticipate Their answers were coded in order to give them a score on everyone of the three dimensions Only the respondents scoring extremely highandor low on the three dimensions were selected constituting a shortlist ofapproximately 60 respondents corresponding to one of the eight profilesThirty-eight persons finally agreed to participate in the research (see Table 1)Within this final sample men and women coming from different social-economical backgrounds were distributed relatively evenly amongst theparticipants All were living in Flanders or Brussels and between 20 and 72years old

Whereas this group showed a strong variation on their experience withonline news not all of them were equally acquainted with productive onlinenews features Commenting voting or sharing news via mail etc arepractices that are not that common amongst average news consumers(Horowitz 2006 Osimo 2008 Eurostat 2009 The PEW Research Centre2009) Amongst the 38 participants most had shared a news article via emailsome had voted on a poll or article and few had commented on news sites

Table 1 Cross-tabulation of the different news user profiles according to a maximum variation

analysis (pseudonyms are used age between brackets)

Profile Short-term Long-term

1 Internet experience new media minded andnews-oriented

Gerard (46)Antje (59)Gina (26)Jessy (22)

Jan (45)Lina (28)

2 Internet experience new media minded andlittle news-oriented

Quentin (26) Pieter-Eric (23)Clara (26)

3 Internet experience little new media mindedand news-oriented

Anne-Marie (64)Pierre (46)

Edward (58)Marie (48)

4 Internet experience little new media mindedand little news-oriented

Christianne (50)Koenraad (46)

Anna (32)Alexandra (29)Truus (50)

5 Little Internet experience new media mindedand news-oriented

Francois (39)Kurt (41)Marjanne (58)

Tony (30)Piet (29)

6 Little Internet experience new media mindedand little news-oriented

Juliaan (19)Mark (29)

Pina (35)

7 Little Internet experience little new mediaminded and news-oriented

Anja (46)Robrecht (66)

Annette (55)Danny (63)Jeanne (63)Josef (78)John (38)

8 Little Internet experience little new mediaminded and little news-oriented

Cindy (37)Lukas (41)

Kristien (29)Veronique (33)Stan (35)

Produsage as a form of self-publication 107

Therefore we chose to work with two groups a short-term and a long-termone

The short-term group served as an explorative one in order to generateinformation on the way participants experienced productive news use Thegroup consisted of 18 participants They were questioned through a diary-interview Diaries were used to evaluate practices that could not beinvestigated through observation or intensive contact with the participants(Cohen et al 2006) Diaries allow more than just gathering information butmake participants reflect on their actions and describe them (Bolger et al2003 Jacobs and Van den Broeck 2008) The participants were asked to keeptrack of their media use during one week through a day per day paper diarywith closed and open questions The closed questions concerned the mediaand news sources they used that day They were also asked to fill in a dailyhour per hour schedule of their media-related and news-related activitiesThrough the open questions the participants were encouraged to share anythoughts or experiences concerning their media and news use that wouldseem relevant to them This allowed us to operate a more inductive way ofgenerating ideas One week seemed a relevant period as news habits generallyform a routine throughout the week except during the weekend whereFlemish users take more time for news (Glorieux 2006)

These reflections were then further investigated in the in-depth interviewsfollowing the diary period in order to get a more refined idea of why and howpeople give meaning to the different news sources they use The topic list ofeach interview was based on each participantrsquos personal account gatheredthrough the survey and through the diary The participants were confrontedwith the patterns of use emerging out of their diaries and asked to reflectabout what news and contributing to it means for them Special attention wasgiven to incongruence found within the diary or between the diary and thesurvey data of each participant in order to confront the person with it and digdeeper into these often paradoxical accounts A recurring example is thedifference between the time people estimate they spend online (as answered ina question of the survey) and the time they actually spend on it when loggingtheir own media use through the diaries

This first phase of data collection generated 18 seven-day diaries and 18corresponding in-depth interviews A first analysis took place using theladdering technique (Reynolds and Gutman 1988 Grunert and Grunert 1995Chen et al 2002) This technique aims at uncovering factors and processesunderlying the concrete answers given by participants This allows for moregeneral clusters of factors shaping casual acts of productive news use to beidentified With laddering the analysis already starts during the in-depthinterviews by always digging deeper into the motivational ladder of theparticipants The following example can give an idea of such a motivationalladder When confronted with a situation where a participant replies that he isnot interested to leave a comment online the researcher tries to find out whyThe participant answers it is too time-intensive and therefore does not like itStill digging deeper the researcher finds out contributing takes time because

108 I Picone

the participant finds himself not good at writing In the end not wanting tocontribute is not so much a question of interest but a question of beinginsecure and afraid of being publicly reproved when making a spelling orgrammatical mistake in an online contribution Applying this procedure toother situations different factors initially mentioned by participants seemedto lead up to the same underlying motivations That way broader clusters ofrelevant factors and motivations underlying productive news use as a wholecould be identified giving us the possibility to get an idea of what kind ofpractice productive news use is

The different relevant factors and the lsquolsquoladdersrsquorsquo they form that wereidentified at this point served as a first set of findings but were also used asinput to adjust complement and refine the topics to be further investigatedin the long-term phase Certain aspects seeming more important thanexpected or that emerged from the interviews were incorporated in thesecond phase in order to elicit an as wide as possible range of factors shapingproductive news use

Initially the long-term group consisting of 21 participants was alsoquestioned through a diary-interview following the same procedure as thefirst group They were then asked to use different forms of productive newsuse consecutively for three weeks each and during a nine-month period Asalready mentioned casually produsing news means that one is not active onnews produsage sites on a regular basis or one sticks to a certain form ofprodusage (eg only rating news) This would complicate the identificationof factors underlying productive news use as a whole Therefore theparticipants all had to be acquainted to a certain level with the relevantforms of news contribution

In a news context the main forms of productive news use can be identifiedas retrieving news on demand evaluating news sharing news and comment-ing on it (Picone 2008) The participants were consecutively introduced to thefollowing web sites or applications which altogether encompass all of theseforms

Google Reader an RSS-reader allowing users to personalise rate andshare news selection (on demandratesharing)

Zitabe a Flemish news site allowing users to personalise their home pagewith different widgets (on demandrate)

Nujijnl a Dutch news forum where people share links to news stories andrate and comment on othersrsquo links

Procontrabe a Flemish site where the administrator selects and introducesone news topic a day to evaluate and debate amongst users (ratingcommenting) (now offline)

Nieuwsbe a Flemish news site combining all of the above features

The participants were not introduced to these sites in a lab but in theeveryday setting they usually consult news according to a Living Labmethodology (Pierson et al 2005) We did not literally set up a Living Lab

Produsage as a form of self-publication 109

ie an environment for innovation and development where users are exposedto new ICT solutions in (semi-)realistic contexts (Foslashlstad 2008 p 116) Anexample of such a Living Lab would be the deployment of free wifi in a city ordistrict providing a sample of users with Wifi-enabled smartphones andregister their use of it We merely used a Living Lab-approach (Pierson et al2005) introducing participants to applications through a technology theyalready own The rationale behind it however is similar to that of a LivingLab set up namely to study the adoption of technology in daily situationsrather than in an experimental setting This approach is especially usefulwhen looking for factors that go beyond usability and interface By givingparticipants the opportunity to get acquainted to a certain extent with therelevant features researchers avoid the participantsrsquo accounts to revolvearound practical issues of ease-of-use or troubles understanding thesefeatures

In order to allow the participants to incorporate the different web sites intheir daily routines we let them use the applications for three weeks at leastbefore asking them to comment on it Through short mail questionnaires theywere asked for their first impressions likes and dislikes These answers thenserved again as input for an in-depth interview held once all sites andapplications were introduced During the whole period the researcher couldbe reached by phone or mail in order to give feedback on possible problemsparticipants experienced

To facilitate access to these applications and also to guarantee a certainlevel of privacy the participants were asked to use Gmail-addresses especiallyset up for them by the researchers We used these addresses to register theparticipants beforehand on the various sites and applications so they wouldonly need to login always with the same user name and password Theparticipants were aware of the fact that the researchers knew their passwordand would use it to regularly log into their accounts and monitor their use ofthe application This allowed us especially to monitor which kind ofinformation every participant was most keen on contributing to Further-more these observations served again as a way of detecting incongruencebetween what participants were saying and what they were actually doing

The long-term phase was concluded with a second in-depth interviewwhere the participants were asked about their experiences with the differentproductive features The diary-interview the mail questionnaires and thelogging reports served as input for the topic list of those interviews Thediary-interviews and the concluding interviews combined resulted in 42interviews being coded The same laddering technique was applied in order toelaborate motivational ladders for every participant The Living Lab-approach putting productive news use as a situated action at the centreallowed us to also investigate situational and social factors First all interviewrecords were coded according to the different motivational situational andsocial factors identified in the interviews These were clustered according tocommon underlying motivations forming the next rung of the ladder Theserungs were clustered in turn in order to find a higher rung We then compared

110 I Picone

the individual ladders of the 21 participants in order to look for recurringelements and common patterns Because of the maximum variation samplethis allowed us to come to a lsquolsquoladder of laddersrsquorsquo representing a fair amount ofpossible meanings and motivations for productive news use We got an idea ofwhat produsage means to users and how they shape it as a social practicerather than as a production process

It is not the scope of this article to give a detailed overview of all theidentified factors and personal ladders but rather to look at the underlyingmotivational clusters and what they tell us on the practice of productive newsuse In others words we will not present the bottom rungs of the motivationaland situational ladders for productive news use but rather the top ones Thispermits us to come to more theoretical propositions about productive newsuse through the principle of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967)Concretely we look for theoretical propositions to emerge from empiricalanalysis We did not start with a preconceived theory that needs to be provenbut rather with a general area of study that needs elaboration (Razavi andIverson 2007) In this study this area is formed by Brunsrsquos insights on newsprodusage

32 Findings

A first important element emerging from the data analysis is that dedicationpassion and perseverance what Bruns sees at the centre of produsage as aPro-Am activity are reflected in the participantsrsquo answers Contributingonline even simply voting on a news story by clicking on a checkbox next toit requires a certain effort Certain participants felt like all these lsquolsquonewfeaturesrsquorsquo were simply too lsquolsquodemandingrsquorsquo However our participants beingcasual produsers these emotions seem too strong to express their engage-ment Rather we prefer to speak of a form of investment needed in order tocontribute to the news The motivational situational and social factorsidentified through the analysis of the data and presented below can beunderstood as elements inciting or withholding users to deliver the invest-ment productive news use necessarily requires We now go through the threetop lsquolsquorungsrsquorsquo of the motivational ladder of productive news use amongstcasual news produsers sets of factors are grouped into clusters that are inturn grouped into three broad dimensions

We identified a first set of factors about peoplersquos interest in a newsstory Participants seem to be keener on participating when the news itemrevolves on something that they are particularly interested in To a certainextent this corresponds to factors of newsworthiness as those of Galtungand Ruge (1965 Harcup and OrsquoNeil 2001) A second set of factors couldbe labelled as the vicinityspiritually and geographicallyto the newsitem Events involving places persons or themes someone is close to incitecontributions Participants were less keen on contributing to lsquolsquodistantrsquorsquostories unless they generated strong emotions both positive and negativeones a third set

Produsage as a form of self-publication 111

All these factors relate to the connection people have with the news storyThe stronger it is in terms of interest vicinity or emotion the more likelypeople seemed to engage with it

A fourth set of factors is more related to the mistakes that other users makewhen commenting on a news topic or more generally on the news siteParticipants seem sensitive to mistakes and tend to correct them This canalso bear on what someone can perceive as a mistake of judgement by othersin voting an article onto the most valued list or filling in an online poll Notonly the substance of lsquolsquonewsrsquorsquo generated by others also the general tenor ofreactions affects contribution which forms a fifth set of factors When othercontributors seem open to input and people feel like others may be interestedin what they have to say they are more likely to produse Then again ifas isthe case on different Flemish news sites (Picone and Depreeuw 2009)theother contributions look rather hostile or a harsh or depreciatory discussionis emerging in the comment section many participants seemed ratherreluctant to contribute

These sets of factors can be clustered as relating to the reactions of othersNot only news items but also other usersrsquo comments on the news can shapeusersrsquo willingness to contribute

These clusters all relate to the news content the actual story and the waypeople are relating to it They can be clustered in a content-related dimension

A sixth set of factors relates to the knowledge someone has about a certaintopic To what extent is the person not perforce an expert but at least abreastof the news topic discussed Professional or scholarly expertise makes it easierfor someone to contribute because it reduces the odds of being confrontedwith other users online who might point towards mistakes in onersquoscontribution A seventh set of factors also relate to what users know aboutthe news topic but more in terms of lsquolsquohands-onrsquorsquo expertise Even peopleaccidentally witnessing an event gain temporary credibility as a first-handwitness However not always do users need a thick understanding of the newstopic in order to have their say about it It does make it easier to contributebut users can be so amazed or shocked by a story that they want to expresstheir feelings or opinion about it This can be grouped in an eighth set offactors as people simply having something to say

All these sets can in turn be clustered as shaping usersrsquo orientation towardsself-expression

A ninth set of factors relates to people being lsquolsquoin the mood for produsagersquorsquoThe Living Lab-approach allowed us to take into account situationalelements During the study it became clear that users do not always feellike contributing Especially when online news is used between times or toquickly catch up with the news participants seemed not willing to reactextensively on it Also work stress domestic tasks and other time-consumingactivities shape a userrsquos mood for produsage Similar results are found in aDutch study on personalised news (Bierhoff and Eyck 2009) where theoutcome suggests that the level of personalisation in news applications shouldbe adaptable to the mood of users in order to truly obtain an added value

112 I Picone

Other participants show a more general pro or contra attitude towards newsprodusage that is less subject to mood swings They simply do not want topublicly react on news stories or comments made by others or conversely arevery keen on voicing their opinion It seems a matter of principle be it becausethey do not see the added value because they do not feel like spamming theInternet or even because they estimate it impolite to carp on others On a moregeneral level this seemed to relate to the fact of not being used to being askedto voice opinions online a 10th set of factors This can be linked to morestructural cultural or generational factors eg the Flemish catholic inspiredculture to lsquolsquothink twice before you speakrsquorsquo An interesting element here is thatwithholding participants to contribute is not so much the fact of having anopinion but of saying it out loud lsquolsquoWho am I to tell what others need tothinkrsquorsquo was a rhetorical question heard at different occasions amongst theparticipants Different participants were keen on having an opinion but felt asif they would be too intrusive when sharing it with strangers online

These sets of factors could form a cluster termed lsquolsquoattitude and moodrsquorsquorespectively pointing towards a more structural and situational affectiontowards the act of produsing news

An 11th set of factors refers to usersrsquo skills People with poor writing skillsmay be reluctant to contribute especially when the level of other contribu-tions is rather high Besides writing skills also narrative and argumentativeskills or the perceived lack of it were recurrent thresholds for contributingFurthermore different participants at this point applied the element ofmisjudgement mentioned before on their own ability being afraid of nothaving enough background to make an appropriate comment or judgementThis way a perceived lack of skills is not only a threshold to comment butalso to vote or to mark news as well This is related to a 12th set of factors Asalready mentioned people may be afraid of reactions by others on theircontribution which might withhold them from participating Here we see thelink with the potential public of an act of productive news use People thinkabout what others are likely to think about their contribution It isremarkable to note that various participants felt much more comfortablesharing this kind of information with close friends than with strangers onlineIt seemed that the more they were able to anticipate the reactions of othersthe more they were keen on contributing Again not so much what they hadto say (or produce) but who might hear it and how they would react played arole at that moment

These two sets of factors can be clustered under the idea of self-confidenceas they refer to the degree to which a user is confident voicing his opinion

All these factors relate to the personal dispositions of the user hisherskills attitude mood and background or in general a more personal dimen-sion and how this shapes hisher decision to engage with the news or not

A 12th set of factors relates to the idea of the potential public of a userrsquoscontribution Being able to assess onersquos potential public and how they willreact to onersquos contribution played an important role when consideringwhether or not to share mark or comment news stories This is what makes

Produsage as a form of self-publication 113

sharing news with friends via Facebook or mail and certainly face to facemore accessible than putting it online where virtually everybody can see it itis easier to assess whether friends will like it than it is to estimate whether asignificant part of a news sitersquos audience will appreciate it

These factors can be clustered under the term potential public In generalthe more one is able to assess what hisher potential public may like the morelikely heshe is to contribute

Building on the idea of the potential public we found a 13th set of factorsrevolving around the fact that various participants expected their contribu-tion one way or another to form an added value for the people who wouldread it (eg when they could advise others on a certain topic) This can belinked to Thorsonrsquos (2008) research on the most-emailed article list on theNew York Times web site The author concludes that news stories withpractical tips are more likely to be emailed to others The more usefulinformation is the more likely the potential public of the information is toappreciate it Such contributions however were more likely to be shared onlifestyle sections than on the hard news sections A similar set of factors wasfound concerning hard news Users then did not want to help others butmake them aware of certain aspects they think are important another angleto a story elements that need nuance the existence of other stakeholders withdifferent views and so on all with the intention to broaden other usersrsquohorizon Voting for certain articles in order for them to reach the most votedsection is a good example of this A 15th set of factors can be viewed as goingeven a step further by not only raising awareness for certain issues butgaining interest from other users by interacting through comment sections orlinking to other sites concerning the issue

All these sets can be clustered as a form of altruism where users want toshow commitment to the broader community they belong to

A final set of factors could be named lsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo Especially on news sitescomment sections tend to take the form of a wailing wall everyone can postopinions contributions and complaints but usually nothing happens with itFor many participants the fact that their contribution would not be takeninto account or would not have any impact seemed to be a major thresholdto participate Why exert one if it is a lost call anyway

These clusters in turn seem to revolve around a social dimension They allcome forth out of a social reflex users have with their potential public orsociety as a whole

321 Conclusion understanding produsage as self-publication The 16 different setsof factors the eight clusters they are organised in and the three overarchingdimensions represent a relevant set of motivational situational and socialfactors shaping the practice of productive news use (Q2) These dimensionsrelating to casual produsage could be pursued further to structuralprodusage as visualised in Figure 1 The passion and dedication of Pro-Ams could be considered as a more intense connection or affection towardsthe idea of information production lsquolsquothinking by writingrsquorsquo lsquolsquoto networkrsquorsquo or

114 I Picone

lsquolsquoto improve writing skillsrsquorsquo could be seen as elements of self-expression orself-development and the impending loss of values driving citizen journalistscould be regarded as a strong social reflex towards a potential public thatneeds to be better informed (see Figure 1)

How can these different sets of factors the clusters they are grouped in andthe dimensions they are categorised in now shed light on produsage as asocial practice from a user perspective more precisely the perspective ofcasual news produsers

A first element that becomes clear through this research is that knowledgeand skills do play an important role to engage with the news also amongstcasual produsers However they are not the only factors relating to the userrsquosindividual dispositions Also self-expression and self-confidence are relevantaspects Interesting is that these elements are interpreted in relation to thepotential public of a userrsquos contribution It is not so much the difficulty ofwriting a comment that holds users back from voting sharing or reacting toa news story but other usersrsquo response to it Users do not express themselvesby producing an opinion but by publicising it

Figure 1 Motivational situational and social factors shaping productive news use

Produsage as a form of self-publication 115

A second interesting element is the identification of situational factors thatdo not only relate to the availability of certain technological artefacts at agiven moment in time but also to the mood and attitude of users in a certaincontext Also the attitude of users towards productive news use seems to acertain extent rooted in cultural values Cultural factors play an importantrole in the way people use news (Vandenbrande 2002 Gasher 2007) and itseems this is also applicable to the productive use of it But remarkable is thata prudent attitude towards productive news use does not in the first placerefer to the articulation of opinions on news stories but to enforcing onersquosown opinion to others Again onersquos concern seems to lie with the potentialpublic and how this public will perceive onersquos contribution and consequentlyoneself

A third important outcome is precisely the emerging importance of usersrsquopotential public when contributing Also the factors lsquolsquoaltruismrsquorsquo andlsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo show that casual produsers attach great importance to the factthat their contribution needs to make a difference In many occasions if theywould have the impression their contribution is not adding anything to thedebate is not reaching anybody or is not helpful or meaningful to others theyask themselves why it would be worth the investment The idea of leveragetakes this a step further referring to the intention of actually having animpact on the issues at stake in society through contributions

To sum up casual produsers seem to treat other users as an audience ofwhich they do not know the reach This potential public plays an importantrole as produsers adapt their contributions to the perceived likes and needs ofit The idea of users reflecting on the lsquolsquoimpactrsquorsquo of their contribution on theirpotential public can be denominated a social reflex This is more than justaltruism It is a reflection on how others are going to perceive the publicationof a personal expression An interesting link is found between this way ofcommunicating online and the notion of performance as defined by Goffman1959 Burnett and Marshall 2003 and Robinson 2007 Performance is everyactivity that takes place during a period of exhibition to a public and that isadapted to the common context of interaction in order to be understood bythat public The performance not only consists of what a person exhibits andhow but also of hisher profile biography the conversation context and howthey both match (Robinson 2007)

Subsequently the user-driven production of information online could beunderstood as a form of self-performance or more suitably self-publicationWe would argue that from a user perspective produsage is not so much aboutthe production of information but rather about the self-publication ofinformation What makes a blog unique is not the fact that users areproducing a diary it is the fact that they can publish it to a potential public ofmillions The true potential of user-generated content lies in the fact that thishappens publicly that this process takes the form of a public performancethat everyone can witness and react to In other words when looking atproductive news use the question is not so much why people do or do notwant to produce information but rather if they want to publicise themselves

116 I Picone

Is the collaborative user-driven production of information as intended byBruns something different from the personal experience of self-publication ofinformation We would argue that they are the both sides of the same pictureWhile Bruns looks at the phenomenon of user-generated content from apoliticaleconomic perspective (from production to produsage) approachingit as a form of self-publication enables us to treat it as a user-experience as asituated social practice (from usage to produsage) We believe it is importantif we want to fully grasp this phenomenon to apply both perspectivesProdusage should not be solely understood as an alternative model for theproduction of information (Bruns 2008) but also as an alternative way ofusing information

Talking about self-publication gives us the opportunity to take intoaccount the stories that do not get to be collectively engaged upon thosecontributions people do not want others to further evaluate and completethose contributions that are not fit for hive mind treatment or the verydistributed acts of produsage that take place in the loosest communitieswhere information is merely being shared without being evaluated and soon The idea of self-publication helps us to understand why certain users arenot necessarily willing to contribute to a shared effort of informationproduction even though they have the skills and knowledge to do so Inother words even if it would be easy and not time consuming why wouldthey not contribute Because they experience it as self-publication and theydo not want or are not comfortable engaging in this practice

Produsage in other words should not only be seen as an alternative way ofproducing information but also as an alternative complementary way ofusing it as the fluid ad hoc adoption of a lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo news logic amongstregular news user shows This kind of distributed casual contribution withindecentralised communities such as news sites could be considered casualprodusage When these efforts take a more structural form the form of acollective hive mind driven production of information we could speak ofstructural produsage as intended by Bruns Self-publication as a lsquolsquoprodu-siversquorsquo logic is finding its way into the daily news use of people and in theirmedia use in general As such it should be a point of interest for scientistsresearching (news) produsage too This lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo logic amongst news usersis not replacing the mere use of traditional news it is complementing itHowever looking at news use without taking the produsive logic into accountwould mean to overlook a great deal of ways in which people are using news

The adaptations from a user-oriented perspective on Brunsrsquos theoryproposed in this paper should not be seen as solely a theoretical reflectionIn reality they are the fruit of an iterative process where findings emergingfrom the data analysis are constantly related to theory in the course of thequalitative study and subsequently they are grounded in practice Still theyare open to discussion It could be a valuable argument not to broadenprodusage as to include casual random non-collective contributions frommainly consuming users Maybe produsage should point only towards thecollective user-driven production of information in order to preserve the link

Produsage as a form of self-publication 117

with the specificity of this kind of process excluding other forms of user-generated content From a production point of view this is arguable Whenlooking at the impact of this form of production it is clear that the effect isessentially visible when singular users combine their engagement Not somuch this or that blog makes the blogosphere influential but specifically thenetworked effect that one message can have when it is endorsed by thousandsof bloggers

Still the practice of self-publication what we identified as the nature ofprodusage as a user experience is an important social evolution that cannotbe neglected We believe produsage is a strong conceptualisation that has thepotential to become an important framework to understand the evolutionsunderlying a large array of currently emerging practices and innovations in aworld not necessarily without borders but with different boundaries andmore cross-boundary work (Bockszkowski 2004) By not merely looking atprodusage as a practice where production outweighs consumption but also asa practice where usage can outweigh production and even more as acontinuum between both dimensions we believe we could come to a more in-depth holistic understanding of this process With this article we hope tohave given a valuable first impetus in that direction

Acknowledgements

This research took place within the framework of the FLEET (Flemish E-publishing Trends

project funded by the Flemish Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) This

interdisciplinary research project aims at generating fundamental scientific knowledge about

the e-publishing sector in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium More information and

research outcomes can be found at wwwfleetprojectbe

References

M Ames and M Naaman lsquolsquoWhy we tag Motivations for annotation in mobile and online mediarsquorsquo Paper

presented at the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 28 April3 May 2007 San

Jose California

JA Anderson lsquolsquoThe pragmatics of audience in research and theoryrsquorsquo in The Audience and its Landscape

J Hay L Grossberg and E Wartella (Eds) Oxford Westview Press pp 7593 1996

J Bierhoff and A Eyck lsquolsquoDesigning the digital dailyrsquorsquo Paper presented at the International Conference

New Media amp Information Convergences amp Divergences 69 May 2009 Athens

N Bolger A Davis and E Rafaeli lsquolsquoDiary Methods capturing life as it is livedrsquorsquo Annual Review of

Psychology 54 pp 579616 2003

PJ Boczkowski Digitizing the News Innovation in Online Newspapers Cambridge MIT Press 2004

DM Boyd Taken Out of Context American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics [unpublished doctoral

thesis] University of California 2008

A Bruns Blogs Wikipedia Second Life and Beyond From Production to Produsage New York Peter

Lang 2008

A Bruns lsquolsquoProdusage Towards a broader framework for user-led content creationrsquorsquo Proceedings of the

2007 Conference on Creativity and Cognition New York ACM Press pp 99106 2007a

A Bruns lsquolsquoThe future is user-led The path towards widespread Produsagersquorsquo Paper presented at the

PerthDAC Conference Perth 1518 September 2007b Western Australia

A Bruns lsquolsquoTowards produsage Futures for user-led content productionrsquorsquo Paper presented at the Cultural

Attitudes towards Communication and Technology Conference 28 June1 July 2006 Tartu Estonia

118 I Picone

participants often are structural produsers blogging or reporting on a regularbasis through their own or collective news outlets The random acts ofjournalism Lasica speaks of are less represented Therefore it is not onlyinteresting to look at news produsage from a more personal perspective butalso to those users only casually engaging in productive news use They donot own their own news blog but rather contribute by voting on a news storyby sending an article to certain friends via email or by commenting on newssites or fora

The issues addressed here can be visualised on two dimensions usageproduction and individualcollective Whereas Bruns elaborates more on thecollective production of information this article would like to address thepersonal productive use of information more specifically regarding newsamongst regular news users More precisely the following research question isput forward

Q1 How do casual news produsers experience contributing to the news

This research question demands for a more qualitative approach to thematter The scope is not so much to quantify usersrsquo productive use of news(see Eurostat 2009 The Pew Research Centre 2009) but to understand whatthese activities mean to them We are interested in understanding productivenews use as a user experience embedded in an everyday context What does itconsist of in the mind of the user How do people fit it into their media useand other daily pursuits In order to answer these questions we need notonly to take into account motivational aspects but also situational andbroader social factors This brings us to the second research question

Q2 What motivational situational and social factors shape the userexperience of casual news produsers

It is important to note that we are chiefly interested in getting insights intoa practice not so much into the users themselves They form the entry pointsthrough which we can gather data on that practice (Boyd 2008) Furthermorewe hope insights into productive news use as a situated social practiceembedded in daily routines can help us evaluate if Brunsrsquos theory of produsageis found applicable to personal and casual productive use of information onthe one hand and on user-oriented research on the other hand

3 Online casual news produsage a semi-experimental digital ethnography based on a

Living Lab-approach

31 Methodology

In finding the right methodology to answer these questions different issueshad to be tackled

A first concern appeared inherent to the target group of our study The userresearch within the Fleet-project revolves around those aspects of user

Produsage as a form of self-publication 105

contribution that can be understood as individual casual productive usageSeen the rather personal nature of online news use the functionalitiescommonly offered on news sites like voting sharing and commenting form agood illustration of functionalities that are not aimed at creating a commonoutput but rather offer a platform for users to post their personal opinionsbeliefs or ramblings for others to read (or not) Central are not the bloggerscitizen journalists or other expert users of participative media but onlinenews users that occasionally cast a vote share an article or post a commenton a news site

Casual news produsers by definition only casually produse news Thismakes it difficult to pinpoint the moments where people engage in randomacts of journalism Through digital ethnography (Masten and Powman 2003Murthy 2008) it is possible to observe different news sites and to addressusers This allows researchers to get insight in specific acts of productive newsbut not in the underlying relations Therefore one would need to followcertain users through different activities in order to question them on allaspects Indeed as we mentioned the strength of the idea of produsage is thatit offers a way of understanding the dynamics underlying these different actsThis means observation is not sufficient Participants are needed that can befollowed during a certain time over different times situations and platformsboth online and offline In-depth interviews are proposed in order to dig intofactors emerging and in order to discover patters underlying different formsof productive news use

Therefore we chose to select participants according to maximum variationsampling a form of purposeful sampling aimed at getting a strongheterogeneity within a sample on the dimensions of interest (List 2004Polkinghorne 2005) This variation can be achieved on the level ofparticipantsrsquo experience with the researched practice (phenomenologicalsampling) or in their personal characteristics The rationale behind suchsampling is that through a strong variation in the sample of participantsrsquo datathey generate in this case the motivational situational and social factorsshaping their productive news use represent a fair amount of the availablepossibilities We get a wide spectrum of factors that are relevant amongst avariety of users Furthermore it allows discerning common patterns that cutacross the variations (Patton 1990) Hence it gives us insight in the factorsshaping the practice of productive news use amongst different relevant userprofiles

The next step is to determine how to select participants for a samplerepresenting a maximum variation This was achieved in two steps First weused the three dimensions shaping online news use identified by Nguyen(2008) orientation towards news new media-mindedness and Internetexperience Nguyen argues that these dimensions to a large extent determinethe way users engage with the news online Our sample thus had to consist ofparticipants with different kinds of profiles on these dimensions in order toincorporate a relevant variation of news users in our sample Eight possibleprofiles were identified (see Table 1)

106 I Picone

We chose to select users on the basis of a questionnaire consisting of 32questions relating to Nguyenrsquos three dimensions Flemish newspaper HetNieuwsblad published the survey on his news site There were 562 persons thatresponded to the questionnaire After cleaning the data 515 were willing toparticipate Their answers were coded in order to give them a score on everyone of the three dimensions Only the respondents scoring extremely highandor low on the three dimensions were selected constituting a shortlist ofapproximately 60 respondents corresponding to one of the eight profilesThirty-eight persons finally agreed to participate in the research (see Table 1)Within this final sample men and women coming from different social-economical backgrounds were distributed relatively evenly amongst theparticipants All were living in Flanders or Brussels and between 20 and 72years old

Whereas this group showed a strong variation on their experience withonline news not all of them were equally acquainted with productive onlinenews features Commenting voting or sharing news via mail etc arepractices that are not that common amongst average news consumers(Horowitz 2006 Osimo 2008 Eurostat 2009 The PEW Research Centre2009) Amongst the 38 participants most had shared a news article via emailsome had voted on a poll or article and few had commented on news sites

Table 1 Cross-tabulation of the different news user profiles according to a maximum variation

analysis (pseudonyms are used age between brackets)

Profile Short-term Long-term

1 Internet experience new media minded andnews-oriented

Gerard (46)Antje (59)Gina (26)Jessy (22)

Jan (45)Lina (28)

2 Internet experience new media minded andlittle news-oriented

Quentin (26) Pieter-Eric (23)Clara (26)

3 Internet experience little new media mindedand news-oriented

Anne-Marie (64)Pierre (46)

Edward (58)Marie (48)

4 Internet experience little new media mindedand little news-oriented

Christianne (50)Koenraad (46)

Anna (32)Alexandra (29)Truus (50)

5 Little Internet experience new media mindedand news-oriented

Francois (39)Kurt (41)Marjanne (58)

Tony (30)Piet (29)

6 Little Internet experience new media mindedand little news-oriented

Juliaan (19)Mark (29)

Pina (35)

7 Little Internet experience little new mediaminded and news-oriented

Anja (46)Robrecht (66)

Annette (55)Danny (63)Jeanne (63)Josef (78)John (38)

8 Little Internet experience little new mediaminded and little news-oriented

Cindy (37)Lukas (41)

Kristien (29)Veronique (33)Stan (35)

Produsage as a form of self-publication 107

Therefore we chose to work with two groups a short-term and a long-termone

The short-term group served as an explorative one in order to generateinformation on the way participants experienced productive news use Thegroup consisted of 18 participants They were questioned through a diary-interview Diaries were used to evaluate practices that could not beinvestigated through observation or intensive contact with the participants(Cohen et al 2006) Diaries allow more than just gathering information butmake participants reflect on their actions and describe them (Bolger et al2003 Jacobs and Van den Broeck 2008) The participants were asked to keeptrack of their media use during one week through a day per day paper diarywith closed and open questions The closed questions concerned the mediaand news sources they used that day They were also asked to fill in a dailyhour per hour schedule of their media-related and news-related activitiesThrough the open questions the participants were encouraged to share anythoughts or experiences concerning their media and news use that wouldseem relevant to them This allowed us to operate a more inductive way ofgenerating ideas One week seemed a relevant period as news habits generallyform a routine throughout the week except during the weekend whereFlemish users take more time for news (Glorieux 2006)

These reflections were then further investigated in the in-depth interviewsfollowing the diary period in order to get a more refined idea of why and howpeople give meaning to the different news sources they use The topic list ofeach interview was based on each participantrsquos personal account gatheredthrough the survey and through the diary The participants were confrontedwith the patterns of use emerging out of their diaries and asked to reflectabout what news and contributing to it means for them Special attention wasgiven to incongruence found within the diary or between the diary and thesurvey data of each participant in order to confront the person with it and digdeeper into these often paradoxical accounts A recurring example is thedifference between the time people estimate they spend online (as answered ina question of the survey) and the time they actually spend on it when loggingtheir own media use through the diaries

This first phase of data collection generated 18 seven-day diaries and 18corresponding in-depth interviews A first analysis took place using theladdering technique (Reynolds and Gutman 1988 Grunert and Grunert 1995Chen et al 2002) This technique aims at uncovering factors and processesunderlying the concrete answers given by participants This allows for moregeneral clusters of factors shaping casual acts of productive news use to beidentified With laddering the analysis already starts during the in-depthinterviews by always digging deeper into the motivational ladder of theparticipants The following example can give an idea of such a motivationalladder When confronted with a situation where a participant replies that he isnot interested to leave a comment online the researcher tries to find out whyThe participant answers it is too time-intensive and therefore does not like itStill digging deeper the researcher finds out contributing takes time because

108 I Picone

the participant finds himself not good at writing In the end not wanting tocontribute is not so much a question of interest but a question of beinginsecure and afraid of being publicly reproved when making a spelling orgrammatical mistake in an online contribution Applying this procedure toother situations different factors initially mentioned by participants seemedto lead up to the same underlying motivations That way broader clusters ofrelevant factors and motivations underlying productive news use as a wholecould be identified giving us the possibility to get an idea of what kind ofpractice productive news use is

The different relevant factors and the lsquolsquoladdersrsquorsquo they form that wereidentified at this point served as a first set of findings but were also used asinput to adjust complement and refine the topics to be further investigatedin the long-term phase Certain aspects seeming more important thanexpected or that emerged from the interviews were incorporated in thesecond phase in order to elicit an as wide as possible range of factors shapingproductive news use

Initially the long-term group consisting of 21 participants was alsoquestioned through a diary-interview following the same procedure as thefirst group They were then asked to use different forms of productive newsuse consecutively for three weeks each and during a nine-month period Asalready mentioned casually produsing news means that one is not active onnews produsage sites on a regular basis or one sticks to a certain form ofprodusage (eg only rating news) This would complicate the identificationof factors underlying productive news use as a whole Therefore theparticipants all had to be acquainted to a certain level with the relevantforms of news contribution

In a news context the main forms of productive news use can be identifiedas retrieving news on demand evaluating news sharing news and comment-ing on it (Picone 2008) The participants were consecutively introduced to thefollowing web sites or applications which altogether encompass all of theseforms

Google Reader an RSS-reader allowing users to personalise rate andshare news selection (on demandratesharing)

Zitabe a Flemish news site allowing users to personalise their home pagewith different widgets (on demandrate)

Nujijnl a Dutch news forum where people share links to news stories andrate and comment on othersrsquo links

Procontrabe a Flemish site where the administrator selects and introducesone news topic a day to evaluate and debate amongst users (ratingcommenting) (now offline)

Nieuwsbe a Flemish news site combining all of the above features

The participants were not introduced to these sites in a lab but in theeveryday setting they usually consult news according to a Living Labmethodology (Pierson et al 2005) We did not literally set up a Living Lab

Produsage as a form of self-publication 109

ie an environment for innovation and development where users are exposedto new ICT solutions in (semi-)realistic contexts (Foslashlstad 2008 p 116) Anexample of such a Living Lab would be the deployment of free wifi in a city ordistrict providing a sample of users with Wifi-enabled smartphones andregister their use of it We merely used a Living Lab-approach (Pierson et al2005) introducing participants to applications through a technology theyalready own The rationale behind it however is similar to that of a LivingLab set up namely to study the adoption of technology in daily situationsrather than in an experimental setting This approach is especially usefulwhen looking for factors that go beyond usability and interface By givingparticipants the opportunity to get acquainted to a certain extent with therelevant features researchers avoid the participantsrsquo accounts to revolvearound practical issues of ease-of-use or troubles understanding thesefeatures

In order to allow the participants to incorporate the different web sites intheir daily routines we let them use the applications for three weeks at leastbefore asking them to comment on it Through short mail questionnaires theywere asked for their first impressions likes and dislikes These answers thenserved again as input for an in-depth interview held once all sites andapplications were introduced During the whole period the researcher couldbe reached by phone or mail in order to give feedback on possible problemsparticipants experienced

To facilitate access to these applications and also to guarantee a certainlevel of privacy the participants were asked to use Gmail-addresses especiallyset up for them by the researchers We used these addresses to register theparticipants beforehand on the various sites and applications so they wouldonly need to login always with the same user name and password Theparticipants were aware of the fact that the researchers knew their passwordand would use it to regularly log into their accounts and monitor their use ofthe application This allowed us especially to monitor which kind ofinformation every participant was most keen on contributing to Further-more these observations served again as a way of detecting incongruencebetween what participants were saying and what they were actually doing

The long-term phase was concluded with a second in-depth interviewwhere the participants were asked about their experiences with the differentproductive features The diary-interview the mail questionnaires and thelogging reports served as input for the topic list of those interviews Thediary-interviews and the concluding interviews combined resulted in 42interviews being coded The same laddering technique was applied in order toelaborate motivational ladders for every participant The Living Lab-approach putting productive news use as a situated action at the centreallowed us to also investigate situational and social factors First all interviewrecords were coded according to the different motivational situational andsocial factors identified in the interviews These were clustered according tocommon underlying motivations forming the next rung of the ladder Theserungs were clustered in turn in order to find a higher rung We then compared

110 I Picone

the individual ladders of the 21 participants in order to look for recurringelements and common patterns Because of the maximum variation samplethis allowed us to come to a lsquolsquoladder of laddersrsquorsquo representing a fair amount ofpossible meanings and motivations for productive news use We got an idea ofwhat produsage means to users and how they shape it as a social practicerather than as a production process

It is not the scope of this article to give a detailed overview of all theidentified factors and personal ladders but rather to look at the underlyingmotivational clusters and what they tell us on the practice of productive newsuse In others words we will not present the bottom rungs of the motivationaland situational ladders for productive news use but rather the top ones Thispermits us to come to more theoretical propositions about productive newsuse through the principle of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967)Concretely we look for theoretical propositions to emerge from empiricalanalysis We did not start with a preconceived theory that needs to be provenbut rather with a general area of study that needs elaboration (Razavi andIverson 2007) In this study this area is formed by Brunsrsquos insights on newsprodusage

32 Findings

A first important element emerging from the data analysis is that dedicationpassion and perseverance what Bruns sees at the centre of produsage as aPro-Am activity are reflected in the participantsrsquo answers Contributingonline even simply voting on a news story by clicking on a checkbox next toit requires a certain effort Certain participants felt like all these lsquolsquonewfeaturesrsquorsquo were simply too lsquolsquodemandingrsquorsquo However our participants beingcasual produsers these emotions seem too strong to express their engage-ment Rather we prefer to speak of a form of investment needed in order tocontribute to the news The motivational situational and social factorsidentified through the analysis of the data and presented below can beunderstood as elements inciting or withholding users to deliver the invest-ment productive news use necessarily requires We now go through the threetop lsquolsquorungsrsquorsquo of the motivational ladder of productive news use amongstcasual news produsers sets of factors are grouped into clusters that are inturn grouped into three broad dimensions

We identified a first set of factors about peoplersquos interest in a newsstory Participants seem to be keener on participating when the news itemrevolves on something that they are particularly interested in To a certainextent this corresponds to factors of newsworthiness as those of Galtungand Ruge (1965 Harcup and OrsquoNeil 2001) A second set of factors couldbe labelled as the vicinityspiritually and geographicallyto the newsitem Events involving places persons or themes someone is close to incitecontributions Participants were less keen on contributing to lsquolsquodistantrsquorsquostories unless they generated strong emotions both positive and negativeones a third set

Produsage as a form of self-publication 111

All these factors relate to the connection people have with the news storyThe stronger it is in terms of interest vicinity or emotion the more likelypeople seemed to engage with it

A fourth set of factors is more related to the mistakes that other users makewhen commenting on a news topic or more generally on the news siteParticipants seem sensitive to mistakes and tend to correct them This canalso bear on what someone can perceive as a mistake of judgement by othersin voting an article onto the most valued list or filling in an online poll Notonly the substance of lsquolsquonewsrsquorsquo generated by others also the general tenor ofreactions affects contribution which forms a fifth set of factors When othercontributors seem open to input and people feel like others may be interestedin what they have to say they are more likely to produse Then again ifas isthe case on different Flemish news sites (Picone and Depreeuw 2009)theother contributions look rather hostile or a harsh or depreciatory discussionis emerging in the comment section many participants seemed ratherreluctant to contribute

These sets of factors can be clustered as relating to the reactions of othersNot only news items but also other usersrsquo comments on the news can shapeusersrsquo willingness to contribute

These clusters all relate to the news content the actual story and the waypeople are relating to it They can be clustered in a content-related dimension

A sixth set of factors relates to the knowledge someone has about a certaintopic To what extent is the person not perforce an expert but at least abreastof the news topic discussed Professional or scholarly expertise makes it easierfor someone to contribute because it reduces the odds of being confrontedwith other users online who might point towards mistakes in onersquoscontribution A seventh set of factors also relate to what users know aboutthe news topic but more in terms of lsquolsquohands-onrsquorsquo expertise Even peopleaccidentally witnessing an event gain temporary credibility as a first-handwitness However not always do users need a thick understanding of the newstopic in order to have their say about it It does make it easier to contributebut users can be so amazed or shocked by a story that they want to expresstheir feelings or opinion about it This can be grouped in an eighth set offactors as people simply having something to say

All these sets can in turn be clustered as shaping usersrsquo orientation towardsself-expression

A ninth set of factors relates to people being lsquolsquoin the mood for produsagersquorsquoThe Living Lab-approach allowed us to take into account situationalelements During the study it became clear that users do not always feellike contributing Especially when online news is used between times or toquickly catch up with the news participants seemed not willing to reactextensively on it Also work stress domestic tasks and other time-consumingactivities shape a userrsquos mood for produsage Similar results are found in aDutch study on personalised news (Bierhoff and Eyck 2009) where theoutcome suggests that the level of personalisation in news applications shouldbe adaptable to the mood of users in order to truly obtain an added value

112 I Picone

Other participants show a more general pro or contra attitude towards newsprodusage that is less subject to mood swings They simply do not want topublicly react on news stories or comments made by others or conversely arevery keen on voicing their opinion It seems a matter of principle be it becausethey do not see the added value because they do not feel like spamming theInternet or even because they estimate it impolite to carp on others On a moregeneral level this seemed to relate to the fact of not being used to being askedto voice opinions online a 10th set of factors This can be linked to morestructural cultural or generational factors eg the Flemish catholic inspiredculture to lsquolsquothink twice before you speakrsquorsquo An interesting element here is thatwithholding participants to contribute is not so much the fact of having anopinion but of saying it out loud lsquolsquoWho am I to tell what others need tothinkrsquorsquo was a rhetorical question heard at different occasions amongst theparticipants Different participants were keen on having an opinion but felt asif they would be too intrusive when sharing it with strangers online

These sets of factors could form a cluster termed lsquolsquoattitude and moodrsquorsquorespectively pointing towards a more structural and situational affectiontowards the act of produsing news

An 11th set of factors refers to usersrsquo skills People with poor writing skillsmay be reluctant to contribute especially when the level of other contribu-tions is rather high Besides writing skills also narrative and argumentativeskills or the perceived lack of it were recurrent thresholds for contributingFurthermore different participants at this point applied the element ofmisjudgement mentioned before on their own ability being afraid of nothaving enough background to make an appropriate comment or judgementThis way a perceived lack of skills is not only a threshold to comment butalso to vote or to mark news as well This is related to a 12th set of factors Asalready mentioned people may be afraid of reactions by others on theircontribution which might withhold them from participating Here we see thelink with the potential public of an act of productive news use People thinkabout what others are likely to think about their contribution It isremarkable to note that various participants felt much more comfortablesharing this kind of information with close friends than with strangers onlineIt seemed that the more they were able to anticipate the reactions of othersthe more they were keen on contributing Again not so much what they hadto say (or produce) but who might hear it and how they would react played arole at that moment

These two sets of factors can be clustered under the idea of self-confidenceas they refer to the degree to which a user is confident voicing his opinion

All these factors relate to the personal dispositions of the user hisherskills attitude mood and background or in general a more personal dimen-sion and how this shapes hisher decision to engage with the news or not

A 12th set of factors relates to the idea of the potential public of a userrsquoscontribution Being able to assess onersquos potential public and how they willreact to onersquos contribution played an important role when consideringwhether or not to share mark or comment news stories This is what makes

Produsage as a form of self-publication 113

sharing news with friends via Facebook or mail and certainly face to facemore accessible than putting it online where virtually everybody can see it itis easier to assess whether friends will like it than it is to estimate whether asignificant part of a news sitersquos audience will appreciate it

These factors can be clustered under the term potential public In generalthe more one is able to assess what hisher potential public may like the morelikely heshe is to contribute

Building on the idea of the potential public we found a 13th set of factorsrevolving around the fact that various participants expected their contribu-tion one way or another to form an added value for the people who wouldread it (eg when they could advise others on a certain topic) This can belinked to Thorsonrsquos (2008) research on the most-emailed article list on theNew York Times web site The author concludes that news stories withpractical tips are more likely to be emailed to others The more usefulinformation is the more likely the potential public of the information is toappreciate it Such contributions however were more likely to be shared onlifestyle sections than on the hard news sections A similar set of factors wasfound concerning hard news Users then did not want to help others butmake them aware of certain aspects they think are important another angleto a story elements that need nuance the existence of other stakeholders withdifferent views and so on all with the intention to broaden other usersrsquohorizon Voting for certain articles in order for them to reach the most votedsection is a good example of this A 15th set of factors can be viewed as goingeven a step further by not only raising awareness for certain issues butgaining interest from other users by interacting through comment sections orlinking to other sites concerning the issue

All these sets can be clustered as a form of altruism where users want toshow commitment to the broader community they belong to

A final set of factors could be named lsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo Especially on news sitescomment sections tend to take the form of a wailing wall everyone can postopinions contributions and complaints but usually nothing happens with itFor many participants the fact that their contribution would not be takeninto account or would not have any impact seemed to be a major thresholdto participate Why exert one if it is a lost call anyway

These clusters in turn seem to revolve around a social dimension They allcome forth out of a social reflex users have with their potential public orsociety as a whole

321 Conclusion understanding produsage as self-publication The 16 different setsof factors the eight clusters they are organised in and the three overarchingdimensions represent a relevant set of motivational situational and socialfactors shaping the practice of productive news use (Q2) These dimensionsrelating to casual produsage could be pursued further to structuralprodusage as visualised in Figure 1 The passion and dedication of Pro-Ams could be considered as a more intense connection or affection towardsthe idea of information production lsquolsquothinking by writingrsquorsquo lsquolsquoto networkrsquorsquo or

114 I Picone

lsquolsquoto improve writing skillsrsquorsquo could be seen as elements of self-expression orself-development and the impending loss of values driving citizen journalistscould be regarded as a strong social reflex towards a potential public thatneeds to be better informed (see Figure 1)

How can these different sets of factors the clusters they are grouped in andthe dimensions they are categorised in now shed light on produsage as asocial practice from a user perspective more precisely the perspective ofcasual news produsers

A first element that becomes clear through this research is that knowledgeand skills do play an important role to engage with the news also amongstcasual produsers However they are not the only factors relating to the userrsquosindividual dispositions Also self-expression and self-confidence are relevantaspects Interesting is that these elements are interpreted in relation to thepotential public of a userrsquos contribution It is not so much the difficulty ofwriting a comment that holds users back from voting sharing or reacting toa news story but other usersrsquo response to it Users do not express themselvesby producing an opinion but by publicising it

Figure 1 Motivational situational and social factors shaping productive news use

Produsage as a form of self-publication 115

A second interesting element is the identification of situational factors thatdo not only relate to the availability of certain technological artefacts at agiven moment in time but also to the mood and attitude of users in a certaincontext Also the attitude of users towards productive news use seems to acertain extent rooted in cultural values Cultural factors play an importantrole in the way people use news (Vandenbrande 2002 Gasher 2007) and itseems this is also applicable to the productive use of it But remarkable is thata prudent attitude towards productive news use does not in the first placerefer to the articulation of opinions on news stories but to enforcing onersquosown opinion to others Again onersquos concern seems to lie with the potentialpublic and how this public will perceive onersquos contribution and consequentlyoneself

A third important outcome is precisely the emerging importance of usersrsquopotential public when contributing Also the factors lsquolsquoaltruismrsquorsquo andlsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo show that casual produsers attach great importance to the factthat their contribution needs to make a difference In many occasions if theywould have the impression their contribution is not adding anything to thedebate is not reaching anybody or is not helpful or meaningful to others theyask themselves why it would be worth the investment The idea of leveragetakes this a step further referring to the intention of actually having animpact on the issues at stake in society through contributions

To sum up casual produsers seem to treat other users as an audience ofwhich they do not know the reach This potential public plays an importantrole as produsers adapt their contributions to the perceived likes and needs ofit The idea of users reflecting on the lsquolsquoimpactrsquorsquo of their contribution on theirpotential public can be denominated a social reflex This is more than justaltruism It is a reflection on how others are going to perceive the publicationof a personal expression An interesting link is found between this way ofcommunicating online and the notion of performance as defined by Goffman1959 Burnett and Marshall 2003 and Robinson 2007 Performance is everyactivity that takes place during a period of exhibition to a public and that isadapted to the common context of interaction in order to be understood bythat public The performance not only consists of what a person exhibits andhow but also of hisher profile biography the conversation context and howthey both match (Robinson 2007)

Subsequently the user-driven production of information online could beunderstood as a form of self-performance or more suitably self-publicationWe would argue that from a user perspective produsage is not so much aboutthe production of information but rather about the self-publication ofinformation What makes a blog unique is not the fact that users areproducing a diary it is the fact that they can publish it to a potential public ofmillions The true potential of user-generated content lies in the fact that thishappens publicly that this process takes the form of a public performancethat everyone can witness and react to In other words when looking atproductive news use the question is not so much why people do or do notwant to produce information but rather if they want to publicise themselves

116 I Picone

Is the collaborative user-driven production of information as intended byBruns something different from the personal experience of self-publication ofinformation We would argue that they are the both sides of the same pictureWhile Bruns looks at the phenomenon of user-generated content from apoliticaleconomic perspective (from production to produsage) approachingit as a form of self-publication enables us to treat it as a user-experience as asituated social practice (from usage to produsage) We believe it is importantif we want to fully grasp this phenomenon to apply both perspectivesProdusage should not be solely understood as an alternative model for theproduction of information (Bruns 2008) but also as an alternative way ofusing information

Talking about self-publication gives us the opportunity to take intoaccount the stories that do not get to be collectively engaged upon thosecontributions people do not want others to further evaluate and completethose contributions that are not fit for hive mind treatment or the verydistributed acts of produsage that take place in the loosest communitieswhere information is merely being shared without being evaluated and soon The idea of self-publication helps us to understand why certain users arenot necessarily willing to contribute to a shared effort of informationproduction even though they have the skills and knowledge to do so Inother words even if it would be easy and not time consuming why wouldthey not contribute Because they experience it as self-publication and theydo not want or are not comfortable engaging in this practice

Produsage in other words should not only be seen as an alternative way ofproducing information but also as an alternative complementary way ofusing it as the fluid ad hoc adoption of a lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo news logic amongstregular news user shows This kind of distributed casual contribution withindecentralised communities such as news sites could be considered casualprodusage When these efforts take a more structural form the form of acollective hive mind driven production of information we could speak ofstructural produsage as intended by Bruns Self-publication as a lsquolsquoprodu-siversquorsquo logic is finding its way into the daily news use of people and in theirmedia use in general As such it should be a point of interest for scientistsresearching (news) produsage too This lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo logic amongst news usersis not replacing the mere use of traditional news it is complementing itHowever looking at news use without taking the produsive logic into accountwould mean to overlook a great deal of ways in which people are using news

The adaptations from a user-oriented perspective on Brunsrsquos theoryproposed in this paper should not be seen as solely a theoretical reflectionIn reality they are the fruit of an iterative process where findings emergingfrom the data analysis are constantly related to theory in the course of thequalitative study and subsequently they are grounded in practice Still theyare open to discussion It could be a valuable argument not to broadenprodusage as to include casual random non-collective contributions frommainly consuming users Maybe produsage should point only towards thecollective user-driven production of information in order to preserve the link

Produsage as a form of self-publication 117

with the specificity of this kind of process excluding other forms of user-generated content From a production point of view this is arguable Whenlooking at the impact of this form of production it is clear that the effect isessentially visible when singular users combine their engagement Not somuch this or that blog makes the blogosphere influential but specifically thenetworked effect that one message can have when it is endorsed by thousandsof bloggers

Still the practice of self-publication what we identified as the nature ofprodusage as a user experience is an important social evolution that cannotbe neglected We believe produsage is a strong conceptualisation that has thepotential to become an important framework to understand the evolutionsunderlying a large array of currently emerging practices and innovations in aworld not necessarily without borders but with different boundaries andmore cross-boundary work (Bockszkowski 2004) By not merely looking atprodusage as a practice where production outweighs consumption but also asa practice where usage can outweigh production and even more as acontinuum between both dimensions we believe we could come to a more in-depth holistic understanding of this process With this article we hope tohave given a valuable first impetus in that direction

Acknowledgements

This research took place within the framework of the FLEET (Flemish E-publishing Trends

project funded by the Flemish Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) This

interdisciplinary research project aims at generating fundamental scientific knowledge about

the e-publishing sector in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium More information and

research outcomes can be found at wwwfleetprojectbe

References

M Ames and M Naaman lsquolsquoWhy we tag Motivations for annotation in mobile and online mediarsquorsquo Paper

presented at the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 28 April3 May 2007 San

Jose California

JA Anderson lsquolsquoThe pragmatics of audience in research and theoryrsquorsquo in The Audience and its Landscape

J Hay L Grossberg and E Wartella (Eds) Oxford Westview Press pp 7593 1996

J Bierhoff and A Eyck lsquolsquoDesigning the digital dailyrsquorsquo Paper presented at the International Conference

New Media amp Information Convergences amp Divergences 69 May 2009 Athens

N Bolger A Davis and E Rafaeli lsquolsquoDiary Methods capturing life as it is livedrsquorsquo Annual Review of

Psychology 54 pp 579616 2003

PJ Boczkowski Digitizing the News Innovation in Online Newspapers Cambridge MIT Press 2004

DM Boyd Taken Out of Context American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics [unpublished doctoral

thesis] University of California 2008

A Bruns Blogs Wikipedia Second Life and Beyond From Production to Produsage New York Peter

Lang 2008

A Bruns lsquolsquoProdusage Towards a broader framework for user-led content creationrsquorsquo Proceedings of the

2007 Conference on Creativity and Cognition New York ACM Press pp 99106 2007a

A Bruns lsquolsquoThe future is user-led The path towards widespread Produsagersquorsquo Paper presented at the

PerthDAC Conference Perth 1518 September 2007b Western Australia

A Bruns lsquolsquoTowards produsage Futures for user-led content productionrsquorsquo Paper presented at the Cultural

Attitudes towards Communication and Technology Conference 28 June1 July 2006 Tartu Estonia

118 I Picone

contribution that can be understood as individual casual productive usageSeen the rather personal nature of online news use the functionalitiescommonly offered on news sites like voting sharing and commenting form agood illustration of functionalities that are not aimed at creating a commonoutput but rather offer a platform for users to post their personal opinionsbeliefs or ramblings for others to read (or not) Central are not the bloggerscitizen journalists or other expert users of participative media but onlinenews users that occasionally cast a vote share an article or post a commenton a news site

Casual news produsers by definition only casually produse news Thismakes it difficult to pinpoint the moments where people engage in randomacts of journalism Through digital ethnography (Masten and Powman 2003Murthy 2008) it is possible to observe different news sites and to addressusers This allows researchers to get insight in specific acts of productive newsbut not in the underlying relations Therefore one would need to followcertain users through different activities in order to question them on allaspects Indeed as we mentioned the strength of the idea of produsage is thatit offers a way of understanding the dynamics underlying these different actsThis means observation is not sufficient Participants are needed that can befollowed during a certain time over different times situations and platformsboth online and offline In-depth interviews are proposed in order to dig intofactors emerging and in order to discover patters underlying different formsof productive news use

Therefore we chose to select participants according to maximum variationsampling a form of purposeful sampling aimed at getting a strongheterogeneity within a sample on the dimensions of interest (List 2004Polkinghorne 2005) This variation can be achieved on the level ofparticipantsrsquo experience with the researched practice (phenomenologicalsampling) or in their personal characteristics The rationale behind suchsampling is that through a strong variation in the sample of participantsrsquo datathey generate in this case the motivational situational and social factorsshaping their productive news use represent a fair amount of the availablepossibilities We get a wide spectrum of factors that are relevant amongst avariety of users Furthermore it allows discerning common patterns that cutacross the variations (Patton 1990) Hence it gives us insight in the factorsshaping the practice of productive news use amongst different relevant userprofiles

The next step is to determine how to select participants for a samplerepresenting a maximum variation This was achieved in two steps First weused the three dimensions shaping online news use identified by Nguyen(2008) orientation towards news new media-mindedness and Internetexperience Nguyen argues that these dimensions to a large extent determinethe way users engage with the news online Our sample thus had to consist ofparticipants with different kinds of profiles on these dimensions in order toincorporate a relevant variation of news users in our sample Eight possibleprofiles were identified (see Table 1)

106 I Picone

We chose to select users on the basis of a questionnaire consisting of 32questions relating to Nguyenrsquos three dimensions Flemish newspaper HetNieuwsblad published the survey on his news site There were 562 persons thatresponded to the questionnaire After cleaning the data 515 were willing toparticipate Their answers were coded in order to give them a score on everyone of the three dimensions Only the respondents scoring extremely highandor low on the three dimensions were selected constituting a shortlist ofapproximately 60 respondents corresponding to one of the eight profilesThirty-eight persons finally agreed to participate in the research (see Table 1)Within this final sample men and women coming from different social-economical backgrounds were distributed relatively evenly amongst theparticipants All were living in Flanders or Brussels and between 20 and 72years old

Whereas this group showed a strong variation on their experience withonline news not all of them were equally acquainted with productive onlinenews features Commenting voting or sharing news via mail etc arepractices that are not that common amongst average news consumers(Horowitz 2006 Osimo 2008 Eurostat 2009 The PEW Research Centre2009) Amongst the 38 participants most had shared a news article via emailsome had voted on a poll or article and few had commented on news sites

Table 1 Cross-tabulation of the different news user profiles according to a maximum variation

analysis (pseudonyms are used age between brackets)

Profile Short-term Long-term

1 Internet experience new media minded andnews-oriented

Gerard (46)Antje (59)Gina (26)Jessy (22)

Jan (45)Lina (28)

2 Internet experience new media minded andlittle news-oriented

Quentin (26) Pieter-Eric (23)Clara (26)

3 Internet experience little new media mindedand news-oriented

Anne-Marie (64)Pierre (46)

Edward (58)Marie (48)

4 Internet experience little new media mindedand little news-oriented

Christianne (50)Koenraad (46)

Anna (32)Alexandra (29)Truus (50)

5 Little Internet experience new media mindedand news-oriented

Francois (39)Kurt (41)Marjanne (58)

Tony (30)Piet (29)

6 Little Internet experience new media mindedand little news-oriented

Juliaan (19)Mark (29)

Pina (35)

7 Little Internet experience little new mediaminded and news-oriented

Anja (46)Robrecht (66)

Annette (55)Danny (63)Jeanne (63)Josef (78)John (38)

8 Little Internet experience little new mediaminded and little news-oriented

Cindy (37)Lukas (41)

Kristien (29)Veronique (33)Stan (35)

Produsage as a form of self-publication 107

Therefore we chose to work with two groups a short-term and a long-termone

The short-term group served as an explorative one in order to generateinformation on the way participants experienced productive news use Thegroup consisted of 18 participants They were questioned through a diary-interview Diaries were used to evaluate practices that could not beinvestigated through observation or intensive contact with the participants(Cohen et al 2006) Diaries allow more than just gathering information butmake participants reflect on their actions and describe them (Bolger et al2003 Jacobs and Van den Broeck 2008) The participants were asked to keeptrack of their media use during one week through a day per day paper diarywith closed and open questions The closed questions concerned the mediaand news sources they used that day They were also asked to fill in a dailyhour per hour schedule of their media-related and news-related activitiesThrough the open questions the participants were encouraged to share anythoughts or experiences concerning their media and news use that wouldseem relevant to them This allowed us to operate a more inductive way ofgenerating ideas One week seemed a relevant period as news habits generallyform a routine throughout the week except during the weekend whereFlemish users take more time for news (Glorieux 2006)

These reflections were then further investigated in the in-depth interviewsfollowing the diary period in order to get a more refined idea of why and howpeople give meaning to the different news sources they use The topic list ofeach interview was based on each participantrsquos personal account gatheredthrough the survey and through the diary The participants were confrontedwith the patterns of use emerging out of their diaries and asked to reflectabout what news and contributing to it means for them Special attention wasgiven to incongruence found within the diary or between the diary and thesurvey data of each participant in order to confront the person with it and digdeeper into these often paradoxical accounts A recurring example is thedifference between the time people estimate they spend online (as answered ina question of the survey) and the time they actually spend on it when loggingtheir own media use through the diaries

This first phase of data collection generated 18 seven-day diaries and 18corresponding in-depth interviews A first analysis took place using theladdering technique (Reynolds and Gutman 1988 Grunert and Grunert 1995Chen et al 2002) This technique aims at uncovering factors and processesunderlying the concrete answers given by participants This allows for moregeneral clusters of factors shaping casual acts of productive news use to beidentified With laddering the analysis already starts during the in-depthinterviews by always digging deeper into the motivational ladder of theparticipants The following example can give an idea of such a motivationalladder When confronted with a situation where a participant replies that he isnot interested to leave a comment online the researcher tries to find out whyThe participant answers it is too time-intensive and therefore does not like itStill digging deeper the researcher finds out contributing takes time because

108 I Picone

the participant finds himself not good at writing In the end not wanting tocontribute is not so much a question of interest but a question of beinginsecure and afraid of being publicly reproved when making a spelling orgrammatical mistake in an online contribution Applying this procedure toother situations different factors initially mentioned by participants seemedto lead up to the same underlying motivations That way broader clusters ofrelevant factors and motivations underlying productive news use as a wholecould be identified giving us the possibility to get an idea of what kind ofpractice productive news use is

The different relevant factors and the lsquolsquoladdersrsquorsquo they form that wereidentified at this point served as a first set of findings but were also used asinput to adjust complement and refine the topics to be further investigatedin the long-term phase Certain aspects seeming more important thanexpected or that emerged from the interviews were incorporated in thesecond phase in order to elicit an as wide as possible range of factors shapingproductive news use

Initially the long-term group consisting of 21 participants was alsoquestioned through a diary-interview following the same procedure as thefirst group They were then asked to use different forms of productive newsuse consecutively for three weeks each and during a nine-month period Asalready mentioned casually produsing news means that one is not active onnews produsage sites on a regular basis or one sticks to a certain form ofprodusage (eg only rating news) This would complicate the identificationof factors underlying productive news use as a whole Therefore theparticipants all had to be acquainted to a certain level with the relevantforms of news contribution

In a news context the main forms of productive news use can be identifiedas retrieving news on demand evaluating news sharing news and comment-ing on it (Picone 2008) The participants were consecutively introduced to thefollowing web sites or applications which altogether encompass all of theseforms

Google Reader an RSS-reader allowing users to personalise rate andshare news selection (on demandratesharing)

Zitabe a Flemish news site allowing users to personalise their home pagewith different widgets (on demandrate)

Nujijnl a Dutch news forum where people share links to news stories andrate and comment on othersrsquo links

Procontrabe a Flemish site where the administrator selects and introducesone news topic a day to evaluate and debate amongst users (ratingcommenting) (now offline)

Nieuwsbe a Flemish news site combining all of the above features

The participants were not introduced to these sites in a lab but in theeveryday setting they usually consult news according to a Living Labmethodology (Pierson et al 2005) We did not literally set up a Living Lab

Produsage as a form of self-publication 109

ie an environment for innovation and development where users are exposedto new ICT solutions in (semi-)realistic contexts (Foslashlstad 2008 p 116) Anexample of such a Living Lab would be the deployment of free wifi in a city ordistrict providing a sample of users with Wifi-enabled smartphones andregister their use of it We merely used a Living Lab-approach (Pierson et al2005) introducing participants to applications through a technology theyalready own The rationale behind it however is similar to that of a LivingLab set up namely to study the adoption of technology in daily situationsrather than in an experimental setting This approach is especially usefulwhen looking for factors that go beyond usability and interface By givingparticipants the opportunity to get acquainted to a certain extent with therelevant features researchers avoid the participantsrsquo accounts to revolvearound practical issues of ease-of-use or troubles understanding thesefeatures

In order to allow the participants to incorporate the different web sites intheir daily routines we let them use the applications for three weeks at leastbefore asking them to comment on it Through short mail questionnaires theywere asked for their first impressions likes and dislikes These answers thenserved again as input for an in-depth interview held once all sites andapplications were introduced During the whole period the researcher couldbe reached by phone or mail in order to give feedback on possible problemsparticipants experienced

To facilitate access to these applications and also to guarantee a certainlevel of privacy the participants were asked to use Gmail-addresses especiallyset up for them by the researchers We used these addresses to register theparticipants beforehand on the various sites and applications so they wouldonly need to login always with the same user name and password Theparticipants were aware of the fact that the researchers knew their passwordand would use it to regularly log into their accounts and monitor their use ofthe application This allowed us especially to monitor which kind ofinformation every participant was most keen on contributing to Further-more these observations served again as a way of detecting incongruencebetween what participants were saying and what they were actually doing

The long-term phase was concluded with a second in-depth interviewwhere the participants were asked about their experiences with the differentproductive features The diary-interview the mail questionnaires and thelogging reports served as input for the topic list of those interviews Thediary-interviews and the concluding interviews combined resulted in 42interviews being coded The same laddering technique was applied in order toelaborate motivational ladders for every participant The Living Lab-approach putting productive news use as a situated action at the centreallowed us to also investigate situational and social factors First all interviewrecords were coded according to the different motivational situational andsocial factors identified in the interviews These were clustered according tocommon underlying motivations forming the next rung of the ladder Theserungs were clustered in turn in order to find a higher rung We then compared

110 I Picone

the individual ladders of the 21 participants in order to look for recurringelements and common patterns Because of the maximum variation samplethis allowed us to come to a lsquolsquoladder of laddersrsquorsquo representing a fair amount ofpossible meanings and motivations for productive news use We got an idea ofwhat produsage means to users and how they shape it as a social practicerather than as a production process

It is not the scope of this article to give a detailed overview of all theidentified factors and personal ladders but rather to look at the underlyingmotivational clusters and what they tell us on the practice of productive newsuse In others words we will not present the bottom rungs of the motivationaland situational ladders for productive news use but rather the top ones Thispermits us to come to more theoretical propositions about productive newsuse through the principle of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967)Concretely we look for theoretical propositions to emerge from empiricalanalysis We did not start with a preconceived theory that needs to be provenbut rather with a general area of study that needs elaboration (Razavi andIverson 2007) In this study this area is formed by Brunsrsquos insights on newsprodusage

32 Findings

A first important element emerging from the data analysis is that dedicationpassion and perseverance what Bruns sees at the centre of produsage as aPro-Am activity are reflected in the participantsrsquo answers Contributingonline even simply voting on a news story by clicking on a checkbox next toit requires a certain effort Certain participants felt like all these lsquolsquonewfeaturesrsquorsquo were simply too lsquolsquodemandingrsquorsquo However our participants beingcasual produsers these emotions seem too strong to express their engage-ment Rather we prefer to speak of a form of investment needed in order tocontribute to the news The motivational situational and social factorsidentified through the analysis of the data and presented below can beunderstood as elements inciting or withholding users to deliver the invest-ment productive news use necessarily requires We now go through the threetop lsquolsquorungsrsquorsquo of the motivational ladder of productive news use amongstcasual news produsers sets of factors are grouped into clusters that are inturn grouped into three broad dimensions

We identified a first set of factors about peoplersquos interest in a newsstory Participants seem to be keener on participating when the news itemrevolves on something that they are particularly interested in To a certainextent this corresponds to factors of newsworthiness as those of Galtungand Ruge (1965 Harcup and OrsquoNeil 2001) A second set of factors couldbe labelled as the vicinityspiritually and geographicallyto the newsitem Events involving places persons or themes someone is close to incitecontributions Participants were less keen on contributing to lsquolsquodistantrsquorsquostories unless they generated strong emotions both positive and negativeones a third set

Produsage as a form of self-publication 111

All these factors relate to the connection people have with the news storyThe stronger it is in terms of interest vicinity or emotion the more likelypeople seemed to engage with it

A fourth set of factors is more related to the mistakes that other users makewhen commenting on a news topic or more generally on the news siteParticipants seem sensitive to mistakes and tend to correct them This canalso bear on what someone can perceive as a mistake of judgement by othersin voting an article onto the most valued list or filling in an online poll Notonly the substance of lsquolsquonewsrsquorsquo generated by others also the general tenor ofreactions affects contribution which forms a fifth set of factors When othercontributors seem open to input and people feel like others may be interestedin what they have to say they are more likely to produse Then again ifas isthe case on different Flemish news sites (Picone and Depreeuw 2009)theother contributions look rather hostile or a harsh or depreciatory discussionis emerging in the comment section many participants seemed ratherreluctant to contribute

These sets of factors can be clustered as relating to the reactions of othersNot only news items but also other usersrsquo comments on the news can shapeusersrsquo willingness to contribute

These clusters all relate to the news content the actual story and the waypeople are relating to it They can be clustered in a content-related dimension

A sixth set of factors relates to the knowledge someone has about a certaintopic To what extent is the person not perforce an expert but at least abreastof the news topic discussed Professional or scholarly expertise makes it easierfor someone to contribute because it reduces the odds of being confrontedwith other users online who might point towards mistakes in onersquoscontribution A seventh set of factors also relate to what users know aboutthe news topic but more in terms of lsquolsquohands-onrsquorsquo expertise Even peopleaccidentally witnessing an event gain temporary credibility as a first-handwitness However not always do users need a thick understanding of the newstopic in order to have their say about it It does make it easier to contributebut users can be so amazed or shocked by a story that they want to expresstheir feelings or opinion about it This can be grouped in an eighth set offactors as people simply having something to say

All these sets can in turn be clustered as shaping usersrsquo orientation towardsself-expression

A ninth set of factors relates to people being lsquolsquoin the mood for produsagersquorsquoThe Living Lab-approach allowed us to take into account situationalelements During the study it became clear that users do not always feellike contributing Especially when online news is used between times or toquickly catch up with the news participants seemed not willing to reactextensively on it Also work stress domestic tasks and other time-consumingactivities shape a userrsquos mood for produsage Similar results are found in aDutch study on personalised news (Bierhoff and Eyck 2009) where theoutcome suggests that the level of personalisation in news applications shouldbe adaptable to the mood of users in order to truly obtain an added value

112 I Picone

Other participants show a more general pro or contra attitude towards newsprodusage that is less subject to mood swings They simply do not want topublicly react on news stories or comments made by others or conversely arevery keen on voicing their opinion It seems a matter of principle be it becausethey do not see the added value because they do not feel like spamming theInternet or even because they estimate it impolite to carp on others On a moregeneral level this seemed to relate to the fact of not being used to being askedto voice opinions online a 10th set of factors This can be linked to morestructural cultural or generational factors eg the Flemish catholic inspiredculture to lsquolsquothink twice before you speakrsquorsquo An interesting element here is thatwithholding participants to contribute is not so much the fact of having anopinion but of saying it out loud lsquolsquoWho am I to tell what others need tothinkrsquorsquo was a rhetorical question heard at different occasions amongst theparticipants Different participants were keen on having an opinion but felt asif they would be too intrusive when sharing it with strangers online

These sets of factors could form a cluster termed lsquolsquoattitude and moodrsquorsquorespectively pointing towards a more structural and situational affectiontowards the act of produsing news

An 11th set of factors refers to usersrsquo skills People with poor writing skillsmay be reluctant to contribute especially when the level of other contribu-tions is rather high Besides writing skills also narrative and argumentativeskills or the perceived lack of it were recurrent thresholds for contributingFurthermore different participants at this point applied the element ofmisjudgement mentioned before on their own ability being afraid of nothaving enough background to make an appropriate comment or judgementThis way a perceived lack of skills is not only a threshold to comment butalso to vote or to mark news as well This is related to a 12th set of factors Asalready mentioned people may be afraid of reactions by others on theircontribution which might withhold them from participating Here we see thelink with the potential public of an act of productive news use People thinkabout what others are likely to think about their contribution It isremarkable to note that various participants felt much more comfortablesharing this kind of information with close friends than with strangers onlineIt seemed that the more they were able to anticipate the reactions of othersthe more they were keen on contributing Again not so much what they hadto say (or produce) but who might hear it and how they would react played arole at that moment

These two sets of factors can be clustered under the idea of self-confidenceas they refer to the degree to which a user is confident voicing his opinion

All these factors relate to the personal dispositions of the user hisherskills attitude mood and background or in general a more personal dimen-sion and how this shapes hisher decision to engage with the news or not

A 12th set of factors relates to the idea of the potential public of a userrsquoscontribution Being able to assess onersquos potential public and how they willreact to onersquos contribution played an important role when consideringwhether or not to share mark or comment news stories This is what makes

Produsage as a form of self-publication 113

sharing news with friends via Facebook or mail and certainly face to facemore accessible than putting it online where virtually everybody can see it itis easier to assess whether friends will like it than it is to estimate whether asignificant part of a news sitersquos audience will appreciate it

These factors can be clustered under the term potential public In generalthe more one is able to assess what hisher potential public may like the morelikely heshe is to contribute

Building on the idea of the potential public we found a 13th set of factorsrevolving around the fact that various participants expected their contribu-tion one way or another to form an added value for the people who wouldread it (eg when they could advise others on a certain topic) This can belinked to Thorsonrsquos (2008) research on the most-emailed article list on theNew York Times web site The author concludes that news stories withpractical tips are more likely to be emailed to others The more usefulinformation is the more likely the potential public of the information is toappreciate it Such contributions however were more likely to be shared onlifestyle sections than on the hard news sections A similar set of factors wasfound concerning hard news Users then did not want to help others butmake them aware of certain aspects they think are important another angleto a story elements that need nuance the existence of other stakeholders withdifferent views and so on all with the intention to broaden other usersrsquohorizon Voting for certain articles in order for them to reach the most votedsection is a good example of this A 15th set of factors can be viewed as goingeven a step further by not only raising awareness for certain issues butgaining interest from other users by interacting through comment sections orlinking to other sites concerning the issue

All these sets can be clustered as a form of altruism where users want toshow commitment to the broader community they belong to

A final set of factors could be named lsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo Especially on news sitescomment sections tend to take the form of a wailing wall everyone can postopinions contributions and complaints but usually nothing happens with itFor many participants the fact that their contribution would not be takeninto account or would not have any impact seemed to be a major thresholdto participate Why exert one if it is a lost call anyway

These clusters in turn seem to revolve around a social dimension They allcome forth out of a social reflex users have with their potential public orsociety as a whole

321 Conclusion understanding produsage as self-publication The 16 different setsof factors the eight clusters they are organised in and the three overarchingdimensions represent a relevant set of motivational situational and socialfactors shaping the practice of productive news use (Q2) These dimensionsrelating to casual produsage could be pursued further to structuralprodusage as visualised in Figure 1 The passion and dedication of Pro-Ams could be considered as a more intense connection or affection towardsthe idea of information production lsquolsquothinking by writingrsquorsquo lsquolsquoto networkrsquorsquo or

114 I Picone

lsquolsquoto improve writing skillsrsquorsquo could be seen as elements of self-expression orself-development and the impending loss of values driving citizen journalistscould be regarded as a strong social reflex towards a potential public thatneeds to be better informed (see Figure 1)

How can these different sets of factors the clusters they are grouped in andthe dimensions they are categorised in now shed light on produsage as asocial practice from a user perspective more precisely the perspective ofcasual news produsers

A first element that becomes clear through this research is that knowledgeand skills do play an important role to engage with the news also amongstcasual produsers However they are not the only factors relating to the userrsquosindividual dispositions Also self-expression and self-confidence are relevantaspects Interesting is that these elements are interpreted in relation to thepotential public of a userrsquos contribution It is not so much the difficulty ofwriting a comment that holds users back from voting sharing or reacting toa news story but other usersrsquo response to it Users do not express themselvesby producing an opinion but by publicising it

Figure 1 Motivational situational and social factors shaping productive news use

Produsage as a form of self-publication 115

A second interesting element is the identification of situational factors thatdo not only relate to the availability of certain technological artefacts at agiven moment in time but also to the mood and attitude of users in a certaincontext Also the attitude of users towards productive news use seems to acertain extent rooted in cultural values Cultural factors play an importantrole in the way people use news (Vandenbrande 2002 Gasher 2007) and itseems this is also applicable to the productive use of it But remarkable is thata prudent attitude towards productive news use does not in the first placerefer to the articulation of opinions on news stories but to enforcing onersquosown opinion to others Again onersquos concern seems to lie with the potentialpublic and how this public will perceive onersquos contribution and consequentlyoneself

A third important outcome is precisely the emerging importance of usersrsquopotential public when contributing Also the factors lsquolsquoaltruismrsquorsquo andlsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo show that casual produsers attach great importance to the factthat their contribution needs to make a difference In many occasions if theywould have the impression their contribution is not adding anything to thedebate is not reaching anybody or is not helpful or meaningful to others theyask themselves why it would be worth the investment The idea of leveragetakes this a step further referring to the intention of actually having animpact on the issues at stake in society through contributions

To sum up casual produsers seem to treat other users as an audience ofwhich they do not know the reach This potential public plays an importantrole as produsers adapt their contributions to the perceived likes and needs ofit The idea of users reflecting on the lsquolsquoimpactrsquorsquo of their contribution on theirpotential public can be denominated a social reflex This is more than justaltruism It is a reflection on how others are going to perceive the publicationof a personal expression An interesting link is found between this way ofcommunicating online and the notion of performance as defined by Goffman1959 Burnett and Marshall 2003 and Robinson 2007 Performance is everyactivity that takes place during a period of exhibition to a public and that isadapted to the common context of interaction in order to be understood bythat public The performance not only consists of what a person exhibits andhow but also of hisher profile biography the conversation context and howthey both match (Robinson 2007)

Subsequently the user-driven production of information online could beunderstood as a form of self-performance or more suitably self-publicationWe would argue that from a user perspective produsage is not so much aboutthe production of information but rather about the self-publication ofinformation What makes a blog unique is not the fact that users areproducing a diary it is the fact that they can publish it to a potential public ofmillions The true potential of user-generated content lies in the fact that thishappens publicly that this process takes the form of a public performancethat everyone can witness and react to In other words when looking atproductive news use the question is not so much why people do or do notwant to produce information but rather if they want to publicise themselves

116 I Picone

Is the collaborative user-driven production of information as intended byBruns something different from the personal experience of self-publication ofinformation We would argue that they are the both sides of the same pictureWhile Bruns looks at the phenomenon of user-generated content from apoliticaleconomic perspective (from production to produsage) approachingit as a form of self-publication enables us to treat it as a user-experience as asituated social practice (from usage to produsage) We believe it is importantif we want to fully grasp this phenomenon to apply both perspectivesProdusage should not be solely understood as an alternative model for theproduction of information (Bruns 2008) but also as an alternative way ofusing information

Talking about self-publication gives us the opportunity to take intoaccount the stories that do not get to be collectively engaged upon thosecontributions people do not want others to further evaluate and completethose contributions that are not fit for hive mind treatment or the verydistributed acts of produsage that take place in the loosest communitieswhere information is merely being shared without being evaluated and soon The idea of self-publication helps us to understand why certain users arenot necessarily willing to contribute to a shared effort of informationproduction even though they have the skills and knowledge to do so Inother words even if it would be easy and not time consuming why wouldthey not contribute Because they experience it as self-publication and theydo not want or are not comfortable engaging in this practice

Produsage in other words should not only be seen as an alternative way ofproducing information but also as an alternative complementary way ofusing it as the fluid ad hoc adoption of a lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo news logic amongstregular news user shows This kind of distributed casual contribution withindecentralised communities such as news sites could be considered casualprodusage When these efforts take a more structural form the form of acollective hive mind driven production of information we could speak ofstructural produsage as intended by Bruns Self-publication as a lsquolsquoprodu-siversquorsquo logic is finding its way into the daily news use of people and in theirmedia use in general As such it should be a point of interest for scientistsresearching (news) produsage too This lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo logic amongst news usersis not replacing the mere use of traditional news it is complementing itHowever looking at news use without taking the produsive logic into accountwould mean to overlook a great deal of ways in which people are using news

The adaptations from a user-oriented perspective on Brunsrsquos theoryproposed in this paper should not be seen as solely a theoretical reflectionIn reality they are the fruit of an iterative process where findings emergingfrom the data analysis are constantly related to theory in the course of thequalitative study and subsequently they are grounded in practice Still theyare open to discussion It could be a valuable argument not to broadenprodusage as to include casual random non-collective contributions frommainly consuming users Maybe produsage should point only towards thecollective user-driven production of information in order to preserve the link

Produsage as a form of self-publication 117

with the specificity of this kind of process excluding other forms of user-generated content From a production point of view this is arguable Whenlooking at the impact of this form of production it is clear that the effect isessentially visible when singular users combine their engagement Not somuch this or that blog makes the blogosphere influential but specifically thenetworked effect that one message can have when it is endorsed by thousandsof bloggers

Still the practice of self-publication what we identified as the nature ofprodusage as a user experience is an important social evolution that cannotbe neglected We believe produsage is a strong conceptualisation that has thepotential to become an important framework to understand the evolutionsunderlying a large array of currently emerging practices and innovations in aworld not necessarily without borders but with different boundaries andmore cross-boundary work (Bockszkowski 2004) By not merely looking atprodusage as a practice where production outweighs consumption but also asa practice where usage can outweigh production and even more as acontinuum between both dimensions we believe we could come to a more in-depth holistic understanding of this process With this article we hope tohave given a valuable first impetus in that direction

Acknowledgements

This research took place within the framework of the FLEET (Flemish E-publishing Trends

project funded by the Flemish Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) This

interdisciplinary research project aims at generating fundamental scientific knowledge about

the e-publishing sector in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium More information and

research outcomes can be found at wwwfleetprojectbe

References

M Ames and M Naaman lsquolsquoWhy we tag Motivations for annotation in mobile and online mediarsquorsquo Paper

presented at the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 28 April3 May 2007 San

Jose California

JA Anderson lsquolsquoThe pragmatics of audience in research and theoryrsquorsquo in The Audience and its Landscape

J Hay L Grossberg and E Wartella (Eds) Oxford Westview Press pp 7593 1996

J Bierhoff and A Eyck lsquolsquoDesigning the digital dailyrsquorsquo Paper presented at the International Conference

New Media amp Information Convergences amp Divergences 69 May 2009 Athens

N Bolger A Davis and E Rafaeli lsquolsquoDiary Methods capturing life as it is livedrsquorsquo Annual Review of

Psychology 54 pp 579616 2003

PJ Boczkowski Digitizing the News Innovation in Online Newspapers Cambridge MIT Press 2004

DM Boyd Taken Out of Context American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics [unpublished doctoral

thesis] University of California 2008

A Bruns Blogs Wikipedia Second Life and Beyond From Production to Produsage New York Peter

Lang 2008

A Bruns lsquolsquoProdusage Towards a broader framework for user-led content creationrsquorsquo Proceedings of the

2007 Conference on Creativity and Cognition New York ACM Press pp 99106 2007a

A Bruns lsquolsquoThe future is user-led The path towards widespread Produsagersquorsquo Paper presented at the

PerthDAC Conference Perth 1518 September 2007b Western Australia

A Bruns lsquolsquoTowards produsage Futures for user-led content productionrsquorsquo Paper presented at the Cultural

Attitudes towards Communication and Technology Conference 28 June1 July 2006 Tartu Estonia

118 I Picone

We chose to select users on the basis of a questionnaire consisting of 32questions relating to Nguyenrsquos three dimensions Flemish newspaper HetNieuwsblad published the survey on his news site There were 562 persons thatresponded to the questionnaire After cleaning the data 515 were willing toparticipate Their answers were coded in order to give them a score on everyone of the three dimensions Only the respondents scoring extremely highandor low on the three dimensions were selected constituting a shortlist ofapproximately 60 respondents corresponding to one of the eight profilesThirty-eight persons finally agreed to participate in the research (see Table 1)Within this final sample men and women coming from different social-economical backgrounds were distributed relatively evenly amongst theparticipants All were living in Flanders or Brussels and between 20 and 72years old

Whereas this group showed a strong variation on their experience withonline news not all of them were equally acquainted with productive onlinenews features Commenting voting or sharing news via mail etc arepractices that are not that common amongst average news consumers(Horowitz 2006 Osimo 2008 Eurostat 2009 The PEW Research Centre2009) Amongst the 38 participants most had shared a news article via emailsome had voted on a poll or article and few had commented on news sites

Table 1 Cross-tabulation of the different news user profiles according to a maximum variation

analysis (pseudonyms are used age between brackets)

Profile Short-term Long-term

1 Internet experience new media minded andnews-oriented

Gerard (46)Antje (59)Gina (26)Jessy (22)

Jan (45)Lina (28)

2 Internet experience new media minded andlittle news-oriented

Quentin (26) Pieter-Eric (23)Clara (26)

3 Internet experience little new media mindedand news-oriented

Anne-Marie (64)Pierre (46)

Edward (58)Marie (48)

4 Internet experience little new media mindedand little news-oriented

Christianne (50)Koenraad (46)

Anna (32)Alexandra (29)Truus (50)

5 Little Internet experience new media mindedand news-oriented

Francois (39)Kurt (41)Marjanne (58)

Tony (30)Piet (29)

6 Little Internet experience new media mindedand little news-oriented

Juliaan (19)Mark (29)

Pina (35)

7 Little Internet experience little new mediaminded and news-oriented

Anja (46)Robrecht (66)

Annette (55)Danny (63)Jeanne (63)Josef (78)John (38)

8 Little Internet experience little new mediaminded and little news-oriented

Cindy (37)Lukas (41)

Kristien (29)Veronique (33)Stan (35)

Produsage as a form of self-publication 107

Therefore we chose to work with two groups a short-term and a long-termone

The short-term group served as an explorative one in order to generateinformation on the way participants experienced productive news use Thegroup consisted of 18 participants They were questioned through a diary-interview Diaries were used to evaluate practices that could not beinvestigated through observation or intensive contact with the participants(Cohen et al 2006) Diaries allow more than just gathering information butmake participants reflect on their actions and describe them (Bolger et al2003 Jacobs and Van den Broeck 2008) The participants were asked to keeptrack of their media use during one week through a day per day paper diarywith closed and open questions The closed questions concerned the mediaand news sources they used that day They were also asked to fill in a dailyhour per hour schedule of their media-related and news-related activitiesThrough the open questions the participants were encouraged to share anythoughts or experiences concerning their media and news use that wouldseem relevant to them This allowed us to operate a more inductive way ofgenerating ideas One week seemed a relevant period as news habits generallyform a routine throughout the week except during the weekend whereFlemish users take more time for news (Glorieux 2006)

These reflections were then further investigated in the in-depth interviewsfollowing the diary period in order to get a more refined idea of why and howpeople give meaning to the different news sources they use The topic list ofeach interview was based on each participantrsquos personal account gatheredthrough the survey and through the diary The participants were confrontedwith the patterns of use emerging out of their diaries and asked to reflectabout what news and contributing to it means for them Special attention wasgiven to incongruence found within the diary or between the diary and thesurvey data of each participant in order to confront the person with it and digdeeper into these often paradoxical accounts A recurring example is thedifference between the time people estimate they spend online (as answered ina question of the survey) and the time they actually spend on it when loggingtheir own media use through the diaries

This first phase of data collection generated 18 seven-day diaries and 18corresponding in-depth interviews A first analysis took place using theladdering technique (Reynolds and Gutman 1988 Grunert and Grunert 1995Chen et al 2002) This technique aims at uncovering factors and processesunderlying the concrete answers given by participants This allows for moregeneral clusters of factors shaping casual acts of productive news use to beidentified With laddering the analysis already starts during the in-depthinterviews by always digging deeper into the motivational ladder of theparticipants The following example can give an idea of such a motivationalladder When confronted with a situation where a participant replies that he isnot interested to leave a comment online the researcher tries to find out whyThe participant answers it is too time-intensive and therefore does not like itStill digging deeper the researcher finds out contributing takes time because

108 I Picone

the participant finds himself not good at writing In the end not wanting tocontribute is not so much a question of interest but a question of beinginsecure and afraid of being publicly reproved when making a spelling orgrammatical mistake in an online contribution Applying this procedure toother situations different factors initially mentioned by participants seemedto lead up to the same underlying motivations That way broader clusters ofrelevant factors and motivations underlying productive news use as a wholecould be identified giving us the possibility to get an idea of what kind ofpractice productive news use is

The different relevant factors and the lsquolsquoladdersrsquorsquo they form that wereidentified at this point served as a first set of findings but were also used asinput to adjust complement and refine the topics to be further investigatedin the long-term phase Certain aspects seeming more important thanexpected or that emerged from the interviews were incorporated in thesecond phase in order to elicit an as wide as possible range of factors shapingproductive news use

Initially the long-term group consisting of 21 participants was alsoquestioned through a diary-interview following the same procedure as thefirst group They were then asked to use different forms of productive newsuse consecutively for three weeks each and during a nine-month period Asalready mentioned casually produsing news means that one is not active onnews produsage sites on a regular basis or one sticks to a certain form ofprodusage (eg only rating news) This would complicate the identificationof factors underlying productive news use as a whole Therefore theparticipants all had to be acquainted to a certain level with the relevantforms of news contribution

In a news context the main forms of productive news use can be identifiedas retrieving news on demand evaluating news sharing news and comment-ing on it (Picone 2008) The participants were consecutively introduced to thefollowing web sites or applications which altogether encompass all of theseforms

Google Reader an RSS-reader allowing users to personalise rate andshare news selection (on demandratesharing)

Zitabe a Flemish news site allowing users to personalise their home pagewith different widgets (on demandrate)

Nujijnl a Dutch news forum where people share links to news stories andrate and comment on othersrsquo links

Procontrabe a Flemish site where the administrator selects and introducesone news topic a day to evaluate and debate amongst users (ratingcommenting) (now offline)

Nieuwsbe a Flemish news site combining all of the above features

The participants were not introduced to these sites in a lab but in theeveryday setting they usually consult news according to a Living Labmethodology (Pierson et al 2005) We did not literally set up a Living Lab

Produsage as a form of self-publication 109

ie an environment for innovation and development where users are exposedto new ICT solutions in (semi-)realistic contexts (Foslashlstad 2008 p 116) Anexample of such a Living Lab would be the deployment of free wifi in a city ordistrict providing a sample of users with Wifi-enabled smartphones andregister their use of it We merely used a Living Lab-approach (Pierson et al2005) introducing participants to applications through a technology theyalready own The rationale behind it however is similar to that of a LivingLab set up namely to study the adoption of technology in daily situationsrather than in an experimental setting This approach is especially usefulwhen looking for factors that go beyond usability and interface By givingparticipants the opportunity to get acquainted to a certain extent with therelevant features researchers avoid the participantsrsquo accounts to revolvearound practical issues of ease-of-use or troubles understanding thesefeatures

In order to allow the participants to incorporate the different web sites intheir daily routines we let them use the applications for three weeks at leastbefore asking them to comment on it Through short mail questionnaires theywere asked for their first impressions likes and dislikes These answers thenserved again as input for an in-depth interview held once all sites andapplications were introduced During the whole period the researcher couldbe reached by phone or mail in order to give feedback on possible problemsparticipants experienced

To facilitate access to these applications and also to guarantee a certainlevel of privacy the participants were asked to use Gmail-addresses especiallyset up for them by the researchers We used these addresses to register theparticipants beforehand on the various sites and applications so they wouldonly need to login always with the same user name and password Theparticipants were aware of the fact that the researchers knew their passwordand would use it to regularly log into their accounts and monitor their use ofthe application This allowed us especially to monitor which kind ofinformation every participant was most keen on contributing to Further-more these observations served again as a way of detecting incongruencebetween what participants were saying and what they were actually doing

The long-term phase was concluded with a second in-depth interviewwhere the participants were asked about their experiences with the differentproductive features The diary-interview the mail questionnaires and thelogging reports served as input for the topic list of those interviews Thediary-interviews and the concluding interviews combined resulted in 42interviews being coded The same laddering technique was applied in order toelaborate motivational ladders for every participant The Living Lab-approach putting productive news use as a situated action at the centreallowed us to also investigate situational and social factors First all interviewrecords were coded according to the different motivational situational andsocial factors identified in the interviews These were clustered according tocommon underlying motivations forming the next rung of the ladder Theserungs were clustered in turn in order to find a higher rung We then compared

110 I Picone

the individual ladders of the 21 participants in order to look for recurringelements and common patterns Because of the maximum variation samplethis allowed us to come to a lsquolsquoladder of laddersrsquorsquo representing a fair amount ofpossible meanings and motivations for productive news use We got an idea ofwhat produsage means to users and how they shape it as a social practicerather than as a production process

It is not the scope of this article to give a detailed overview of all theidentified factors and personal ladders but rather to look at the underlyingmotivational clusters and what they tell us on the practice of productive newsuse In others words we will not present the bottom rungs of the motivationaland situational ladders for productive news use but rather the top ones Thispermits us to come to more theoretical propositions about productive newsuse through the principle of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967)Concretely we look for theoretical propositions to emerge from empiricalanalysis We did not start with a preconceived theory that needs to be provenbut rather with a general area of study that needs elaboration (Razavi andIverson 2007) In this study this area is formed by Brunsrsquos insights on newsprodusage

32 Findings

A first important element emerging from the data analysis is that dedicationpassion and perseverance what Bruns sees at the centre of produsage as aPro-Am activity are reflected in the participantsrsquo answers Contributingonline even simply voting on a news story by clicking on a checkbox next toit requires a certain effort Certain participants felt like all these lsquolsquonewfeaturesrsquorsquo were simply too lsquolsquodemandingrsquorsquo However our participants beingcasual produsers these emotions seem too strong to express their engage-ment Rather we prefer to speak of a form of investment needed in order tocontribute to the news The motivational situational and social factorsidentified through the analysis of the data and presented below can beunderstood as elements inciting or withholding users to deliver the invest-ment productive news use necessarily requires We now go through the threetop lsquolsquorungsrsquorsquo of the motivational ladder of productive news use amongstcasual news produsers sets of factors are grouped into clusters that are inturn grouped into three broad dimensions

We identified a first set of factors about peoplersquos interest in a newsstory Participants seem to be keener on participating when the news itemrevolves on something that they are particularly interested in To a certainextent this corresponds to factors of newsworthiness as those of Galtungand Ruge (1965 Harcup and OrsquoNeil 2001) A second set of factors couldbe labelled as the vicinityspiritually and geographicallyto the newsitem Events involving places persons or themes someone is close to incitecontributions Participants were less keen on contributing to lsquolsquodistantrsquorsquostories unless they generated strong emotions both positive and negativeones a third set

Produsage as a form of self-publication 111

All these factors relate to the connection people have with the news storyThe stronger it is in terms of interest vicinity or emotion the more likelypeople seemed to engage with it

A fourth set of factors is more related to the mistakes that other users makewhen commenting on a news topic or more generally on the news siteParticipants seem sensitive to mistakes and tend to correct them This canalso bear on what someone can perceive as a mistake of judgement by othersin voting an article onto the most valued list or filling in an online poll Notonly the substance of lsquolsquonewsrsquorsquo generated by others also the general tenor ofreactions affects contribution which forms a fifth set of factors When othercontributors seem open to input and people feel like others may be interestedin what they have to say they are more likely to produse Then again ifas isthe case on different Flemish news sites (Picone and Depreeuw 2009)theother contributions look rather hostile or a harsh or depreciatory discussionis emerging in the comment section many participants seemed ratherreluctant to contribute

These sets of factors can be clustered as relating to the reactions of othersNot only news items but also other usersrsquo comments on the news can shapeusersrsquo willingness to contribute

These clusters all relate to the news content the actual story and the waypeople are relating to it They can be clustered in a content-related dimension

A sixth set of factors relates to the knowledge someone has about a certaintopic To what extent is the person not perforce an expert but at least abreastof the news topic discussed Professional or scholarly expertise makes it easierfor someone to contribute because it reduces the odds of being confrontedwith other users online who might point towards mistakes in onersquoscontribution A seventh set of factors also relate to what users know aboutthe news topic but more in terms of lsquolsquohands-onrsquorsquo expertise Even peopleaccidentally witnessing an event gain temporary credibility as a first-handwitness However not always do users need a thick understanding of the newstopic in order to have their say about it It does make it easier to contributebut users can be so amazed or shocked by a story that they want to expresstheir feelings or opinion about it This can be grouped in an eighth set offactors as people simply having something to say

All these sets can in turn be clustered as shaping usersrsquo orientation towardsself-expression

A ninth set of factors relates to people being lsquolsquoin the mood for produsagersquorsquoThe Living Lab-approach allowed us to take into account situationalelements During the study it became clear that users do not always feellike contributing Especially when online news is used between times or toquickly catch up with the news participants seemed not willing to reactextensively on it Also work stress domestic tasks and other time-consumingactivities shape a userrsquos mood for produsage Similar results are found in aDutch study on personalised news (Bierhoff and Eyck 2009) where theoutcome suggests that the level of personalisation in news applications shouldbe adaptable to the mood of users in order to truly obtain an added value

112 I Picone

Other participants show a more general pro or contra attitude towards newsprodusage that is less subject to mood swings They simply do not want topublicly react on news stories or comments made by others or conversely arevery keen on voicing their opinion It seems a matter of principle be it becausethey do not see the added value because they do not feel like spamming theInternet or even because they estimate it impolite to carp on others On a moregeneral level this seemed to relate to the fact of not being used to being askedto voice opinions online a 10th set of factors This can be linked to morestructural cultural or generational factors eg the Flemish catholic inspiredculture to lsquolsquothink twice before you speakrsquorsquo An interesting element here is thatwithholding participants to contribute is not so much the fact of having anopinion but of saying it out loud lsquolsquoWho am I to tell what others need tothinkrsquorsquo was a rhetorical question heard at different occasions amongst theparticipants Different participants were keen on having an opinion but felt asif they would be too intrusive when sharing it with strangers online

These sets of factors could form a cluster termed lsquolsquoattitude and moodrsquorsquorespectively pointing towards a more structural and situational affectiontowards the act of produsing news

An 11th set of factors refers to usersrsquo skills People with poor writing skillsmay be reluctant to contribute especially when the level of other contribu-tions is rather high Besides writing skills also narrative and argumentativeskills or the perceived lack of it were recurrent thresholds for contributingFurthermore different participants at this point applied the element ofmisjudgement mentioned before on their own ability being afraid of nothaving enough background to make an appropriate comment or judgementThis way a perceived lack of skills is not only a threshold to comment butalso to vote or to mark news as well This is related to a 12th set of factors Asalready mentioned people may be afraid of reactions by others on theircontribution which might withhold them from participating Here we see thelink with the potential public of an act of productive news use People thinkabout what others are likely to think about their contribution It isremarkable to note that various participants felt much more comfortablesharing this kind of information with close friends than with strangers onlineIt seemed that the more they were able to anticipate the reactions of othersthe more they were keen on contributing Again not so much what they hadto say (or produce) but who might hear it and how they would react played arole at that moment

These two sets of factors can be clustered under the idea of self-confidenceas they refer to the degree to which a user is confident voicing his opinion

All these factors relate to the personal dispositions of the user hisherskills attitude mood and background or in general a more personal dimen-sion and how this shapes hisher decision to engage with the news or not

A 12th set of factors relates to the idea of the potential public of a userrsquoscontribution Being able to assess onersquos potential public and how they willreact to onersquos contribution played an important role when consideringwhether or not to share mark or comment news stories This is what makes

Produsage as a form of self-publication 113

sharing news with friends via Facebook or mail and certainly face to facemore accessible than putting it online where virtually everybody can see it itis easier to assess whether friends will like it than it is to estimate whether asignificant part of a news sitersquos audience will appreciate it

These factors can be clustered under the term potential public In generalthe more one is able to assess what hisher potential public may like the morelikely heshe is to contribute

Building on the idea of the potential public we found a 13th set of factorsrevolving around the fact that various participants expected their contribu-tion one way or another to form an added value for the people who wouldread it (eg when they could advise others on a certain topic) This can belinked to Thorsonrsquos (2008) research on the most-emailed article list on theNew York Times web site The author concludes that news stories withpractical tips are more likely to be emailed to others The more usefulinformation is the more likely the potential public of the information is toappreciate it Such contributions however were more likely to be shared onlifestyle sections than on the hard news sections A similar set of factors wasfound concerning hard news Users then did not want to help others butmake them aware of certain aspects they think are important another angleto a story elements that need nuance the existence of other stakeholders withdifferent views and so on all with the intention to broaden other usersrsquohorizon Voting for certain articles in order for them to reach the most votedsection is a good example of this A 15th set of factors can be viewed as goingeven a step further by not only raising awareness for certain issues butgaining interest from other users by interacting through comment sections orlinking to other sites concerning the issue

All these sets can be clustered as a form of altruism where users want toshow commitment to the broader community they belong to

A final set of factors could be named lsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo Especially on news sitescomment sections tend to take the form of a wailing wall everyone can postopinions contributions and complaints but usually nothing happens with itFor many participants the fact that their contribution would not be takeninto account or would not have any impact seemed to be a major thresholdto participate Why exert one if it is a lost call anyway

These clusters in turn seem to revolve around a social dimension They allcome forth out of a social reflex users have with their potential public orsociety as a whole

321 Conclusion understanding produsage as self-publication The 16 different setsof factors the eight clusters they are organised in and the three overarchingdimensions represent a relevant set of motivational situational and socialfactors shaping the practice of productive news use (Q2) These dimensionsrelating to casual produsage could be pursued further to structuralprodusage as visualised in Figure 1 The passion and dedication of Pro-Ams could be considered as a more intense connection or affection towardsthe idea of information production lsquolsquothinking by writingrsquorsquo lsquolsquoto networkrsquorsquo or

114 I Picone

lsquolsquoto improve writing skillsrsquorsquo could be seen as elements of self-expression orself-development and the impending loss of values driving citizen journalistscould be regarded as a strong social reflex towards a potential public thatneeds to be better informed (see Figure 1)

How can these different sets of factors the clusters they are grouped in andthe dimensions they are categorised in now shed light on produsage as asocial practice from a user perspective more precisely the perspective ofcasual news produsers

A first element that becomes clear through this research is that knowledgeand skills do play an important role to engage with the news also amongstcasual produsers However they are not the only factors relating to the userrsquosindividual dispositions Also self-expression and self-confidence are relevantaspects Interesting is that these elements are interpreted in relation to thepotential public of a userrsquos contribution It is not so much the difficulty ofwriting a comment that holds users back from voting sharing or reacting toa news story but other usersrsquo response to it Users do not express themselvesby producing an opinion but by publicising it

Figure 1 Motivational situational and social factors shaping productive news use

Produsage as a form of self-publication 115

A second interesting element is the identification of situational factors thatdo not only relate to the availability of certain technological artefacts at agiven moment in time but also to the mood and attitude of users in a certaincontext Also the attitude of users towards productive news use seems to acertain extent rooted in cultural values Cultural factors play an importantrole in the way people use news (Vandenbrande 2002 Gasher 2007) and itseems this is also applicable to the productive use of it But remarkable is thata prudent attitude towards productive news use does not in the first placerefer to the articulation of opinions on news stories but to enforcing onersquosown opinion to others Again onersquos concern seems to lie with the potentialpublic and how this public will perceive onersquos contribution and consequentlyoneself

A third important outcome is precisely the emerging importance of usersrsquopotential public when contributing Also the factors lsquolsquoaltruismrsquorsquo andlsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo show that casual produsers attach great importance to the factthat their contribution needs to make a difference In many occasions if theywould have the impression their contribution is not adding anything to thedebate is not reaching anybody or is not helpful or meaningful to others theyask themselves why it would be worth the investment The idea of leveragetakes this a step further referring to the intention of actually having animpact on the issues at stake in society through contributions

To sum up casual produsers seem to treat other users as an audience ofwhich they do not know the reach This potential public plays an importantrole as produsers adapt their contributions to the perceived likes and needs ofit The idea of users reflecting on the lsquolsquoimpactrsquorsquo of their contribution on theirpotential public can be denominated a social reflex This is more than justaltruism It is a reflection on how others are going to perceive the publicationof a personal expression An interesting link is found between this way ofcommunicating online and the notion of performance as defined by Goffman1959 Burnett and Marshall 2003 and Robinson 2007 Performance is everyactivity that takes place during a period of exhibition to a public and that isadapted to the common context of interaction in order to be understood bythat public The performance not only consists of what a person exhibits andhow but also of hisher profile biography the conversation context and howthey both match (Robinson 2007)

Subsequently the user-driven production of information online could beunderstood as a form of self-performance or more suitably self-publicationWe would argue that from a user perspective produsage is not so much aboutthe production of information but rather about the self-publication ofinformation What makes a blog unique is not the fact that users areproducing a diary it is the fact that they can publish it to a potential public ofmillions The true potential of user-generated content lies in the fact that thishappens publicly that this process takes the form of a public performancethat everyone can witness and react to In other words when looking atproductive news use the question is not so much why people do or do notwant to produce information but rather if they want to publicise themselves

116 I Picone

Is the collaborative user-driven production of information as intended byBruns something different from the personal experience of self-publication ofinformation We would argue that they are the both sides of the same pictureWhile Bruns looks at the phenomenon of user-generated content from apoliticaleconomic perspective (from production to produsage) approachingit as a form of self-publication enables us to treat it as a user-experience as asituated social practice (from usage to produsage) We believe it is importantif we want to fully grasp this phenomenon to apply both perspectivesProdusage should not be solely understood as an alternative model for theproduction of information (Bruns 2008) but also as an alternative way ofusing information

Talking about self-publication gives us the opportunity to take intoaccount the stories that do not get to be collectively engaged upon thosecontributions people do not want others to further evaluate and completethose contributions that are not fit for hive mind treatment or the verydistributed acts of produsage that take place in the loosest communitieswhere information is merely being shared without being evaluated and soon The idea of self-publication helps us to understand why certain users arenot necessarily willing to contribute to a shared effort of informationproduction even though they have the skills and knowledge to do so Inother words even if it would be easy and not time consuming why wouldthey not contribute Because they experience it as self-publication and theydo not want or are not comfortable engaging in this practice

Produsage in other words should not only be seen as an alternative way ofproducing information but also as an alternative complementary way ofusing it as the fluid ad hoc adoption of a lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo news logic amongstregular news user shows This kind of distributed casual contribution withindecentralised communities such as news sites could be considered casualprodusage When these efforts take a more structural form the form of acollective hive mind driven production of information we could speak ofstructural produsage as intended by Bruns Self-publication as a lsquolsquoprodu-siversquorsquo logic is finding its way into the daily news use of people and in theirmedia use in general As such it should be a point of interest for scientistsresearching (news) produsage too This lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo logic amongst news usersis not replacing the mere use of traditional news it is complementing itHowever looking at news use without taking the produsive logic into accountwould mean to overlook a great deal of ways in which people are using news

The adaptations from a user-oriented perspective on Brunsrsquos theoryproposed in this paper should not be seen as solely a theoretical reflectionIn reality they are the fruit of an iterative process where findings emergingfrom the data analysis are constantly related to theory in the course of thequalitative study and subsequently they are grounded in practice Still theyare open to discussion It could be a valuable argument not to broadenprodusage as to include casual random non-collective contributions frommainly consuming users Maybe produsage should point only towards thecollective user-driven production of information in order to preserve the link

Produsage as a form of self-publication 117

with the specificity of this kind of process excluding other forms of user-generated content From a production point of view this is arguable Whenlooking at the impact of this form of production it is clear that the effect isessentially visible when singular users combine their engagement Not somuch this or that blog makes the blogosphere influential but specifically thenetworked effect that one message can have when it is endorsed by thousandsof bloggers

Still the practice of self-publication what we identified as the nature ofprodusage as a user experience is an important social evolution that cannotbe neglected We believe produsage is a strong conceptualisation that has thepotential to become an important framework to understand the evolutionsunderlying a large array of currently emerging practices and innovations in aworld not necessarily without borders but with different boundaries andmore cross-boundary work (Bockszkowski 2004) By not merely looking atprodusage as a practice where production outweighs consumption but also asa practice where usage can outweigh production and even more as acontinuum between both dimensions we believe we could come to a more in-depth holistic understanding of this process With this article we hope tohave given a valuable first impetus in that direction

Acknowledgements

This research took place within the framework of the FLEET (Flemish E-publishing Trends

project funded by the Flemish Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) This

interdisciplinary research project aims at generating fundamental scientific knowledge about

the e-publishing sector in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium More information and

research outcomes can be found at wwwfleetprojectbe

References

M Ames and M Naaman lsquolsquoWhy we tag Motivations for annotation in mobile and online mediarsquorsquo Paper

presented at the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 28 April3 May 2007 San

Jose California

JA Anderson lsquolsquoThe pragmatics of audience in research and theoryrsquorsquo in The Audience and its Landscape

J Hay L Grossberg and E Wartella (Eds) Oxford Westview Press pp 7593 1996

J Bierhoff and A Eyck lsquolsquoDesigning the digital dailyrsquorsquo Paper presented at the International Conference

New Media amp Information Convergences amp Divergences 69 May 2009 Athens

N Bolger A Davis and E Rafaeli lsquolsquoDiary Methods capturing life as it is livedrsquorsquo Annual Review of

Psychology 54 pp 579616 2003

PJ Boczkowski Digitizing the News Innovation in Online Newspapers Cambridge MIT Press 2004

DM Boyd Taken Out of Context American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics [unpublished doctoral

thesis] University of California 2008

A Bruns Blogs Wikipedia Second Life and Beyond From Production to Produsage New York Peter

Lang 2008

A Bruns lsquolsquoProdusage Towards a broader framework for user-led content creationrsquorsquo Proceedings of the

2007 Conference on Creativity and Cognition New York ACM Press pp 99106 2007a

A Bruns lsquolsquoThe future is user-led The path towards widespread Produsagersquorsquo Paper presented at the

PerthDAC Conference Perth 1518 September 2007b Western Australia

A Bruns lsquolsquoTowards produsage Futures for user-led content productionrsquorsquo Paper presented at the Cultural

Attitudes towards Communication and Technology Conference 28 June1 July 2006 Tartu Estonia

118 I Picone

Therefore we chose to work with two groups a short-term and a long-termone

The short-term group served as an explorative one in order to generateinformation on the way participants experienced productive news use Thegroup consisted of 18 participants They were questioned through a diary-interview Diaries were used to evaluate practices that could not beinvestigated through observation or intensive contact with the participants(Cohen et al 2006) Diaries allow more than just gathering information butmake participants reflect on their actions and describe them (Bolger et al2003 Jacobs and Van den Broeck 2008) The participants were asked to keeptrack of their media use during one week through a day per day paper diarywith closed and open questions The closed questions concerned the mediaand news sources they used that day They were also asked to fill in a dailyhour per hour schedule of their media-related and news-related activitiesThrough the open questions the participants were encouraged to share anythoughts or experiences concerning their media and news use that wouldseem relevant to them This allowed us to operate a more inductive way ofgenerating ideas One week seemed a relevant period as news habits generallyform a routine throughout the week except during the weekend whereFlemish users take more time for news (Glorieux 2006)

These reflections were then further investigated in the in-depth interviewsfollowing the diary period in order to get a more refined idea of why and howpeople give meaning to the different news sources they use The topic list ofeach interview was based on each participantrsquos personal account gatheredthrough the survey and through the diary The participants were confrontedwith the patterns of use emerging out of their diaries and asked to reflectabout what news and contributing to it means for them Special attention wasgiven to incongruence found within the diary or between the diary and thesurvey data of each participant in order to confront the person with it and digdeeper into these often paradoxical accounts A recurring example is thedifference between the time people estimate they spend online (as answered ina question of the survey) and the time they actually spend on it when loggingtheir own media use through the diaries

This first phase of data collection generated 18 seven-day diaries and 18corresponding in-depth interviews A first analysis took place using theladdering technique (Reynolds and Gutman 1988 Grunert and Grunert 1995Chen et al 2002) This technique aims at uncovering factors and processesunderlying the concrete answers given by participants This allows for moregeneral clusters of factors shaping casual acts of productive news use to beidentified With laddering the analysis already starts during the in-depthinterviews by always digging deeper into the motivational ladder of theparticipants The following example can give an idea of such a motivationalladder When confronted with a situation where a participant replies that he isnot interested to leave a comment online the researcher tries to find out whyThe participant answers it is too time-intensive and therefore does not like itStill digging deeper the researcher finds out contributing takes time because

108 I Picone

the participant finds himself not good at writing In the end not wanting tocontribute is not so much a question of interest but a question of beinginsecure and afraid of being publicly reproved when making a spelling orgrammatical mistake in an online contribution Applying this procedure toother situations different factors initially mentioned by participants seemedto lead up to the same underlying motivations That way broader clusters ofrelevant factors and motivations underlying productive news use as a wholecould be identified giving us the possibility to get an idea of what kind ofpractice productive news use is

The different relevant factors and the lsquolsquoladdersrsquorsquo they form that wereidentified at this point served as a first set of findings but were also used asinput to adjust complement and refine the topics to be further investigatedin the long-term phase Certain aspects seeming more important thanexpected or that emerged from the interviews were incorporated in thesecond phase in order to elicit an as wide as possible range of factors shapingproductive news use

Initially the long-term group consisting of 21 participants was alsoquestioned through a diary-interview following the same procedure as thefirst group They were then asked to use different forms of productive newsuse consecutively for three weeks each and during a nine-month period Asalready mentioned casually produsing news means that one is not active onnews produsage sites on a regular basis or one sticks to a certain form ofprodusage (eg only rating news) This would complicate the identificationof factors underlying productive news use as a whole Therefore theparticipants all had to be acquainted to a certain level with the relevantforms of news contribution

In a news context the main forms of productive news use can be identifiedas retrieving news on demand evaluating news sharing news and comment-ing on it (Picone 2008) The participants were consecutively introduced to thefollowing web sites or applications which altogether encompass all of theseforms

Google Reader an RSS-reader allowing users to personalise rate andshare news selection (on demandratesharing)

Zitabe a Flemish news site allowing users to personalise their home pagewith different widgets (on demandrate)

Nujijnl a Dutch news forum where people share links to news stories andrate and comment on othersrsquo links

Procontrabe a Flemish site where the administrator selects and introducesone news topic a day to evaluate and debate amongst users (ratingcommenting) (now offline)

Nieuwsbe a Flemish news site combining all of the above features

The participants were not introduced to these sites in a lab but in theeveryday setting they usually consult news according to a Living Labmethodology (Pierson et al 2005) We did not literally set up a Living Lab

Produsage as a form of self-publication 109

ie an environment for innovation and development where users are exposedto new ICT solutions in (semi-)realistic contexts (Foslashlstad 2008 p 116) Anexample of such a Living Lab would be the deployment of free wifi in a city ordistrict providing a sample of users with Wifi-enabled smartphones andregister their use of it We merely used a Living Lab-approach (Pierson et al2005) introducing participants to applications through a technology theyalready own The rationale behind it however is similar to that of a LivingLab set up namely to study the adoption of technology in daily situationsrather than in an experimental setting This approach is especially usefulwhen looking for factors that go beyond usability and interface By givingparticipants the opportunity to get acquainted to a certain extent with therelevant features researchers avoid the participantsrsquo accounts to revolvearound practical issues of ease-of-use or troubles understanding thesefeatures

In order to allow the participants to incorporate the different web sites intheir daily routines we let them use the applications for three weeks at leastbefore asking them to comment on it Through short mail questionnaires theywere asked for their first impressions likes and dislikes These answers thenserved again as input for an in-depth interview held once all sites andapplications were introduced During the whole period the researcher couldbe reached by phone or mail in order to give feedback on possible problemsparticipants experienced

To facilitate access to these applications and also to guarantee a certainlevel of privacy the participants were asked to use Gmail-addresses especiallyset up for them by the researchers We used these addresses to register theparticipants beforehand on the various sites and applications so they wouldonly need to login always with the same user name and password Theparticipants were aware of the fact that the researchers knew their passwordand would use it to regularly log into their accounts and monitor their use ofthe application This allowed us especially to monitor which kind ofinformation every participant was most keen on contributing to Further-more these observations served again as a way of detecting incongruencebetween what participants were saying and what they were actually doing

The long-term phase was concluded with a second in-depth interviewwhere the participants were asked about their experiences with the differentproductive features The diary-interview the mail questionnaires and thelogging reports served as input for the topic list of those interviews Thediary-interviews and the concluding interviews combined resulted in 42interviews being coded The same laddering technique was applied in order toelaborate motivational ladders for every participant The Living Lab-approach putting productive news use as a situated action at the centreallowed us to also investigate situational and social factors First all interviewrecords were coded according to the different motivational situational andsocial factors identified in the interviews These were clustered according tocommon underlying motivations forming the next rung of the ladder Theserungs were clustered in turn in order to find a higher rung We then compared

110 I Picone

the individual ladders of the 21 participants in order to look for recurringelements and common patterns Because of the maximum variation samplethis allowed us to come to a lsquolsquoladder of laddersrsquorsquo representing a fair amount ofpossible meanings and motivations for productive news use We got an idea ofwhat produsage means to users and how they shape it as a social practicerather than as a production process

It is not the scope of this article to give a detailed overview of all theidentified factors and personal ladders but rather to look at the underlyingmotivational clusters and what they tell us on the practice of productive newsuse In others words we will not present the bottom rungs of the motivationaland situational ladders for productive news use but rather the top ones Thispermits us to come to more theoretical propositions about productive newsuse through the principle of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967)Concretely we look for theoretical propositions to emerge from empiricalanalysis We did not start with a preconceived theory that needs to be provenbut rather with a general area of study that needs elaboration (Razavi andIverson 2007) In this study this area is formed by Brunsrsquos insights on newsprodusage

32 Findings

A first important element emerging from the data analysis is that dedicationpassion and perseverance what Bruns sees at the centre of produsage as aPro-Am activity are reflected in the participantsrsquo answers Contributingonline even simply voting on a news story by clicking on a checkbox next toit requires a certain effort Certain participants felt like all these lsquolsquonewfeaturesrsquorsquo were simply too lsquolsquodemandingrsquorsquo However our participants beingcasual produsers these emotions seem too strong to express their engage-ment Rather we prefer to speak of a form of investment needed in order tocontribute to the news The motivational situational and social factorsidentified through the analysis of the data and presented below can beunderstood as elements inciting or withholding users to deliver the invest-ment productive news use necessarily requires We now go through the threetop lsquolsquorungsrsquorsquo of the motivational ladder of productive news use amongstcasual news produsers sets of factors are grouped into clusters that are inturn grouped into three broad dimensions

We identified a first set of factors about peoplersquos interest in a newsstory Participants seem to be keener on participating when the news itemrevolves on something that they are particularly interested in To a certainextent this corresponds to factors of newsworthiness as those of Galtungand Ruge (1965 Harcup and OrsquoNeil 2001) A second set of factors couldbe labelled as the vicinityspiritually and geographicallyto the newsitem Events involving places persons or themes someone is close to incitecontributions Participants were less keen on contributing to lsquolsquodistantrsquorsquostories unless they generated strong emotions both positive and negativeones a third set

Produsage as a form of self-publication 111

All these factors relate to the connection people have with the news storyThe stronger it is in terms of interest vicinity or emotion the more likelypeople seemed to engage with it

A fourth set of factors is more related to the mistakes that other users makewhen commenting on a news topic or more generally on the news siteParticipants seem sensitive to mistakes and tend to correct them This canalso bear on what someone can perceive as a mistake of judgement by othersin voting an article onto the most valued list or filling in an online poll Notonly the substance of lsquolsquonewsrsquorsquo generated by others also the general tenor ofreactions affects contribution which forms a fifth set of factors When othercontributors seem open to input and people feel like others may be interestedin what they have to say they are more likely to produse Then again ifas isthe case on different Flemish news sites (Picone and Depreeuw 2009)theother contributions look rather hostile or a harsh or depreciatory discussionis emerging in the comment section many participants seemed ratherreluctant to contribute

These sets of factors can be clustered as relating to the reactions of othersNot only news items but also other usersrsquo comments on the news can shapeusersrsquo willingness to contribute

These clusters all relate to the news content the actual story and the waypeople are relating to it They can be clustered in a content-related dimension

A sixth set of factors relates to the knowledge someone has about a certaintopic To what extent is the person not perforce an expert but at least abreastof the news topic discussed Professional or scholarly expertise makes it easierfor someone to contribute because it reduces the odds of being confrontedwith other users online who might point towards mistakes in onersquoscontribution A seventh set of factors also relate to what users know aboutthe news topic but more in terms of lsquolsquohands-onrsquorsquo expertise Even peopleaccidentally witnessing an event gain temporary credibility as a first-handwitness However not always do users need a thick understanding of the newstopic in order to have their say about it It does make it easier to contributebut users can be so amazed or shocked by a story that they want to expresstheir feelings or opinion about it This can be grouped in an eighth set offactors as people simply having something to say

All these sets can in turn be clustered as shaping usersrsquo orientation towardsself-expression

A ninth set of factors relates to people being lsquolsquoin the mood for produsagersquorsquoThe Living Lab-approach allowed us to take into account situationalelements During the study it became clear that users do not always feellike contributing Especially when online news is used between times or toquickly catch up with the news participants seemed not willing to reactextensively on it Also work stress domestic tasks and other time-consumingactivities shape a userrsquos mood for produsage Similar results are found in aDutch study on personalised news (Bierhoff and Eyck 2009) where theoutcome suggests that the level of personalisation in news applications shouldbe adaptable to the mood of users in order to truly obtain an added value

112 I Picone

Other participants show a more general pro or contra attitude towards newsprodusage that is less subject to mood swings They simply do not want topublicly react on news stories or comments made by others or conversely arevery keen on voicing their opinion It seems a matter of principle be it becausethey do not see the added value because they do not feel like spamming theInternet or even because they estimate it impolite to carp on others On a moregeneral level this seemed to relate to the fact of not being used to being askedto voice opinions online a 10th set of factors This can be linked to morestructural cultural or generational factors eg the Flemish catholic inspiredculture to lsquolsquothink twice before you speakrsquorsquo An interesting element here is thatwithholding participants to contribute is not so much the fact of having anopinion but of saying it out loud lsquolsquoWho am I to tell what others need tothinkrsquorsquo was a rhetorical question heard at different occasions amongst theparticipants Different participants were keen on having an opinion but felt asif they would be too intrusive when sharing it with strangers online

These sets of factors could form a cluster termed lsquolsquoattitude and moodrsquorsquorespectively pointing towards a more structural and situational affectiontowards the act of produsing news

An 11th set of factors refers to usersrsquo skills People with poor writing skillsmay be reluctant to contribute especially when the level of other contribu-tions is rather high Besides writing skills also narrative and argumentativeskills or the perceived lack of it were recurrent thresholds for contributingFurthermore different participants at this point applied the element ofmisjudgement mentioned before on their own ability being afraid of nothaving enough background to make an appropriate comment or judgementThis way a perceived lack of skills is not only a threshold to comment butalso to vote or to mark news as well This is related to a 12th set of factors Asalready mentioned people may be afraid of reactions by others on theircontribution which might withhold them from participating Here we see thelink with the potential public of an act of productive news use People thinkabout what others are likely to think about their contribution It isremarkable to note that various participants felt much more comfortablesharing this kind of information with close friends than with strangers onlineIt seemed that the more they were able to anticipate the reactions of othersthe more they were keen on contributing Again not so much what they hadto say (or produce) but who might hear it and how they would react played arole at that moment

These two sets of factors can be clustered under the idea of self-confidenceas they refer to the degree to which a user is confident voicing his opinion

All these factors relate to the personal dispositions of the user hisherskills attitude mood and background or in general a more personal dimen-sion and how this shapes hisher decision to engage with the news or not

A 12th set of factors relates to the idea of the potential public of a userrsquoscontribution Being able to assess onersquos potential public and how they willreact to onersquos contribution played an important role when consideringwhether or not to share mark or comment news stories This is what makes

Produsage as a form of self-publication 113

sharing news with friends via Facebook or mail and certainly face to facemore accessible than putting it online where virtually everybody can see it itis easier to assess whether friends will like it than it is to estimate whether asignificant part of a news sitersquos audience will appreciate it

These factors can be clustered under the term potential public In generalthe more one is able to assess what hisher potential public may like the morelikely heshe is to contribute

Building on the idea of the potential public we found a 13th set of factorsrevolving around the fact that various participants expected their contribu-tion one way or another to form an added value for the people who wouldread it (eg when they could advise others on a certain topic) This can belinked to Thorsonrsquos (2008) research on the most-emailed article list on theNew York Times web site The author concludes that news stories withpractical tips are more likely to be emailed to others The more usefulinformation is the more likely the potential public of the information is toappreciate it Such contributions however were more likely to be shared onlifestyle sections than on the hard news sections A similar set of factors wasfound concerning hard news Users then did not want to help others butmake them aware of certain aspects they think are important another angleto a story elements that need nuance the existence of other stakeholders withdifferent views and so on all with the intention to broaden other usersrsquohorizon Voting for certain articles in order for them to reach the most votedsection is a good example of this A 15th set of factors can be viewed as goingeven a step further by not only raising awareness for certain issues butgaining interest from other users by interacting through comment sections orlinking to other sites concerning the issue

All these sets can be clustered as a form of altruism where users want toshow commitment to the broader community they belong to

A final set of factors could be named lsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo Especially on news sitescomment sections tend to take the form of a wailing wall everyone can postopinions contributions and complaints but usually nothing happens with itFor many participants the fact that their contribution would not be takeninto account or would not have any impact seemed to be a major thresholdto participate Why exert one if it is a lost call anyway

These clusters in turn seem to revolve around a social dimension They allcome forth out of a social reflex users have with their potential public orsociety as a whole

321 Conclusion understanding produsage as self-publication The 16 different setsof factors the eight clusters they are organised in and the three overarchingdimensions represent a relevant set of motivational situational and socialfactors shaping the practice of productive news use (Q2) These dimensionsrelating to casual produsage could be pursued further to structuralprodusage as visualised in Figure 1 The passion and dedication of Pro-Ams could be considered as a more intense connection or affection towardsthe idea of information production lsquolsquothinking by writingrsquorsquo lsquolsquoto networkrsquorsquo or

114 I Picone

lsquolsquoto improve writing skillsrsquorsquo could be seen as elements of self-expression orself-development and the impending loss of values driving citizen journalistscould be regarded as a strong social reflex towards a potential public thatneeds to be better informed (see Figure 1)

How can these different sets of factors the clusters they are grouped in andthe dimensions they are categorised in now shed light on produsage as asocial practice from a user perspective more precisely the perspective ofcasual news produsers

A first element that becomes clear through this research is that knowledgeand skills do play an important role to engage with the news also amongstcasual produsers However they are not the only factors relating to the userrsquosindividual dispositions Also self-expression and self-confidence are relevantaspects Interesting is that these elements are interpreted in relation to thepotential public of a userrsquos contribution It is not so much the difficulty ofwriting a comment that holds users back from voting sharing or reacting toa news story but other usersrsquo response to it Users do not express themselvesby producing an opinion but by publicising it

Figure 1 Motivational situational and social factors shaping productive news use

Produsage as a form of self-publication 115

A second interesting element is the identification of situational factors thatdo not only relate to the availability of certain technological artefacts at agiven moment in time but also to the mood and attitude of users in a certaincontext Also the attitude of users towards productive news use seems to acertain extent rooted in cultural values Cultural factors play an importantrole in the way people use news (Vandenbrande 2002 Gasher 2007) and itseems this is also applicable to the productive use of it But remarkable is thata prudent attitude towards productive news use does not in the first placerefer to the articulation of opinions on news stories but to enforcing onersquosown opinion to others Again onersquos concern seems to lie with the potentialpublic and how this public will perceive onersquos contribution and consequentlyoneself

A third important outcome is precisely the emerging importance of usersrsquopotential public when contributing Also the factors lsquolsquoaltruismrsquorsquo andlsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo show that casual produsers attach great importance to the factthat their contribution needs to make a difference In many occasions if theywould have the impression their contribution is not adding anything to thedebate is not reaching anybody or is not helpful or meaningful to others theyask themselves why it would be worth the investment The idea of leveragetakes this a step further referring to the intention of actually having animpact on the issues at stake in society through contributions

To sum up casual produsers seem to treat other users as an audience ofwhich they do not know the reach This potential public plays an importantrole as produsers adapt their contributions to the perceived likes and needs ofit The idea of users reflecting on the lsquolsquoimpactrsquorsquo of their contribution on theirpotential public can be denominated a social reflex This is more than justaltruism It is a reflection on how others are going to perceive the publicationof a personal expression An interesting link is found between this way ofcommunicating online and the notion of performance as defined by Goffman1959 Burnett and Marshall 2003 and Robinson 2007 Performance is everyactivity that takes place during a period of exhibition to a public and that isadapted to the common context of interaction in order to be understood bythat public The performance not only consists of what a person exhibits andhow but also of hisher profile biography the conversation context and howthey both match (Robinson 2007)

Subsequently the user-driven production of information online could beunderstood as a form of self-performance or more suitably self-publicationWe would argue that from a user perspective produsage is not so much aboutthe production of information but rather about the self-publication ofinformation What makes a blog unique is not the fact that users areproducing a diary it is the fact that they can publish it to a potential public ofmillions The true potential of user-generated content lies in the fact that thishappens publicly that this process takes the form of a public performancethat everyone can witness and react to In other words when looking atproductive news use the question is not so much why people do or do notwant to produce information but rather if they want to publicise themselves

116 I Picone

Is the collaborative user-driven production of information as intended byBruns something different from the personal experience of self-publication ofinformation We would argue that they are the both sides of the same pictureWhile Bruns looks at the phenomenon of user-generated content from apoliticaleconomic perspective (from production to produsage) approachingit as a form of self-publication enables us to treat it as a user-experience as asituated social practice (from usage to produsage) We believe it is importantif we want to fully grasp this phenomenon to apply both perspectivesProdusage should not be solely understood as an alternative model for theproduction of information (Bruns 2008) but also as an alternative way ofusing information

Talking about self-publication gives us the opportunity to take intoaccount the stories that do not get to be collectively engaged upon thosecontributions people do not want others to further evaluate and completethose contributions that are not fit for hive mind treatment or the verydistributed acts of produsage that take place in the loosest communitieswhere information is merely being shared without being evaluated and soon The idea of self-publication helps us to understand why certain users arenot necessarily willing to contribute to a shared effort of informationproduction even though they have the skills and knowledge to do so Inother words even if it would be easy and not time consuming why wouldthey not contribute Because they experience it as self-publication and theydo not want or are not comfortable engaging in this practice

Produsage in other words should not only be seen as an alternative way ofproducing information but also as an alternative complementary way ofusing it as the fluid ad hoc adoption of a lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo news logic amongstregular news user shows This kind of distributed casual contribution withindecentralised communities such as news sites could be considered casualprodusage When these efforts take a more structural form the form of acollective hive mind driven production of information we could speak ofstructural produsage as intended by Bruns Self-publication as a lsquolsquoprodu-siversquorsquo logic is finding its way into the daily news use of people and in theirmedia use in general As such it should be a point of interest for scientistsresearching (news) produsage too This lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo logic amongst news usersis not replacing the mere use of traditional news it is complementing itHowever looking at news use without taking the produsive logic into accountwould mean to overlook a great deal of ways in which people are using news

The adaptations from a user-oriented perspective on Brunsrsquos theoryproposed in this paper should not be seen as solely a theoretical reflectionIn reality they are the fruit of an iterative process where findings emergingfrom the data analysis are constantly related to theory in the course of thequalitative study and subsequently they are grounded in practice Still theyare open to discussion It could be a valuable argument not to broadenprodusage as to include casual random non-collective contributions frommainly consuming users Maybe produsage should point only towards thecollective user-driven production of information in order to preserve the link

Produsage as a form of self-publication 117

with the specificity of this kind of process excluding other forms of user-generated content From a production point of view this is arguable Whenlooking at the impact of this form of production it is clear that the effect isessentially visible when singular users combine their engagement Not somuch this or that blog makes the blogosphere influential but specifically thenetworked effect that one message can have when it is endorsed by thousandsof bloggers

Still the practice of self-publication what we identified as the nature ofprodusage as a user experience is an important social evolution that cannotbe neglected We believe produsage is a strong conceptualisation that has thepotential to become an important framework to understand the evolutionsunderlying a large array of currently emerging practices and innovations in aworld not necessarily without borders but with different boundaries andmore cross-boundary work (Bockszkowski 2004) By not merely looking atprodusage as a practice where production outweighs consumption but also asa practice where usage can outweigh production and even more as acontinuum between both dimensions we believe we could come to a more in-depth holistic understanding of this process With this article we hope tohave given a valuable first impetus in that direction

Acknowledgements

This research took place within the framework of the FLEET (Flemish E-publishing Trends

project funded by the Flemish Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) This

interdisciplinary research project aims at generating fundamental scientific knowledge about

the e-publishing sector in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium More information and

research outcomes can be found at wwwfleetprojectbe

References

M Ames and M Naaman lsquolsquoWhy we tag Motivations for annotation in mobile and online mediarsquorsquo Paper

presented at the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 28 April3 May 2007 San

Jose California

JA Anderson lsquolsquoThe pragmatics of audience in research and theoryrsquorsquo in The Audience and its Landscape

J Hay L Grossberg and E Wartella (Eds) Oxford Westview Press pp 7593 1996

J Bierhoff and A Eyck lsquolsquoDesigning the digital dailyrsquorsquo Paper presented at the International Conference

New Media amp Information Convergences amp Divergences 69 May 2009 Athens

N Bolger A Davis and E Rafaeli lsquolsquoDiary Methods capturing life as it is livedrsquorsquo Annual Review of

Psychology 54 pp 579616 2003

PJ Boczkowski Digitizing the News Innovation in Online Newspapers Cambridge MIT Press 2004

DM Boyd Taken Out of Context American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics [unpublished doctoral

thesis] University of California 2008

A Bruns Blogs Wikipedia Second Life and Beyond From Production to Produsage New York Peter

Lang 2008

A Bruns lsquolsquoProdusage Towards a broader framework for user-led content creationrsquorsquo Proceedings of the

2007 Conference on Creativity and Cognition New York ACM Press pp 99106 2007a

A Bruns lsquolsquoThe future is user-led The path towards widespread Produsagersquorsquo Paper presented at the

PerthDAC Conference Perth 1518 September 2007b Western Australia

A Bruns lsquolsquoTowards produsage Futures for user-led content productionrsquorsquo Paper presented at the Cultural

Attitudes towards Communication and Technology Conference 28 June1 July 2006 Tartu Estonia

118 I Picone

the participant finds himself not good at writing In the end not wanting tocontribute is not so much a question of interest but a question of beinginsecure and afraid of being publicly reproved when making a spelling orgrammatical mistake in an online contribution Applying this procedure toother situations different factors initially mentioned by participants seemedto lead up to the same underlying motivations That way broader clusters ofrelevant factors and motivations underlying productive news use as a wholecould be identified giving us the possibility to get an idea of what kind ofpractice productive news use is

The different relevant factors and the lsquolsquoladdersrsquorsquo they form that wereidentified at this point served as a first set of findings but were also used asinput to adjust complement and refine the topics to be further investigatedin the long-term phase Certain aspects seeming more important thanexpected or that emerged from the interviews were incorporated in thesecond phase in order to elicit an as wide as possible range of factors shapingproductive news use

Initially the long-term group consisting of 21 participants was alsoquestioned through a diary-interview following the same procedure as thefirst group They were then asked to use different forms of productive newsuse consecutively for three weeks each and during a nine-month period Asalready mentioned casually produsing news means that one is not active onnews produsage sites on a regular basis or one sticks to a certain form ofprodusage (eg only rating news) This would complicate the identificationof factors underlying productive news use as a whole Therefore theparticipants all had to be acquainted to a certain level with the relevantforms of news contribution

In a news context the main forms of productive news use can be identifiedas retrieving news on demand evaluating news sharing news and comment-ing on it (Picone 2008) The participants were consecutively introduced to thefollowing web sites or applications which altogether encompass all of theseforms

Google Reader an RSS-reader allowing users to personalise rate andshare news selection (on demandratesharing)

Zitabe a Flemish news site allowing users to personalise their home pagewith different widgets (on demandrate)

Nujijnl a Dutch news forum where people share links to news stories andrate and comment on othersrsquo links

Procontrabe a Flemish site where the administrator selects and introducesone news topic a day to evaluate and debate amongst users (ratingcommenting) (now offline)

Nieuwsbe a Flemish news site combining all of the above features

The participants were not introduced to these sites in a lab but in theeveryday setting they usually consult news according to a Living Labmethodology (Pierson et al 2005) We did not literally set up a Living Lab

Produsage as a form of self-publication 109

ie an environment for innovation and development where users are exposedto new ICT solutions in (semi-)realistic contexts (Foslashlstad 2008 p 116) Anexample of such a Living Lab would be the deployment of free wifi in a city ordistrict providing a sample of users with Wifi-enabled smartphones andregister their use of it We merely used a Living Lab-approach (Pierson et al2005) introducing participants to applications through a technology theyalready own The rationale behind it however is similar to that of a LivingLab set up namely to study the adoption of technology in daily situationsrather than in an experimental setting This approach is especially usefulwhen looking for factors that go beyond usability and interface By givingparticipants the opportunity to get acquainted to a certain extent with therelevant features researchers avoid the participantsrsquo accounts to revolvearound practical issues of ease-of-use or troubles understanding thesefeatures

In order to allow the participants to incorporate the different web sites intheir daily routines we let them use the applications for three weeks at leastbefore asking them to comment on it Through short mail questionnaires theywere asked for their first impressions likes and dislikes These answers thenserved again as input for an in-depth interview held once all sites andapplications were introduced During the whole period the researcher couldbe reached by phone or mail in order to give feedback on possible problemsparticipants experienced

To facilitate access to these applications and also to guarantee a certainlevel of privacy the participants were asked to use Gmail-addresses especiallyset up for them by the researchers We used these addresses to register theparticipants beforehand on the various sites and applications so they wouldonly need to login always with the same user name and password Theparticipants were aware of the fact that the researchers knew their passwordand would use it to regularly log into their accounts and monitor their use ofthe application This allowed us especially to monitor which kind ofinformation every participant was most keen on contributing to Further-more these observations served again as a way of detecting incongruencebetween what participants were saying and what they were actually doing

The long-term phase was concluded with a second in-depth interviewwhere the participants were asked about their experiences with the differentproductive features The diary-interview the mail questionnaires and thelogging reports served as input for the topic list of those interviews Thediary-interviews and the concluding interviews combined resulted in 42interviews being coded The same laddering technique was applied in order toelaborate motivational ladders for every participant The Living Lab-approach putting productive news use as a situated action at the centreallowed us to also investigate situational and social factors First all interviewrecords were coded according to the different motivational situational andsocial factors identified in the interviews These were clustered according tocommon underlying motivations forming the next rung of the ladder Theserungs were clustered in turn in order to find a higher rung We then compared

110 I Picone

the individual ladders of the 21 participants in order to look for recurringelements and common patterns Because of the maximum variation samplethis allowed us to come to a lsquolsquoladder of laddersrsquorsquo representing a fair amount ofpossible meanings and motivations for productive news use We got an idea ofwhat produsage means to users and how they shape it as a social practicerather than as a production process

It is not the scope of this article to give a detailed overview of all theidentified factors and personal ladders but rather to look at the underlyingmotivational clusters and what they tell us on the practice of productive newsuse In others words we will not present the bottom rungs of the motivationaland situational ladders for productive news use but rather the top ones Thispermits us to come to more theoretical propositions about productive newsuse through the principle of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967)Concretely we look for theoretical propositions to emerge from empiricalanalysis We did not start with a preconceived theory that needs to be provenbut rather with a general area of study that needs elaboration (Razavi andIverson 2007) In this study this area is formed by Brunsrsquos insights on newsprodusage

32 Findings

A first important element emerging from the data analysis is that dedicationpassion and perseverance what Bruns sees at the centre of produsage as aPro-Am activity are reflected in the participantsrsquo answers Contributingonline even simply voting on a news story by clicking on a checkbox next toit requires a certain effort Certain participants felt like all these lsquolsquonewfeaturesrsquorsquo were simply too lsquolsquodemandingrsquorsquo However our participants beingcasual produsers these emotions seem too strong to express their engage-ment Rather we prefer to speak of a form of investment needed in order tocontribute to the news The motivational situational and social factorsidentified through the analysis of the data and presented below can beunderstood as elements inciting or withholding users to deliver the invest-ment productive news use necessarily requires We now go through the threetop lsquolsquorungsrsquorsquo of the motivational ladder of productive news use amongstcasual news produsers sets of factors are grouped into clusters that are inturn grouped into three broad dimensions

We identified a first set of factors about peoplersquos interest in a newsstory Participants seem to be keener on participating when the news itemrevolves on something that they are particularly interested in To a certainextent this corresponds to factors of newsworthiness as those of Galtungand Ruge (1965 Harcup and OrsquoNeil 2001) A second set of factors couldbe labelled as the vicinityspiritually and geographicallyto the newsitem Events involving places persons or themes someone is close to incitecontributions Participants were less keen on contributing to lsquolsquodistantrsquorsquostories unless they generated strong emotions both positive and negativeones a third set

Produsage as a form of self-publication 111

All these factors relate to the connection people have with the news storyThe stronger it is in terms of interest vicinity or emotion the more likelypeople seemed to engage with it

A fourth set of factors is more related to the mistakes that other users makewhen commenting on a news topic or more generally on the news siteParticipants seem sensitive to mistakes and tend to correct them This canalso bear on what someone can perceive as a mistake of judgement by othersin voting an article onto the most valued list or filling in an online poll Notonly the substance of lsquolsquonewsrsquorsquo generated by others also the general tenor ofreactions affects contribution which forms a fifth set of factors When othercontributors seem open to input and people feel like others may be interestedin what they have to say they are more likely to produse Then again ifas isthe case on different Flemish news sites (Picone and Depreeuw 2009)theother contributions look rather hostile or a harsh or depreciatory discussionis emerging in the comment section many participants seemed ratherreluctant to contribute

These sets of factors can be clustered as relating to the reactions of othersNot only news items but also other usersrsquo comments on the news can shapeusersrsquo willingness to contribute

These clusters all relate to the news content the actual story and the waypeople are relating to it They can be clustered in a content-related dimension

A sixth set of factors relates to the knowledge someone has about a certaintopic To what extent is the person not perforce an expert but at least abreastof the news topic discussed Professional or scholarly expertise makes it easierfor someone to contribute because it reduces the odds of being confrontedwith other users online who might point towards mistakes in onersquoscontribution A seventh set of factors also relate to what users know aboutthe news topic but more in terms of lsquolsquohands-onrsquorsquo expertise Even peopleaccidentally witnessing an event gain temporary credibility as a first-handwitness However not always do users need a thick understanding of the newstopic in order to have their say about it It does make it easier to contributebut users can be so amazed or shocked by a story that they want to expresstheir feelings or opinion about it This can be grouped in an eighth set offactors as people simply having something to say

All these sets can in turn be clustered as shaping usersrsquo orientation towardsself-expression

A ninth set of factors relates to people being lsquolsquoin the mood for produsagersquorsquoThe Living Lab-approach allowed us to take into account situationalelements During the study it became clear that users do not always feellike contributing Especially when online news is used between times or toquickly catch up with the news participants seemed not willing to reactextensively on it Also work stress domestic tasks and other time-consumingactivities shape a userrsquos mood for produsage Similar results are found in aDutch study on personalised news (Bierhoff and Eyck 2009) where theoutcome suggests that the level of personalisation in news applications shouldbe adaptable to the mood of users in order to truly obtain an added value

112 I Picone

Other participants show a more general pro or contra attitude towards newsprodusage that is less subject to mood swings They simply do not want topublicly react on news stories or comments made by others or conversely arevery keen on voicing their opinion It seems a matter of principle be it becausethey do not see the added value because they do not feel like spamming theInternet or even because they estimate it impolite to carp on others On a moregeneral level this seemed to relate to the fact of not being used to being askedto voice opinions online a 10th set of factors This can be linked to morestructural cultural or generational factors eg the Flemish catholic inspiredculture to lsquolsquothink twice before you speakrsquorsquo An interesting element here is thatwithholding participants to contribute is not so much the fact of having anopinion but of saying it out loud lsquolsquoWho am I to tell what others need tothinkrsquorsquo was a rhetorical question heard at different occasions amongst theparticipants Different participants were keen on having an opinion but felt asif they would be too intrusive when sharing it with strangers online

These sets of factors could form a cluster termed lsquolsquoattitude and moodrsquorsquorespectively pointing towards a more structural and situational affectiontowards the act of produsing news

An 11th set of factors refers to usersrsquo skills People with poor writing skillsmay be reluctant to contribute especially when the level of other contribu-tions is rather high Besides writing skills also narrative and argumentativeskills or the perceived lack of it were recurrent thresholds for contributingFurthermore different participants at this point applied the element ofmisjudgement mentioned before on their own ability being afraid of nothaving enough background to make an appropriate comment or judgementThis way a perceived lack of skills is not only a threshold to comment butalso to vote or to mark news as well This is related to a 12th set of factors Asalready mentioned people may be afraid of reactions by others on theircontribution which might withhold them from participating Here we see thelink with the potential public of an act of productive news use People thinkabout what others are likely to think about their contribution It isremarkable to note that various participants felt much more comfortablesharing this kind of information with close friends than with strangers onlineIt seemed that the more they were able to anticipate the reactions of othersthe more they were keen on contributing Again not so much what they hadto say (or produce) but who might hear it and how they would react played arole at that moment

These two sets of factors can be clustered under the idea of self-confidenceas they refer to the degree to which a user is confident voicing his opinion

All these factors relate to the personal dispositions of the user hisherskills attitude mood and background or in general a more personal dimen-sion and how this shapes hisher decision to engage with the news or not

A 12th set of factors relates to the idea of the potential public of a userrsquoscontribution Being able to assess onersquos potential public and how they willreact to onersquos contribution played an important role when consideringwhether or not to share mark or comment news stories This is what makes

Produsage as a form of self-publication 113

sharing news with friends via Facebook or mail and certainly face to facemore accessible than putting it online where virtually everybody can see it itis easier to assess whether friends will like it than it is to estimate whether asignificant part of a news sitersquos audience will appreciate it

These factors can be clustered under the term potential public In generalthe more one is able to assess what hisher potential public may like the morelikely heshe is to contribute

Building on the idea of the potential public we found a 13th set of factorsrevolving around the fact that various participants expected their contribu-tion one way or another to form an added value for the people who wouldread it (eg when they could advise others on a certain topic) This can belinked to Thorsonrsquos (2008) research on the most-emailed article list on theNew York Times web site The author concludes that news stories withpractical tips are more likely to be emailed to others The more usefulinformation is the more likely the potential public of the information is toappreciate it Such contributions however were more likely to be shared onlifestyle sections than on the hard news sections A similar set of factors wasfound concerning hard news Users then did not want to help others butmake them aware of certain aspects they think are important another angleto a story elements that need nuance the existence of other stakeholders withdifferent views and so on all with the intention to broaden other usersrsquohorizon Voting for certain articles in order for them to reach the most votedsection is a good example of this A 15th set of factors can be viewed as goingeven a step further by not only raising awareness for certain issues butgaining interest from other users by interacting through comment sections orlinking to other sites concerning the issue

All these sets can be clustered as a form of altruism where users want toshow commitment to the broader community they belong to

A final set of factors could be named lsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo Especially on news sitescomment sections tend to take the form of a wailing wall everyone can postopinions contributions and complaints but usually nothing happens with itFor many participants the fact that their contribution would not be takeninto account or would not have any impact seemed to be a major thresholdto participate Why exert one if it is a lost call anyway

These clusters in turn seem to revolve around a social dimension They allcome forth out of a social reflex users have with their potential public orsociety as a whole

321 Conclusion understanding produsage as self-publication The 16 different setsof factors the eight clusters they are organised in and the three overarchingdimensions represent a relevant set of motivational situational and socialfactors shaping the practice of productive news use (Q2) These dimensionsrelating to casual produsage could be pursued further to structuralprodusage as visualised in Figure 1 The passion and dedication of Pro-Ams could be considered as a more intense connection or affection towardsthe idea of information production lsquolsquothinking by writingrsquorsquo lsquolsquoto networkrsquorsquo or

114 I Picone

lsquolsquoto improve writing skillsrsquorsquo could be seen as elements of self-expression orself-development and the impending loss of values driving citizen journalistscould be regarded as a strong social reflex towards a potential public thatneeds to be better informed (see Figure 1)

How can these different sets of factors the clusters they are grouped in andthe dimensions they are categorised in now shed light on produsage as asocial practice from a user perspective more precisely the perspective ofcasual news produsers

A first element that becomes clear through this research is that knowledgeand skills do play an important role to engage with the news also amongstcasual produsers However they are not the only factors relating to the userrsquosindividual dispositions Also self-expression and self-confidence are relevantaspects Interesting is that these elements are interpreted in relation to thepotential public of a userrsquos contribution It is not so much the difficulty ofwriting a comment that holds users back from voting sharing or reacting toa news story but other usersrsquo response to it Users do not express themselvesby producing an opinion but by publicising it

Figure 1 Motivational situational and social factors shaping productive news use

Produsage as a form of self-publication 115

A second interesting element is the identification of situational factors thatdo not only relate to the availability of certain technological artefacts at agiven moment in time but also to the mood and attitude of users in a certaincontext Also the attitude of users towards productive news use seems to acertain extent rooted in cultural values Cultural factors play an importantrole in the way people use news (Vandenbrande 2002 Gasher 2007) and itseems this is also applicable to the productive use of it But remarkable is thata prudent attitude towards productive news use does not in the first placerefer to the articulation of opinions on news stories but to enforcing onersquosown opinion to others Again onersquos concern seems to lie with the potentialpublic and how this public will perceive onersquos contribution and consequentlyoneself

A third important outcome is precisely the emerging importance of usersrsquopotential public when contributing Also the factors lsquolsquoaltruismrsquorsquo andlsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo show that casual produsers attach great importance to the factthat their contribution needs to make a difference In many occasions if theywould have the impression their contribution is not adding anything to thedebate is not reaching anybody or is not helpful or meaningful to others theyask themselves why it would be worth the investment The idea of leveragetakes this a step further referring to the intention of actually having animpact on the issues at stake in society through contributions

To sum up casual produsers seem to treat other users as an audience ofwhich they do not know the reach This potential public plays an importantrole as produsers adapt their contributions to the perceived likes and needs ofit The idea of users reflecting on the lsquolsquoimpactrsquorsquo of their contribution on theirpotential public can be denominated a social reflex This is more than justaltruism It is a reflection on how others are going to perceive the publicationof a personal expression An interesting link is found between this way ofcommunicating online and the notion of performance as defined by Goffman1959 Burnett and Marshall 2003 and Robinson 2007 Performance is everyactivity that takes place during a period of exhibition to a public and that isadapted to the common context of interaction in order to be understood bythat public The performance not only consists of what a person exhibits andhow but also of hisher profile biography the conversation context and howthey both match (Robinson 2007)

Subsequently the user-driven production of information online could beunderstood as a form of self-performance or more suitably self-publicationWe would argue that from a user perspective produsage is not so much aboutthe production of information but rather about the self-publication ofinformation What makes a blog unique is not the fact that users areproducing a diary it is the fact that they can publish it to a potential public ofmillions The true potential of user-generated content lies in the fact that thishappens publicly that this process takes the form of a public performancethat everyone can witness and react to In other words when looking atproductive news use the question is not so much why people do or do notwant to produce information but rather if they want to publicise themselves

116 I Picone

Is the collaborative user-driven production of information as intended byBruns something different from the personal experience of self-publication ofinformation We would argue that they are the both sides of the same pictureWhile Bruns looks at the phenomenon of user-generated content from apoliticaleconomic perspective (from production to produsage) approachingit as a form of self-publication enables us to treat it as a user-experience as asituated social practice (from usage to produsage) We believe it is importantif we want to fully grasp this phenomenon to apply both perspectivesProdusage should not be solely understood as an alternative model for theproduction of information (Bruns 2008) but also as an alternative way ofusing information

Talking about self-publication gives us the opportunity to take intoaccount the stories that do not get to be collectively engaged upon thosecontributions people do not want others to further evaluate and completethose contributions that are not fit for hive mind treatment or the verydistributed acts of produsage that take place in the loosest communitieswhere information is merely being shared without being evaluated and soon The idea of self-publication helps us to understand why certain users arenot necessarily willing to contribute to a shared effort of informationproduction even though they have the skills and knowledge to do so Inother words even if it would be easy and not time consuming why wouldthey not contribute Because they experience it as self-publication and theydo not want or are not comfortable engaging in this practice

Produsage in other words should not only be seen as an alternative way ofproducing information but also as an alternative complementary way ofusing it as the fluid ad hoc adoption of a lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo news logic amongstregular news user shows This kind of distributed casual contribution withindecentralised communities such as news sites could be considered casualprodusage When these efforts take a more structural form the form of acollective hive mind driven production of information we could speak ofstructural produsage as intended by Bruns Self-publication as a lsquolsquoprodu-siversquorsquo logic is finding its way into the daily news use of people and in theirmedia use in general As such it should be a point of interest for scientistsresearching (news) produsage too This lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo logic amongst news usersis not replacing the mere use of traditional news it is complementing itHowever looking at news use without taking the produsive logic into accountwould mean to overlook a great deal of ways in which people are using news

The adaptations from a user-oriented perspective on Brunsrsquos theoryproposed in this paper should not be seen as solely a theoretical reflectionIn reality they are the fruit of an iterative process where findings emergingfrom the data analysis are constantly related to theory in the course of thequalitative study and subsequently they are grounded in practice Still theyare open to discussion It could be a valuable argument not to broadenprodusage as to include casual random non-collective contributions frommainly consuming users Maybe produsage should point only towards thecollective user-driven production of information in order to preserve the link

Produsage as a form of self-publication 117

with the specificity of this kind of process excluding other forms of user-generated content From a production point of view this is arguable Whenlooking at the impact of this form of production it is clear that the effect isessentially visible when singular users combine their engagement Not somuch this or that blog makes the blogosphere influential but specifically thenetworked effect that one message can have when it is endorsed by thousandsof bloggers

Still the practice of self-publication what we identified as the nature ofprodusage as a user experience is an important social evolution that cannotbe neglected We believe produsage is a strong conceptualisation that has thepotential to become an important framework to understand the evolutionsunderlying a large array of currently emerging practices and innovations in aworld not necessarily without borders but with different boundaries andmore cross-boundary work (Bockszkowski 2004) By not merely looking atprodusage as a practice where production outweighs consumption but also asa practice where usage can outweigh production and even more as acontinuum between both dimensions we believe we could come to a more in-depth holistic understanding of this process With this article we hope tohave given a valuable first impetus in that direction

Acknowledgements

This research took place within the framework of the FLEET (Flemish E-publishing Trends

project funded by the Flemish Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) This

interdisciplinary research project aims at generating fundamental scientific knowledge about

the e-publishing sector in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium More information and

research outcomes can be found at wwwfleetprojectbe

References

M Ames and M Naaman lsquolsquoWhy we tag Motivations for annotation in mobile and online mediarsquorsquo Paper

presented at the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 28 April3 May 2007 San

Jose California

JA Anderson lsquolsquoThe pragmatics of audience in research and theoryrsquorsquo in The Audience and its Landscape

J Hay L Grossberg and E Wartella (Eds) Oxford Westview Press pp 7593 1996

J Bierhoff and A Eyck lsquolsquoDesigning the digital dailyrsquorsquo Paper presented at the International Conference

New Media amp Information Convergences amp Divergences 69 May 2009 Athens

N Bolger A Davis and E Rafaeli lsquolsquoDiary Methods capturing life as it is livedrsquorsquo Annual Review of

Psychology 54 pp 579616 2003

PJ Boczkowski Digitizing the News Innovation in Online Newspapers Cambridge MIT Press 2004

DM Boyd Taken Out of Context American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics [unpublished doctoral

thesis] University of California 2008

A Bruns Blogs Wikipedia Second Life and Beyond From Production to Produsage New York Peter

Lang 2008

A Bruns lsquolsquoProdusage Towards a broader framework for user-led content creationrsquorsquo Proceedings of the

2007 Conference on Creativity and Cognition New York ACM Press pp 99106 2007a

A Bruns lsquolsquoThe future is user-led The path towards widespread Produsagersquorsquo Paper presented at the

PerthDAC Conference Perth 1518 September 2007b Western Australia

A Bruns lsquolsquoTowards produsage Futures for user-led content productionrsquorsquo Paper presented at the Cultural

Attitudes towards Communication and Technology Conference 28 June1 July 2006 Tartu Estonia

118 I Picone

ie an environment for innovation and development where users are exposedto new ICT solutions in (semi-)realistic contexts (Foslashlstad 2008 p 116) Anexample of such a Living Lab would be the deployment of free wifi in a city ordistrict providing a sample of users with Wifi-enabled smartphones andregister their use of it We merely used a Living Lab-approach (Pierson et al2005) introducing participants to applications through a technology theyalready own The rationale behind it however is similar to that of a LivingLab set up namely to study the adoption of technology in daily situationsrather than in an experimental setting This approach is especially usefulwhen looking for factors that go beyond usability and interface By givingparticipants the opportunity to get acquainted to a certain extent with therelevant features researchers avoid the participantsrsquo accounts to revolvearound practical issues of ease-of-use or troubles understanding thesefeatures

In order to allow the participants to incorporate the different web sites intheir daily routines we let them use the applications for three weeks at leastbefore asking them to comment on it Through short mail questionnaires theywere asked for their first impressions likes and dislikes These answers thenserved again as input for an in-depth interview held once all sites andapplications were introduced During the whole period the researcher couldbe reached by phone or mail in order to give feedback on possible problemsparticipants experienced

To facilitate access to these applications and also to guarantee a certainlevel of privacy the participants were asked to use Gmail-addresses especiallyset up for them by the researchers We used these addresses to register theparticipants beforehand on the various sites and applications so they wouldonly need to login always with the same user name and password Theparticipants were aware of the fact that the researchers knew their passwordand would use it to regularly log into their accounts and monitor their use ofthe application This allowed us especially to monitor which kind ofinformation every participant was most keen on contributing to Further-more these observations served again as a way of detecting incongruencebetween what participants were saying and what they were actually doing

The long-term phase was concluded with a second in-depth interviewwhere the participants were asked about their experiences with the differentproductive features The diary-interview the mail questionnaires and thelogging reports served as input for the topic list of those interviews Thediary-interviews and the concluding interviews combined resulted in 42interviews being coded The same laddering technique was applied in order toelaborate motivational ladders for every participant The Living Lab-approach putting productive news use as a situated action at the centreallowed us to also investigate situational and social factors First all interviewrecords were coded according to the different motivational situational andsocial factors identified in the interviews These were clustered according tocommon underlying motivations forming the next rung of the ladder Theserungs were clustered in turn in order to find a higher rung We then compared

110 I Picone

the individual ladders of the 21 participants in order to look for recurringelements and common patterns Because of the maximum variation samplethis allowed us to come to a lsquolsquoladder of laddersrsquorsquo representing a fair amount ofpossible meanings and motivations for productive news use We got an idea ofwhat produsage means to users and how they shape it as a social practicerather than as a production process

It is not the scope of this article to give a detailed overview of all theidentified factors and personal ladders but rather to look at the underlyingmotivational clusters and what they tell us on the practice of productive newsuse In others words we will not present the bottom rungs of the motivationaland situational ladders for productive news use but rather the top ones Thispermits us to come to more theoretical propositions about productive newsuse through the principle of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967)Concretely we look for theoretical propositions to emerge from empiricalanalysis We did not start with a preconceived theory that needs to be provenbut rather with a general area of study that needs elaboration (Razavi andIverson 2007) In this study this area is formed by Brunsrsquos insights on newsprodusage

32 Findings

A first important element emerging from the data analysis is that dedicationpassion and perseverance what Bruns sees at the centre of produsage as aPro-Am activity are reflected in the participantsrsquo answers Contributingonline even simply voting on a news story by clicking on a checkbox next toit requires a certain effort Certain participants felt like all these lsquolsquonewfeaturesrsquorsquo were simply too lsquolsquodemandingrsquorsquo However our participants beingcasual produsers these emotions seem too strong to express their engage-ment Rather we prefer to speak of a form of investment needed in order tocontribute to the news The motivational situational and social factorsidentified through the analysis of the data and presented below can beunderstood as elements inciting or withholding users to deliver the invest-ment productive news use necessarily requires We now go through the threetop lsquolsquorungsrsquorsquo of the motivational ladder of productive news use amongstcasual news produsers sets of factors are grouped into clusters that are inturn grouped into three broad dimensions

We identified a first set of factors about peoplersquos interest in a newsstory Participants seem to be keener on participating when the news itemrevolves on something that they are particularly interested in To a certainextent this corresponds to factors of newsworthiness as those of Galtungand Ruge (1965 Harcup and OrsquoNeil 2001) A second set of factors couldbe labelled as the vicinityspiritually and geographicallyto the newsitem Events involving places persons or themes someone is close to incitecontributions Participants were less keen on contributing to lsquolsquodistantrsquorsquostories unless they generated strong emotions both positive and negativeones a third set

Produsage as a form of self-publication 111

All these factors relate to the connection people have with the news storyThe stronger it is in terms of interest vicinity or emotion the more likelypeople seemed to engage with it

A fourth set of factors is more related to the mistakes that other users makewhen commenting on a news topic or more generally on the news siteParticipants seem sensitive to mistakes and tend to correct them This canalso bear on what someone can perceive as a mistake of judgement by othersin voting an article onto the most valued list or filling in an online poll Notonly the substance of lsquolsquonewsrsquorsquo generated by others also the general tenor ofreactions affects contribution which forms a fifth set of factors When othercontributors seem open to input and people feel like others may be interestedin what they have to say they are more likely to produse Then again ifas isthe case on different Flemish news sites (Picone and Depreeuw 2009)theother contributions look rather hostile or a harsh or depreciatory discussionis emerging in the comment section many participants seemed ratherreluctant to contribute

These sets of factors can be clustered as relating to the reactions of othersNot only news items but also other usersrsquo comments on the news can shapeusersrsquo willingness to contribute

These clusters all relate to the news content the actual story and the waypeople are relating to it They can be clustered in a content-related dimension

A sixth set of factors relates to the knowledge someone has about a certaintopic To what extent is the person not perforce an expert but at least abreastof the news topic discussed Professional or scholarly expertise makes it easierfor someone to contribute because it reduces the odds of being confrontedwith other users online who might point towards mistakes in onersquoscontribution A seventh set of factors also relate to what users know aboutthe news topic but more in terms of lsquolsquohands-onrsquorsquo expertise Even peopleaccidentally witnessing an event gain temporary credibility as a first-handwitness However not always do users need a thick understanding of the newstopic in order to have their say about it It does make it easier to contributebut users can be so amazed or shocked by a story that they want to expresstheir feelings or opinion about it This can be grouped in an eighth set offactors as people simply having something to say

All these sets can in turn be clustered as shaping usersrsquo orientation towardsself-expression

A ninth set of factors relates to people being lsquolsquoin the mood for produsagersquorsquoThe Living Lab-approach allowed us to take into account situationalelements During the study it became clear that users do not always feellike contributing Especially when online news is used between times or toquickly catch up with the news participants seemed not willing to reactextensively on it Also work stress domestic tasks and other time-consumingactivities shape a userrsquos mood for produsage Similar results are found in aDutch study on personalised news (Bierhoff and Eyck 2009) where theoutcome suggests that the level of personalisation in news applications shouldbe adaptable to the mood of users in order to truly obtain an added value

112 I Picone

Other participants show a more general pro or contra attitude towards newsprodusage that is less subject to mood swings They simply do not want topublicly react on news stories or comments made by others or conversely arevery keen on voicing their opinion It seems a matter of principle be it becausethey do not see the added value because they do not feel like spamming theInternet or even because they estimate it impolite to carp on others On a moregeneral level this seemed to relate to the fact of not being used to being askedto voice opinions online a 10th set of factors This can be linked to morestructural cultural or generational factors eg the Flemish catholic inspiredculture to lsquolsquothink twice before you speakrsquorsquo An interesting element here is thatwithholding participants to contribute is not so much the fact of having anopinion but of saying it out loud lsquolsquoWho am I to tell what others need tothinkrsquorsquo was a rhetorical question heard at different occasions amongst theparticipants Different participants were keen on having an opinion but felt asif they would be too intrusive when sharing it with strangers online

These sets of factors could form a cluster termed lsquolsquoattitude and moodrsquorsquorespectively pointing towards a more structural and situational affectiontowards the act of produsing news

An 11th set of factors refers to usersrsquo skills People with poor writing skillsmay be reluctant to contribute especially when the level of other contribu-tions is rather high Besides writing skills also narrative and argumentativeskills or the perceived lack of it were recurrent thresholds for contributingFurthermore different participants at this point applied the element ofmisjudgement mentioned before on their own ability being afraid of nothaving enough background to make an appropriate comment or judgementThis way a perceived lack of skills is not only a threshold to comment butalso to vote or to mark news as well This is related to a 12th set of factors Asalready mentioned people may be afraid of reactions by others on theircontribution which might withhold them from participating Here we see thelink with the potential public of an act of productive news use People thinkabout what others are likely to think about their contribution It isremarkable to note that various participants felt much more comfortablesharing this kind of information with close friends than with strangers onlineIt seemed that the more they were able to anticipate the reactions of othersthe more they were keen on contributing Again not so much what they hadto say (or produce) but who might hear it and how they would react played arole at that moment

These two sets of factors can be clustered under the idea of self-confidenceas they refer to the degree to which a user is confident voicing his opinion

All these factors relate to the personal dispositions of the user hisherskills attitude mood and background or in general a more personal dimen-sion and how this shapes hisher decision to engage with the news or not

A 12th set of factors relates to the idea of the potential public of a userrsquoscontribution Being able to assess onersquos potential public and how they willreact to onersquos contribution played an important role when consideringwhether or not to share mark or comment news stories This is what makes

Produsage as a form of self-publication 113

sharing news with friends via Facebook or mail and certainly face to facemore accessible than putting it online where virtually everybody can see it itis easier to assess whether friends will like it than it is to estimate whether asignificant part of a news sitersquos audience will appreciate it

These factors can be clustered under the term potential public In generalthe more one is able to assess what hisher potential public may like the morelikely heshe is to contribute

Building on the idea of the potential public we found a 13th set of factorsrevolving around the fact that various participants expected their contribu-tion one way or another to form an added value for the people who wouldread it (eg when they could advise others on a certain topic) This can belinked to Thorsonrsquos (2008) research on the most-emailed article list on theNew York Times web site The author concludes that news stories withpractical tips are more likely to be emailed to others The more usefulinformation is the more likely the potential public of the information is toappreciate it Such contributions however were more likely to be shared onlifestyle sections than on the hard news sections A similar set of factors wasfound concerning hard news Users then did not want to help others butmake them aware of certain aspects they think are important another angleto a story elements that need nuance the existence of other stakeholders withdifferent views and so on all with the intention to broaden other usersrsquohorizon Voting for certain articles in order for them to reach the most votedsection is a good example of this A 15th set of factors can be viewed as goingeven a step further by not only raising awareness for certain issues butgaining interest from other users by interacting through comment sections orlinking to other sites concerning the issue

All these sets can be clustered as a form of altruism where users want toshow commitment to the broader community they belong to

A final set of factors could be named lsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo Especially on news sitescomment sections tend to take the form of a wailing wall everyone can postopinions contributions and complaints but usually nothing happens with itFor many participants the fact that their contribution would not be takeninto account or would not have any impact seemed to be a major thresholdto participate Why exert one if it is a lost call anyway

These clusters in turn seem to revolve around a social dimension They allcome forth out of a social reflex users have with their potential public orsociety as a whole

321 Conclusion understanding produsage as self-publication The 16 different setsof factors the eight clusters they are organised in and the three overarchingdimensions represent a relevant set of motivational situational and socialfactors shaping the practice of productive news use (Q2) These dimensionsrelating to casual produsage could be pursued further to structuralprodusage as visualised in Figure 1 The passion and dedication of Pro-Ams could be considered as a more intense connection or affection towardsthe idea of information production lsquolsquothinking by writingrsquorsquo lsquolsquoto networkrsquorsquo or

114 I Picone

lsquolsquoto improve writing skillsrsquorsquo could be seen as elements of self-expression orself-development and the impending loss of values driving citizen journalistscould be regarded as a strong social reflex towards a potential public thatneeds to be better informed (see Figure 1)

How can these different sets of factors the clusters they are grouped in andthe dimensions they are categorised in now shed light on produsage as asocial practice from a user perspective more precisely the perspective ofcasual news produsers

A first element that becomes clear through this research is that knowledgeand skills do play an important role to engage with the news also amongstcasual produsers However they are not the only factors relating to the userrsquosindividual dispositions Also self-expression and self-confidence are relevantaspects Interesting is that these elements are interpreted in relation to thepotential public of a userrsquos contribution It is not so much the difficulty ofwriting a comment that holds users back from voting sharing or reacting toa news story but other usersrsquo response to it Users do not express themselvesby producing an opinion but by publicising it

Figure 1 Motivational situational and social factors shaping productive news use

Produsage as a form of self-publication 115

A second interesting element is the identification of situational factors thatdo not only relate to the availability of certain technological artefacts at agiven moment in time but also to the mood and attitude of users in a certaincontext Also the attitude of users towards productive news use seems to acertain extent rooted in cultural values Cultural factors play an importantrole in the way people use news (Vandenbrande 2002 Gasher 2007) and itseems this is also applicable to the productive use of it But remarkable is thata prudent attitude towards productive news use does not in the first placerefer to the articulation of opinions on news stories but to enforcing onersquosown opinion to others Again onersquos concern seems to lie with the potentialpublic and how this public will perceive onersquos contribution and consequentlyoneself

A third important outcome is precisely the emerging importance of usersrsquopotential public when contributing Also the factors lsquolsquoaltruismrsquorsquo andlsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo show that casual produsers attach great importance to the factthat their contribution needs to make a difference In many occasions if theywould have the impression their contribution is not adding anything to thedebate is not reaching anybody or is not helpful or meaningful to others theyask themselves why it would be worth the investment The idea of leveragetakes this a step further referring to the intention of actually having animpact on the issues at stake in society through contributions

To sum up casual produsers seem to treat other users as an audience ofwhich they do not know the reach This potential public plays an importantrole as produsers adapt their contributions to the perceived likes and needs ofit The idea of users reflecting on the lsquolsquoimpactrsquorsquo of their contribution on theirpotential public can be denominated a social reflex This is more than justaltruism It is a reflection on how others are going to perceive the publicationof a personal expression An interesting link is found between this way ofcommunicating online and the notion of performance as defined by Goffman1959 Burnett and Marshall 2003 and Robinson 2007 Performance is everyactivity that takes place during a period of exhibition to a public and that isadapted to the common context of interaction in order to be understood bythat public The performance not only consists of what a person exhibits andhow but also of hisher profile biography the conversation context and howthey both match (Robinson 2007)

Subsequently the user-driven production of information online could beunderstood as a form of self-performance or more suitably self-publicationWe would argue that from a user perspective produsage is not so much aboutthe production of information but rather about the self-publication ofinformation What makes a blog unique is not the fact that users areproducing a diary it is the fact that they can publish it to a potential public ofmillions The true potential of user-generated content lies in the fact that thishappens publicly that this process takes the form of a public performancethat everyone can witness and react to In other words when looking atproductive news use the question is not so much why people do or do notwant to produce information but rather if they want to publicise themselves

116 I Picone

Is the collaborative user-driven production of information as intended byBruns something different from the personal experience of self-publication ofinformation We would argue that they are the both sides of the same pictureWhile Bruns looks at the phenomenon of user-generated content from apoliticaleconomic perspective (from production to produsage) approachingit as a form of self-publication enables us to treat it as a user-experience as asituated social practice (from usage to produsage) We believe it is importantif we want to fully grasp this phenomenon to apply both perspectivesProdusage should not be solely understood as an alternative model for theproduction of information (Bruns 2008) but also as an alternative way ofusing information

Talking about self-publication gives us the opportunity to take intoaccount the stories that do not get to be collectively engaged upon thosecontributions people do not want others to further evaluate and completethose contributions that are not fit for hive mind treatment or the verydistributed acts of produsage that take place in the loosest communitieswhere information is merely being shared without being evaluated and soon The idea of self-publication helps us to understand why certain users arenot necessarily willing to contribute to a shared effort of informationproduction even though they have the skills and knowledge to do so Inother words even if it would be easy and not time consuming why wouldthey not contribute Because they experience it as self-publication and theydo not want or are not comfortable engaging in this practice

Produsage in other words should not only be seen as an alternative way ofproducing information but also as an alternative complementary way ofusing it as the fluid ad hoc adoption of a lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo news logic amongstregular news user shows This kind of distributed casual contribution withindecentralised communities such as news sites could be considered casualprodusage When these efforts take a more structural form the form of acollective hive mind driven production of information we could speak ofstructural produsage as intended by Bruns Self-publication as a lsquolsquoprodu-siversquorsquo logic is finding its way into the daily news use of people and in theirmedia use in general As such it should be a point of interest for scientistsresearching (news) produsage too This lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo logic amongst news usersis not replacing the mere use of traditional news it is complementing itHowever looking at news use without taking the produsive logic into accountwould mean to overlook a great deal of ways in which people are using news

The adaptations from a user-oriented perspective on Brunsrsquos theoryproposed in this paper should not be seen as solely a theoretical reflectionIn reality they are the fruit of an iterative process where findings emergingfrom the data analysis are constantly related to theory in the course of thequalitative study and subsequently they are grounded in practice Still theyare open to discussion It could be a valuable argument not to broadenprodusage as to include casual random non-collective contributions frommainly consuming users Maybe produsage should point only towards thecollective user-driven production of information in order to preserve the link

Produsage as a form of self-publication 117

with the specificity of this kind of process excluding other forms of user-generated content From a production point of view this is arguable Whenlooking at the impact of this form of production it is clear that the effect isessentially visible when singular users combine their engagement Not somuch this or that blog makes the blogosphere influential but specifically thenetworked effect that one message can have when it is endorsed by thousandsof bloggers

Still the practice of self-publication what we identified as the nature ofprodusage as a user experience is an important social evolution that cannotbe neglected We believe produsage is a strong conceptualisation that has thepotential to become an important framework to understand the evolutionsunderlying a large array of currently emerging practices and innovations in aworld not necessarily without borders but with different boundaries andmore cross-boundary work (Bockszkowski 2004) By not merely looking atprodusage as a practice where production outweighs consumption but also asa practice where usage can outweigh production and even more as acontinuum between both dimensions we believe we could come to a more in-depth holistic understanding of this process With this article we hope tohave given a valuable first impetus in that direction

Acknowledgements

This research took place within the framework of the FLEET (Flemish E-publishing Trends

project funded by the Flemish Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) This

interdisciplinary research project aims at generating fundamental scientific knowledge about

the e-publishing sector in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium More information and

research outcomes can be found at wwwfleetprojectbe

References

M Ames and M Naaman lsquolsquoWhy we tag Motivations for annotation in mobile and online mediarsquorsquo Paper

presented at the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 28 April3 May 2007 San

Jose California

JA Anderson lsquolsquoThe pragmatics of audience in research and theoryrsquorsquo in The Audience and its Landscape

J Hay L Grossberg and E Wartella (Eds) Oxford Westview Press pp 7593 1996

J Bierhoff and A Eyck lsquolsquoDesigning the digital dailyrsquorsquo Paper presented at the International Conference

New Media amp Information Convergences amp Divergences 69 May 2009 Athens

N Bolger A Davis and E Rafaeli lsquolsquoDiary Methods capturing life as it is livedrsquorsquo Annual Review of

Psychology 54 pp 579616 2003

PJ Boczkowski Digitizing the News Innovation in Online Newspapers Cambridge MIT Press 2004

DM Boyd Taken Out of Context American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics [unpublished doctoral

thesis] University of California 2008

A Bruns Blogs Wikipedia Second Life and Beyond From Production to Produsage New York Peter

Lang 2008

A Bruns lsquolsquoProdusage Towards a broader framework for user-led content creationrsquorsquo Proceedings of the

2007 Conference on Creativity and Cognition New York ACM Press pp 99106 2007a

A Bruns lsquolsquoThe future is user-led The path towards widespread Produsagersquorsquo Paper presented at the

PerthDAC Conference Perth 1518 September 2007b Western Australia

A Bruns lsquolsquoTowards produsage Futures for user-led content productionrsquorsquo Paper presented at the Cultural

Attitudes towards Communication and Technology Conference 28 June1 July 2006 Tartu Estonia

118 I Picone

the individual ladders of the 21 participants in order to look for recurringelements and common patterns Because of the maximum variation samplethis allowed us to come to a lsquolsquoladder of laddersrsquorsquo representing a fair amount ofpossible meanings and motivations for productive news use We got an idea ofwhat produsage means to users and how they shape it as a social practicerather than as a production process

It is not the scope of this article to give a detailed overview of all theidentified factors and personal ladders but rather to look at the underlyingmotivational clusters and what they tell us on the practice of productive newsuse In others words we will not present the bottom rungs of the motivationaland situational ladders for productive news use but rather the top ones Thispermits us to come to more theoretical propositions about productive newsuse through the principle of grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss 1967)Concretely we look for theoretical propositions to emerge from empiricalanalysis We did not start with a preconceived theory that needs to be provenbut rather with a general area of study that needs elaboration (Razavi andIverson 2007) In this study this area is formed by Brunsrsquos insights on newsprodusage

32 Findings

A first important element emerging from the data analysis is that dedicationpassion and perseverance what Bruns sees at the centre of produsage as aPro-Am activity are reflected in the participantsrsquo answers Contributingonline even simply voting on a news story by clicking on a checkbox next toit requires a certain effort Certain participants felt like all these lsquolsquonewfeaturesrsquorsquo were simply too lsquolsquodemandingrsquorsquo However our participants beingcasual produsers these emotions seem too strong to express their engage-ment Rather we prefer to speak of a form of investment needed in order tocontribute to the news The motivational situational and social factorsidentified through the analysis of the data and presented below can beunderstood as elements inciting or withholding users to deliver the invest-ment productive news use necessarily requires We now go through the threetop lsquolsquorungsrsquorsquo of the motivational ladder of productive news use amongstcasual news produsers sets of factors are grouped into clusters that are inturn grouped into three broad dimensions

We identified a first set of factors about peoplersquos interest in a newsstory Participants seem to be keener on participating when the news itemrevolves on something that they are particularly interested in To a certainextent this corresponds to factors of newsworthiness as those of Galtungand Ruge (1965 Harcup and OrsquoNeil 2001) A second set of factors couldbe labelled as the vicinityspiritually and geographicallyto the newsitem Events involving places persons or themes someone is close to incitecontributions Participants were less keen on contributing to lsquolsquodistantrsquorsquostories unless they generated strong emotions both positive and negativeones a third set

Produsage as a form of self-publication 111

All these factors relate to the connection people have with the news storyThe stronger it is in terms of interest vicinity or emotion the more likelypeople seemed to engage with it

A fourth set of factors is more related to the mistakes that other users makewhen commenting on a news topic or more generally on the news siteParticipants seem sensitive to mistakes and tend to correct them This canalso bear on what someone can perceive as a mistake of judgement by othersin voting an article onto the most valued list or filling in an online poll Notonly the substance of lsquolsquonewsrsquorsquo generated by others also the general tenor ofreactions affects contribution which forms a fifth set of factors When othercontributors seem open to input and people feel like others may be interestedin what they have to say they are more likely to produse Then again ifas isthe case on different Flemish news sites (Picone and Depreeuw 2009)theother contributions look rather hostile or a harsh or depreciatory discussionis emerging in the comment section many participants seemed ratherreluctant to contribute

These sets of factors can be clustered as relating to the reactions of othersNot only news items but also other usersrsquo comments on the news can shapeusersrsquo willingness to contribute

These clusters all relate to the news content the actual story and the waypeople are relating to it They can be clustered in a content-related dimension

A sixth set of factors relates to the knowledge someone has about a certaintopic To what extent is the person not perforce an expert but at least abreastof the news topic discussed Professional or scholarly expertise makes it easierfor someone to contribute because it reduces the odds of being confrontedwith other users online who might point towards mistakes in onersquoscontribution A seventh set of factors also relate to what users know aboutthe news topic but more in terms of lsquolsquohands-onrsquorsquo expertise Even peopleaccidentally witnessing an event gain temporary credibility as a first-handwitness However not always do users need a thick understanding of the newstopic in order to have their say about it It does make it easier to contributebut users can be so amazed or shocked by a story that they want to expresstheir feelings or opinion about it This can be grouped in an eighth set offactors as people simply having something to say

All these sets can in turn be clustered as shaping usersrsquo orientation towardsself-expression

A ninth set of factors relates to people being lsquolsquoin the mood for produsagersquorsquoThe Living Lab-approach allowed us to take into account situationalelements During the study it became clear that users do not always feellike contributing Especially when online news is used between times or toquickly catch up with the news participants seemed not willing to reactextensively on it Also work stress domestic tasks and other time-consumingactivities shape a userrsquos mood for produsage Similar results are found in aDutch study on personalised news (Bierhoff and Eyck 2009) where theoutcome suggests that the level of personalisation in news applications shouldbe adaptable to the mood of users in order to truly obtain an added value

112 I Picone

Other participants show a more general pro or contra attitude towards newsprodusage that is less subject to mood swings They simply do not want topublicly react on news stories or comments made by others or conversely arevery keen on voicing their opinion It seems a matter of principle be it becausethey do not see the added value because they do not feel like spamming theInternet or even because they estimate it impolite to carp on others On a moregeneral level this seemed to relate to the fact of not being used to being askedto voice opinions online a 10th set of factors This can be linked to morestructural cultural or generational factors eg the Flemish catholic inspiredculture to lsquolsquothink twice before you speakrsquorsquo An interesting element here is thatwithholding participants to contribute is not so much the fact of having anopinion but of saying it out loud lsquolsquoWho am I to tell what others need tothinkrsquorsquo was a rhetorical question heard at different occasions amongst theparticipants Different participants were keen on having an opinion but felt asif they would be too intrusive when sharing it with strangers online

These sets of factors could form a cluster termed lsquolsquoattitude and moodrsquorsquorespectively pointing towards a more structural and situational affectiontowards the act of produsing news

An 11th set of factors refers to usersrsquo skills People with poor writing skillsmay be reluctant to contribute especially when the level of other contribu-tions is rather high Besides writing skills also narrative and argumentativeskills or the perceived lack of it were recurrent thresholds for contributingFurthermore different participants at this point applied the element ofmisjudgement mentioned before on their own ability being afraid of nothaving enough background to make an appropriate comment or judgementThis way a perceived lack of skills is not only a threshold to comment butalso to vote or to mark news as well This is related to a 12th set of factors Asalready mentioned people may be afraid of reactions by others on theircontribution which might withhold them from participating Here we see thelink with the potential public of an act of productive news use People thinkabout what others are likely to think about their contribution It isremarkable to note that various participants felt much more comfortablesharing this kind of information with close friends than with strangers onlineIt seemed that the more they were able to anticipate the reactions of othersthe more they were keen on contributing Again not so much what they hadto say (or produce) but who might hear it and how they would react played arole at that moment

These two sets of factors can be clustered under the idea of self-confidenceas they refer to the degree to which a user is confident voicing his opinion

All these factors relate to the personal dispositions of the user hisherskills attitude mood and background or in general a more personal dimen-sion and how this shapes hisher decision to engage with the news or not

A 12th set of factors relates to the idea of the potential public of a userrsquoscontribution Being able to assess onersquos potential public and how they willreact to onersquos contribution played an important role when consideringwhether or not to share mark or comment news stories This is what makes

Produsage as a form of self-publication 113

sharing news with friends via Facebook or mail and certainly face to facemore accessible than putting it online where virtually everybody can see it itis easier to assess whether friends will like it than it is to estimate whether asignificant part of a news sitersquos audience will appreciate it

These factors can be clustered under the term potential public In generalthe more one is able to assess what hisher potential public may like the morelikely heshe is to contribute

Building on the idea of the potential public we found a 13th set of factorsrevolving around the fact that various participants expected their contribu-tion one way or another to form an added value for the people who wouldread it (eg when they could advise others on a certain topic) This can belinked to Thorsonrsquos (2008) research on the most-emailed article list on theNew York Times web site The author concludes that news stories withpractical tips are more likely to be emailed to others The more usefulinformation is the more likely the potential public of the information is toappreciate it Such contributions however were more likely to be shared onlifestyle sections than on the hard news sections A similar set of factors wasfound concerning hard news Users then did not want to help others butmake them aware of certain aspects they think are important another angleto a story elements that need nuance the existence of other stakeholders withdifferent views and so on all with the intention to broaden other usersrsquohorizon Voting for certain articles in order for them to reach the most votedsection is a good example of this A 15th set of factors can be viewed as goingeven a step further by not only raising awareness for certain issues butgaining interest from other users by interacting through comment sections orlinking to other sites concerning the issue

All these sets can be clustered as a form of altruism where users want toshow commitment to the broader community they belong to

A final set of factors could be named lsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo Especially on news sitescomment sections tend to take the form of a wailing wall everyone can postopinions contributions and complaints but usually nothing happens with itFor many participants the fact that their contribution would not be takeninto account or would not have any impact seemed to be a major thresholdto participate Why exert one if it is a lost call anyway

These clusters in turn seem to revolve around a social dimension They allcome forth out of a social reflex users have with their potential public orsociety as a whole

321 Conclusion understanding produsage as self-publication The 16 different setsof factors the eight clusters they are organised in and the three overarchingdimensions represent a relevant set of motivational situational and socialfactors shaping the practice of productive news use (Q2) These dimensionsrelating to casual produsage could be pursued further to structuralprodusage as visualised in Figure 1 The passion and dedication of Pro-Ams could be considered as a more intense connection or affection towardsthe idea of information production lsquolsquothinking by writingrsquorsquo lsquolsquoto networkrsquorsquo or

114 I Picone

lsquolsquoto improve writing skillsrsquorsquo could be seen as elements of self-expression orself-development and the impending loss of values driving citizen journalistscould be regarded as a strong social reflex towards a potential public thatneeds to be better informed (see Figure 1)

How can these different sets of factors the clusters they are grouped in andthe dimensions they are categorised in now shed light on produsage as asocial practice from a user perspective more precisely the perspective ofcasual news produsers

A first element that becomes clear through this research is that knowledgeand skills do play an important role to engage with the news also amongstcasual produsers However they are not the only factors relating to the userrsquosindividual dispositions Also self-expression and self-confidence are relevantaspects Interesting is that these elements are interpreted in relation to thepotential public of a userrsquos contribution It is not so much the difficulty ofwriting a comment that holds users back from voting sharing or reacting toa news story but other usersrsquo response to it Users do not express themselvesby producing an opinion but by publicising it

Figure 1 Motivational situational and social factors shaping productive news use

Produsage as a form of self-publication 115

A second interesting element is the identification of situational factors thatdo not only relate to the availability of certain technological artefacts at agiven moment in time but also to the mood and attitude of users in a certaincontext Also the attitude of users towards productive news use seems to acertain extent rooted in cultural values Cultural factors play an importantrole in the way people use news (Vandenbrande 2002 Gasher 2007) and itseems this is also applicable to the productive use of it But remarkable is thata prudent attitude towards productive news use does not in the first placerefer to the articulation of opinions on news stories but to enforcing onersquosown opinion to others Again onersquos concern seems to lie with the potentialpublic and how this public will perceive onersquos contribution and consequentlyoneself

A third important outcome is precisely the emerging importance of usersrsquopotential public when contributing Also the factors lsquolsquoaltruismrsquorsquo andlsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo show that casual produsers attach great importance to the factthat their contribution needs to make a difference In many occasions if theywould have the impression their contribution is not adding anything to thedebate is not reaching anybody or is not helpful or meaningful to others theyask themselves why it would be worth the investment The idea of leveragetakes this a step further referring to the intention of actually having animpact on the issues at stake in society through contributions

To sum up casual produsers seem to treat other users as an audience ofwhich they do not know the reach This potential public plays an importantrole as produsers adapt their contributions to the perceived likes and needs ofit The idea of users reflecting on the lsquolsquoimpactrsquorsquo of their contribution on theirpotential public can be denominated a social reflex This is more than justaltruism It is a reflection on how others are going to perceive the publicationof a personal expression An interesting link is found between this way ofcommunicating online and the notion of performance as defined by Goffman1959 Burnett and Marshall 2003 and Robinson 2007 Performance is everyactivity that takes place during a period of exhibition to a public and that isadapted to the common context of interaction in order to be understood bythat public The performance not only consists of what a person exhibits andhow but also of hisher profile biography the conversation context and howthey both match (Robinson 2007)

Subsequently the user-driven production of information online could beunderstood as a form of self-performance or more suitably self-publicationWe would argue that from a user perspective produsage is not so much aboutthe production of information but rather about the self-publication ofinformation What makes a blog unique is not the fact that users areproducing a diary it is the fact that they can publish it to a potential public ofmillions The true potential of user-generated content lies in the fact that thishappens publicly that this process takes the form of a public performancethat everyone can witness and react to In other words when looking atproductive news use the question is not so much why people do or do notwant to produce information but rather if they want to publicise themselves

116 I Picone

Is the collaborative user-driven production of information as intended byBruns something different from the personal experience of self-publication ofinformation We would argue that they are the both sides of the same pictureWhile Bruns looks at the phenomenon of user-generated content from apoliticaleconomic perspective (from production to produsage) approachingit as a form of self-publication enables us to treat it as a user-experience as asituated social practice (from usage to produsage) We believe it is importantif we want to fully grasp this phenomenon to apply both perspectivesProdusage should not be solely understood as an alternative model for theproduction of information (Bruns 2008) but also as an alternative way ofusing information

Talking about self-publication gives us the opportunity to take intoaccount the stories that do not get to be collectively engaged upon thosecontributions people do not want others to further evaluate and completethose contributions that are not fit for hive mind treatment or the verydistributed acts of produsage that take place in the loosest communitieswhere information is merely being shared without being evaluated and soon The idea of self-publication helps us to understand why certain users arenot necessarily willing to contribute to a shared effort of informationproduction even though they have the skills and knowledge to do so Inother words even if it would be easy and not time consuming why wouldthey not contribute Because they experience it as self-publication and theydo not want or are not comfortable engaging in this practice

Produsage in other words should not only be seen as an alternative way ofproducing information but also as an alternative complementary way ofusing it as the fluid ad hoc adoption of a lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo news logic amongstregular news user shows This kind of distributed casual contribution withindecentralised communities such as news sites could be considered casualprodusage When these efforts take a more structural form the form of acollective hive mind driven production of information we could speak ofstructural produsage as intended by Bruns Self-publication as a lsquolsquoprodu-siversquorsquo logic is finding its way into the daily news use of people and in theirmedia use in general As such it should be a point of interest for scientistsresearching (news) produsage too This lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo logic amongst news usersis not replacing the mere use of traditional news it is complementing itHowever looking at news use without taking the produsive logic into accountwould mean to overlook a great deal of ways in which people are using news

The adaptations from a user-oriented perspective on Brunsrsquos theoryproposed in this paper should not be seen as solely a theoretical reflectionIn reality they are the fruit of an iterative process where findings emergingfrom the data analysis are constantly related to theory in the course of thequalitative study and subsequently they are grounded in practice Still theyare open to discussion It could be a valuable argument not to broadenprodusage as to include casual random non-collective contributions frommainly consuming users Maybe produsage should point only towards thecollective user-driven production of information in order to preserve the link

Produsage as a form of self-publication 117

with the specificity of this kind of process excluding other forms of user-generated content From a production point of view this is arguable Whenlooking at the impact of this form of production it is clear that the effect isessentially visible when singular users combine their engagement Not somuch this or that blog makes the blogosphere influential but specifically thenetworked effect that one message can have when it is endorsed by thousandsof bloggers

Still the practice of self-publication what we identified as the nature ofprodusage as a user experience is an important social evolution that cannotbe neglected We believe produsage is a strong conceptualisation that has thepotential to become an important framework to understand the evolutionsunderlying a large array of currently emerging practices and innovations in aworld not necessarily without borders but with different boundaries andmore cross-boundary work (Bockszkowski 2004) By not merely looking atprodusage as a practice where production outweighs consumption but also asa practice where usage can outweigh production and even more as acontinuum between both dimensions we believe we could come to a more in-depth holistic understanding of this process With this article we hope tohave given a valuable first impetus in that direction

Acknowledgements

This research took place within the framework of the FLEET (Flemish E-publishing Trends

project funded by the Flemish Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) This

interdisciplinary research project aims at generating fundamental scientific knowledge about

the e-publishing sector in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium More information and

research outcomes can be found at wwwfleetprojectbe

References

M Ames and M Naaman lsquolsquoWhy we tag Motivations for annotation in mobile and online mediarsquorsquo Paper

presented at the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 28 April3 May 2007 San

Jose California

JA Anderson lsquolsquoThe pragmatics of audience in research and theoryrsquorsquo in The Audience and its Landscape

J Hay L Grossberg and E Wartella (Eds) Oxford Westview Press pp 7593 1996

J Bierhoff and A Eyck lsquolsquoDesigning the digital dailyrsquorsquo Paper presented at the International Conference

New Media amp Information Convergences amp Divergences 69 May 2009 Athens

N Bolger A Davis and E Rafaeli lsquolsquoDiary Methods capturing life as it is livedrsquorsquo Annual Review of

Psychology 54 pp 579616 2003

PJ Boczkowski Digitizing the News Innovation in Online Newspapers Cambridge MIT Press 2004

DM Boyd Taken Out of Context American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics [unpublished doctoral

thesis] University of California 2008

A Bruns Blogs Wikipedia Second Life and Beyond From Production to Produsage New York Peter

Lang 2008

A Bruns lsquolsquoProdusage Towards a broader framework for user-led content creationrsquorsquo Proceedings of the

2007 Conference on Creativity and Cognition New York ACM Press pp 99106 2007a

A Bruns lsquolsquoThe future is user-led The path towards widespread Produsagersquorsquo Paper presented at the

PerthDAC Conference Perth 1518 September 2007b Western Australia

A Bruns lsquolsquoTowards produsage Futures for user-led content productionrsquorsquo Paper presented at the Cultural

Attitudes towards Communication and Technology Conference 28 June1 July 2006 Tartu Estonia

118 I Picone

All these factors relate to the connection people have with the news storyThe stronger it is in terms of interest vicinity or emotion the more likelypeople seemed to engage with it

A fourth set of factors is more related to the mistakes that other users makewhen commenting on a news topic or more generally on the news siteParticipants seem sensitive to mistakes and tend to correct them This canalso bear on what someone can perceive as a mistake of judgement by othersin voting an article onto the most valued list or filling in an online poll Notonly the substance of lsquolsquonewsrsquorsquo generated by others also the general tenor ofreactions affects contribution which forms a fifth set of factors When othercontributors seem open to input and people feel like others may be interestedin what they have to say they are more likely to produse Then again ifas isthe case on different Flemish news sites (Picone and Depreeuw 2009)theother contributions look rather hostile or a harsh or depreciatory discussionis emerging in the comment section many participants seemed ratherreluctant to contribute

These sets of factors can be clustered as relating to the reactions of othersNot only news items but also other usersrsquo comments on the news can shapeusersrsquo willingness to contribute

These clusters all relate to the news content the actual story and the waypeople are relating to it They can be clustered in a content-related dimension

A sixth set of factors relates to the knowledge someone has about a certaintopic To what extent is the person not perforce an expert but at least abreastof the news topic discussed Professional or scholarly expertise makes it easierfor someone to contribute because it reduces the odds of being confrontedwith other users online who might point towards mistakes in onersquoscontribution A seventh set of factors also relate to what users know aboutthe news topic but more in terms of lsquolsquohands-onrsquorsquo expertise Even peopleaccidentally witnessing an event gain temporary credibility as a first-handwitness However not always do users need a thick understanding of the newstopic in order to have their say about it It does make it easier to contributebut users can be so amazed or shocked by a story that they want to expresstheir feelings or opinion about it This can be grouped in an eighth set offactors as people simply having something to say

All these sets can in turn be clustered as shaping usersrsquo orientation towardsself-expression

A ninth set of factors relates to people being lsquolsquoin the mood for produsagersquorsquoThe Living Lab-approach allowed us to take into account situationalelements During the study it became clear that users do not always feellike contributing Especially when online news is used between times or toquickly catch up with the news participants seemed not willing to reactextensively on it Also work stress domestic tasks and other time-consumingactivities shape a userrsquos mood for produsage Similar results are found in aDutch study on personalised news (Bierhoff and Eyck 2009) where theoutcome suggests that the level of personalisation in news applications shouldbe adaptable to the mood of users in order to truly obtain an added value

112 I Picone

Other participants show a more general pro or contra attitude towards newsprodusage that is less subject to mood swings They simply do not want topublicly react on news stories or comments made by others or conversely arevery keen on voicing their opinion It seems a matter of principle be it becausethey do not see the added value because they do not feel like spamming theInternet or even because they estimate it impolite to carp on others On a moregeneral level this seemed to relate to the fact of not being used to being askedto voice opinions online a 10th set of factors This can be linked to morestructural cultural or generational factors eg the Flemish catholic inspiredculture to lsquolsquothink twice before you speakrsquorsquo An interesting element here is thatwithholding participants to contribute is not so much the fact of having anopinion but of saying it out loud lsquolsquoWho am I to tell what others need tothinkrsquorsquo was a rhetorical question heard at different occasions amongst theparticipants Different participants were keen on having an opinion but felt asif they would be too intrusive when sharing it with strangers online

These sets of factors could form a cluster termed lsquolsquoattitude and moodrsquorsquorespectively pointing towards a more structural and situational affectiontowards the act of produsing news

An 11th set of factors refers to usersrsquo skills People with poor writing skillsmay be reluctant to contribute especially when the level of other contribu-tions is rather high Besides writing skills also narrative and argumentativeskills or the perceived lack of it were recurrent thresholds for contributingFurthermore different participants at this point applied the element ofmisjudgement mentioned before on their own ability being afraid of nothaving enough background to make an appropriate comment or judgementThis way a perceived lack of skills is not only a threshold to comment butalso to vote or to mark news as well This is related to a 12th set of factors Asalready mentioned people may be afraid of reactions by others on theircontribution which might withhold them from participating Here we see thelink with the potential public of an act of productive news use People thinkabout what others are likely to think about their contribution It isremarkable to note that various participants felt much more comfortablesharing this kind of information with close friends than with strangers onlineIt seemed that the more they were able to anticipate the reactions of othersthe more they were keen on contributing Again not so much what they hadto say (or produce) but who might hear it and how they would react played arole at that moment

These two sets of factors can be clustered under the idea of self-confidenceas they refer to the degree to which a user is confident voicing his opinion

All these factors relate to the personal dispositions of the user hisherskills attitude mood and background or in general a more personal dimen-sion and how this shapes hisher decision to engage with the news or not

A 12th set of factors relates to the idea of the potential public of a userrsquoscontribution Being able to assess onersquos potential public and how they willreact to onersquos contribution played an important role when consideringwhether or not to share mark or comment news stories This is what makes

Produsage as a form of self-publication 113

sharing news with friends via Facebook or mail and certainly face to facemore accessible than putting it online where virtually everybody can see it itis easier to assess whether friends will like it than it is to estimate whether asignificant part of a news sitersquos audience will appreciate it

These factors can be clustered under the term potential public In generalthe more one is able to assess what hisher potential public may like the morelikely heshe is to contribute

Building on the idea of the potential public we found a 13th set of factorsrevolving around the fact that various participants expected their contribu-tion one way or another to form an added value for the people who wouldread it (eg when they could advise others on a certain topic) This can belinked to Thorsonrsquos (2008) research on the most-emailed article list on theNew York Times web site The author concludes that news stories withpractical tips are more likely to be emailed to others The more usefulinformation is the more likely the potential public of the information is toappreciate it Such contributions however were more likely to be shared onlifestyle sections than on the hard news sections A similar set of factors wasfound concerning hard news Users then did not want to help others butmake them aware of certain aspects they think are important another angleto a story elements that need nuance the existence of other stakeholders withdifferent views and so on all with the intention to broaden other usersrsquohorizon Voting for certain articles in order for them to reach the most votedsection is a good example of this A 15th set of factors can be viewed as goingeven a step further by not only raising awareness for certain issues butgaining interest from other users by interacting through comment sections orlinking to other sites concerning the issue

All these sets can be clustered as a form of altruism where users want toshow commitment to the broader community they belong to

A final set of factors could be named lsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo Especially on news sitescomment sections tend to take the form of a wailing wall everyone can postopinions contributions and complaints but usually nothing happens with itFor many participants the fact that their contribution would not be takeninto account or would not have any impact seemed to be a major thresholdto participate Why exert one if it is a lost call anyway

These clusters in turn seem to revolve around a social dimension They allcome forth out of a social reflex users have with their potential public orsociety as a whole

321 Conclusion understanding produsage as self-publication The 16 different setsof factors the eight clusters they are organised in and the three overarchingdimensions represent a relevant set of motivational situational and socialfactors shaping the practice of productive news use (Q2) These dimensionsrelating to casual produsage could be pursued further to structuralprodusage as visualised in Figure 1 The passion and dedication of Pro-Ams could be considered as a more intense connection or affection towardsthe idea of information production lsquolsquothinking by writingrsquorsquo lsquolsquoto networkrsquorsquo or

114 I Picone

lsquolsquoto improve writing skillsrsquorsquo could be seen as elements of self-expression orself-development and the impending loss of values driving citizen journalistscould be regarded as a strong social reflex towards a potential public thatneeds to be better informed (see Figure 1)

How can these different sets of factors the clusters they are grouped in andthe dimensions they are categorised in now shed light on produsage as asocial practice from a user perspective more precisely the perspective ofcasual news produsers

A first element that becomes clear through this research is that knowledgeand skills do play an important role to engage with the news also amongstcasual produsers However they are not the only factors relating to the userrsquosindividual dispositions Also self-expression and self-confidence are relevantaspects Interesting is that these elements are interpreted in relation to thepotential public of a userrsquos contribution It is not so much the difficulty ofwriting a comment that holds users back from voting sharing or reacting toa news story but other usersrsquo response to it Users do not express themselvesby producing an opinion but by publicising it

Figure 1 Motivational situational and social factors shaping productive news use

Produsage as a form of self-publication 115

A second interesting element is the identification of situational factors thatdo not only relate to the availability of certain technological artefacts at agiven moment in time but also to the mood and attitude of users in a certaincontext Also the attitude of users towards productive news use seems to acertain extent rooted in cultural values Cultural factors play an importantrole in the way people use news (Vandenbrande 2002 Gasher 2007) and itseems this is also applicable to the productive use of it But remarkable is thata prudent attitude towards productive news use does not in the first placerefer to the articulation of opinions on news stories but to enforcing onersquosown opinion to others Again onersquos concern seems to lie with the potentialpublic and how this public will perceive onersquos contribution and consequentlyoneself

A third important outcome is precisely the emerging importance of usersrsquopotential public when contributing Also the factors lsquolsquoaltruismrsquorsquo andlsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo show that casual produsers attach great importance to the factthat their contribution needs to make a difference In many occasions if theywould have the impression their contribution is not adding anything to thedebate is not reaching anybody or is not helpful or meaningful to others theyask themselves why it would be worth the investment The idea of leveragetakes this a step further referring to the intention of actually having animpact on the issues at stake in society through contributions

To sum up casual produsers seem to treat other users as an audience ofwhich they do not know the reach This potential public plays an importantrole as produsers adapt their contributions to the perceived likes and needs ofit The idea of users reflecting on the lsquolsquoimpactrsquorsquo of their contribution on theirpotential public can be denominated a social reflex This is more than justaltruism It is a reflection on how others are going to perceive the publicationof a personal expression An interesting link is found between this way ofcommunicating online and the notion of performance as defined by Goffman1959 Burnett and Marshall 2003 and Robinson 2007 Performance is everyactivity that takes place during a period of exhibition to a public and that isadapted to the common context of interaction in order to be understood bythat public The performance not only consists of what a person exhibits andhow but also of hisher profile biography the conversation context and howthey both match (Robinson 2007)

Subsequently the user-driven production of information online could beunderstood as a form of self-performance or more suitably self-publicationWe would argue that from a user perspective produsage is not so much aboutthe production of information but rather about the self-publication ofinformation What makes a blog unique is not the fact that users areproducing a diary it is the fact that they can publish it to a potential public ofmillions The true potential of user-generated content lies in the fact that thishappens publicly that this process takes the form of a public performancethat everyone can witness and react to In other words when looking atproductive news use the question is not so much why people do or do notwant to produce information but rather if they want to publicise themselves

116 I Picone

Is the collaborative user-driven production of information as intended byBruns something different from the personal experience of self-publication ofinformation We would argue that they are the both sides of the same pictureWhile Bruns looks at the phenomenon of user-generated content from apoliticaleconomic perspective (from production to produsage) approachingit as a form of self-publication enables us to treat it as a user-experience as asituated social practice (from usage to produsage) We believe it is importantif we want to fully grasp this phenomenon to apply both perspectivesProdusage should not be solely understood as an alternative model for theproduction of information (Bruns 2008) but also as an alternative way ofusing information

Talking about self-publication gives us the opportunity to take intoaccount the stories that do not get to be collectively engaged upon thosecontributions people do not want others to further evaluate and completethose contributions that are not fit for hive mind treatment or the verydistributed acts of produsage that take place in the loosest communitieswhere information is merely being shared without being evaluated and soon The idea of self-publication helps us to understand why certain users arenot necessarily willing to contribute to a shared effort of informationproduction even though they have the skills and knowledge to do so Inother words even if it would be easy and not time consuming why wouldthey not contribute Because they experience it as self-publication and theydo not want or are not comfortable engaging in this practice

Produsage in other words should not only be seen as an alternative way ofproducing information but also as an alternative complementary way ofusing it as the fluid ad hoc adoption of a lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo news logic amongstregular news user shows This kind of distributed casual contribution withindecentralised communities such as news sites could be considered casualprodusage When these efforts take a more structural form the form of acollective hive mind driven production of information we could speak ofstructural produsage as intended by Bruns Self-publication as a lsquolsquoprodu-siversquorsquo logic is finding its way into the daily news use of people and in theirmedia use in general As such it should be a point of interest for scientistsresearching (news) produsage too This lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo logic amongst news usersis not replacing the mere use of traditional news it is complementing itHowever looking at news use without taking the produsive logic into accountwould mean to overlook a great deal of ways in which people are using news

The adaptations from a user-oriented perspective on Brunsrsquos theoryproposed in this paper should not be seen as solely a theoretical reflectionIn reality they are the fruit of an iterative process where findings emergingfrom the data analysis are constantly related to theory in the course of thequalitative study and subsequently they are grounded in practice Still theyare open to discussion It could be a valuable argument not to broadenprodusage as to include casual random non-collective contributions frommainly consuming users Maybe produsage should point only towards thecollective user-driven production of information in order to preserve the link

Produsage as a form of self-publication 117

with the specificity of this kind of process excluding other forms of user-generated content From a production point of view this is arguable Whenlooking at the impact of this form of production it is clear that the effect isessentially visible when singular users combine their engagement Not somuch this or that blog makes the blogosphere influential but specifically thenetworked effect that one message can have when it is endorsed by thousandsof bloggers

Still the practice of self-publication what we identified as the nature ofprodusage as a user experience is an important social evolution that cannotbe neglected We believe produsage is a strong conceptualisation that has thepotential to become an important framework to understand the evolutionsunderlying a large array of currently emerging practices and innovations in aworld not necessarily without borders but with different boundaries andmore cross-boundary work (Bockszkowski 2004) By not merely looking atprodusage as a practice where production outweighs consumption but also asa practice where usage can outweigh production and even more as acontinuum between both dimensions we believe we could come to a more in-depth holistic understanding of this process With this article we hope tohave given a valuable first impetus in that direction

Acknowledgements

This research took place within the framework of the FLEET (Flemish E-publishing Trends

project funded by the Flemish Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) This

interdisciplinary research project aims at generating fundamental scientific knowledge about

the e-publishing sector in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium More information and

research outcomes can be found at wwwfleetprojectbe

References

M Ames and M Naaman lsquolsquoWhy we tag Motivations for annotation in mobile and online mediarsquorsquo Paper

presented at the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 28 April3 May 2007 San

Jose California

JA Anderson lsquolsquoThe pragmatics of audience in research and theoryrsquorsquo in The Audience and its Landscape

J Hay L Grossberg and E Wartella (Eds) Oxford Westview Press pp 7593 1996

J Bierhoff and A Eyck lsquolsquoDesigning the digital dailyrsquorsquo Paper presented at the International Conference

New Media amp Information Convergences amp Divergences 69 May 2009 Athens

N Bolger A Davis and E Rafaeli lsquolsquoDiary Methods capturing life as it is livedrsquorsquo Annual Review of

Psychology 54 pp 579616 2003

PJ Boczkowski Digitizing the News Innovation in Online Newspapers Cambridge MIT Press 2004

DM Boyd Taken Out of Context American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics [unpublished doctoral

thesis] University of California 2008

A Bruns Blogs Wikipedia Second Life and Beyond From Production to Produsage New York Peter

Lang 2008

A Bruns lsquolsquoProdusage Towards a broader framework for user-led content creationrsquorsquo Proceedings of the

2007 Conference on Creativity and Cognition New York ACM Press pp 99106 2007a

A Bruns lsquolsquoThe future is user-led The path towards widespread Produsagersquorsquo Paper presented at the

PerthDAC Conference Perth 1518 September 2007b Western Australia

A Bruns lsquolsquoTowards produsage Futures for user-led content productionrsquorsquo Paper presented at the Cultural

Attitudes towards Communication and Technology Conference 28 June1 July 2006 Tartu Estonia

118 I Picone

Other participants show a more general pro or contra attitude towards newsprodusage that is less subject to mood swings They simply do not want topublicly react on news stories or comments made by others or conversely arevery keen on voicing their opinion It seems a matter of principle be it becausethey do not see the added value because they do not feel like spamming theInternet or even because they estimate it impolite to carp on others On a moregeneral level this seemed to relate to the fact of not being used to being askedto voice opinions online a 10th set of factors This can be linked to morestructural cultural or generational factors eg the Flemish catholic inspiredculture to lsquolsquothink twice before you speakrsquorsquo An interesting element here is thatwithholding participants to contribute is not so much the fact of having anopinion but of saying it out loud lsquolsquoWho am I to tell what others need tothinkrsquorsquo was a rhetorical question heard at different occasions amongst theparticipants Different participants were keen on having an opinion but felt asif they would be too intrusive when sharing it with strangers online

These sets of factors could form a cluster termed lsquolsquoattitude and moodrsquorsquorespectively pointing towards a more structural and situational affectiontowards the act of produsing news

An 11th set of factors refers to usersrsquo skills People with poor writing skillsmay be reluctant to contribute especially when the level of other contribu-tions is rather high Besides writing skills also narrative and argumentativeskills or the perceived lack of it were recurrent thresholds for contributingFurthermore different participants at this point applied the element ofmisjudgement mentioned before on their own ability being afraid of nothaving enough background to make an appropriate comment or judgementThis way a perceived lack of skills is not only a threshold to comment butalso to vote or to mark news as well This is related to a 12th set of factors Asalready mentioned people may be afraid of reactions by others on theircontribution which might withhold them from participating Here we see thelink with the potential public of an act of productive news use People thinkabout what others are likely to think about their contribution It isremarkable to note that various participants felt much more comfortablesharing this kind of information with close friends than with strangers onlineIt seemed that the more they were able to anticipate the reactions of othersthe more they were keen on contributing Again not so much what they hadto say (or produce) but who might hear it and how they would react played arole at that moment

These two sets of factors can be clustered under the idea of self-confidenceas they refer to the degree to which a user is confident voicing his opinion

All these factors relate to the personal dispositions of the user hisherskills attitude mood and background or in general a more personal dimen-sion and how this shapes hisher decision to engage with the news or not

A 12th set of factors relates to the idea of the potential public of a userrsquoscontribution Being able to assess onersquos potential public and how they willreact to onersquos contribution played an important role when consideringwhether or not to share mark or comment news stories This is what makes

Produsage as a form of self-publication 113

sharing news with friends via Facebook or mail and certainly face to facemore accessible than putting it online where virtually everybody can see it itis easier to assess whether friends will like it than it is to estimate whether asignificant part of a news sitersquos audience will appreciate it

These factors can be clustered under the term potential public In generalthe more one is able to assess what hisher potential public may like the morelikely heshe is to contribute

Building on the idea of the potential public we found a 13th set of factorsrevolving around the fact that various participants expected their contribu-tion one way or another to form an added value for the people who wouldread it (eg when they could advise others on a certain topic) This can belinked to Thorsonrsquos (2008) research on the most-emailed article list on theNew York Times web site The author concludes that news stories withpractical tips are more likely to be emailed to others The more usefulinformation is the more likely the potential public of the information is toappreciate it Such contributions however were more likely to be shared onlifestyle sections than on the hard news sections A similar set of factors wasfound concerning hard news Users then did not want to help others butmake them aware of certain aspects they think are important another angleto a story elements that need nuance the existence of other stakeholders withdifferent views and so on all with the intention to broaden other usersrsquohorizon Voting for certain articles in order for them to reach the most votedsection is a good example of this A 15th set of factors can be viewed as goingeven a step further by not only raising awareness for certain issues butgaining interest from other users by interacting through comment sections orlinking to other sites concerning the issue

All these sets can be clustered as a form of altruism where users want toshow commitment to the broader community they belong to

A final set of factors could be named lsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo Especially on news sitescomment sections tend to take the form of a wailing wall everyone can postopinions contributions and complaints but usually nothing happens with itFor many participants the fact that their contribution would not be takeninto account or would not have any impact seemed to be a major thresholdto participate Why exert one if it is a lost call anyway

These clusters in turn seem to revolve around a social dimension They allcome forth out of a social reflex users have with their potential public orsociety as a whole

321 Conclusion understanding produsage as self-publication The 16 different setsof factors the eight clusters they are organised in and the three overarchingdimensions represent a relevant set of motivational situational and socialfactors shaping the practice of productive news use (Q2) These dimensionsrelating to casual produsage could be pursued further to structuralprodusage as visualised in Figure 1 The passion and dedication of Pro-Ams could be considered as a more intense connection or affection towardsthe idea of information production lsquolsquothinking by writingrsquorsquo lsquolsquoto networkrsquorsquo or

114 I Picone

lsquolsquoto improve writing skillsrsquorsquo could be seen as elements of self-expression orself-development and the impending loss of values driving citizen journalistscould be regarded as a strong social reflex towards a potential public thatneeds to be better informed (see Figure 1)

How can these different sets of factors the clusters they are grouped in andthe dimensions they are categorised in now shed light on produsage as asocial practice from a user perspective more precisely the perspective ofcasual news produsers

A first element that becomes clear through this research is that knowledgeand skills do play an important role to engage with the news also amongstcasual produsers However they are not the only factors relating to the userrsquosindividual dispositions Also self-expression and self-confidence are relevantaspects Interesting is that these elements are interpreted in relation to thepotential public of a userrsquos contribution It is not so much the difficulty ofwriting a comment that holds users back from voting sharing or reacting toa news story but other usersrsquo response to it Users do not express themselvesby producing an opinion but by publicising it

Figure 1 Motivational situational and social factors shaping productive news use

Produsage as a form of self-publication 115

A second interesting element is the identification of situational factors thatdo not only relate to the availability of certain technological artefacts at agiven moment in time but also to the mood and attitude of users in a certaincontext Also the attitude of users towards productive news use seems to acertain extent rooted in cultural values Cultural factors play an importantrole in the way people use news (Vandenbrande 2002 Gasher 2007) and itseems this is also applicable to the productive use of it But remarkable is thata prudent attitude towards productive news use does not in the first placerefer to the articulation of opinions on news stories but to enforcing onersquosown opinion to others Again onersquos concern seems to lie with the potentialpublic and how this public will perceive onersquos contribution and consequentlyoneself

A third important outcome is precisely the emerging importance of usersrsquopotential public when contributing Also the factors lsquolsquoaltruismrsquorsquo andlsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo show that casual produsers attach great importance to the factthat their contribution needs to make a difference In many occasions if theywould have the impression their contribution is not adding anything to thedebate is not reaching anybody or is not helpful or meaningful to others theyask themselves why it would be worth the investment The idea of leveragetakes this a step further referring to the intention of actually having animpact on the issues at stake in society through contributions

To sum up casual produsers seem to treat other users as an audience ofwhich they do not know the reach This potential public plays an importantrole as produsers adapt their contributions to the perceived likes and needs ofit The idea of users reflecting on the lsquolsquoimpactrsquorsquo of their contribution on theirpotential public can be denominated a social reflex This is more than justaltruism It is a reflection on how others are going to perceive the publicationof a personal expression An interesting link is found between this way ofcommunicating online and the notion of performance as defined by Goffman1959 Burnett and Marshall 2003 and Robinson 2007 Performance is everyactivity that takes place during a period of exhibition to a public and that isadapted to the common context of interaction in order to be understood bythat public The performance not only consists of what a person exhibits andhow but also of hisher profile biography the conversation context and howthey both match (Robinson 2007)

Subsequently the user-driven production of information online could beunderstood as a form of self-performance or more suitably self-publicationWe would argue that from a user perspective produsage is not so much aboutthe production of information but rather about the self-publication ofinformation What makes a blog unique is not the fact that users areproducing a diary it is the fact that they can publish it to a potential public ofmillions The true potential of user-generated content lies in the fact that thishappens publicly that this process takes the form of a public performancethat everyone can witness and react to In other words when looking atproductive news use the question is not so much why people do or do notwant to produce information but rather if they want to publicise themselves

116 I Picone

Is the collaborative user-driven production of information as intended byBruns something different from the personal experience of self-publication ofinformation We would argue that they are the both sides of the same pictureWhile Bruns looks at the phenomenon of user-generated content from apoliticaleconomic perspective (from production to produsage) approachingit as a form of self-publication enables us to treat it as a user-experience as asituated social practice (from usage to produsage) We believe it is importantif we want to fully grasp this phenomenon to apply both perspectivesProdusage should not be solely understood as an alternative model for theproduction of information (Bruns 2008) but also as an alternative way ofusing information

Talking about self-publication gives us the opportunity to take intoaccount the stories that do not get to be collectively engaged upon thosecontributions people do not want others to further evaluate and completethose contributions that are not fit for hive mind treatment or the verydistributed acts of produsage that take place in the loosest communitieswhere information is merely being shared without being evaluated and soon The idea of self-publication helps us to understand why certain users arenot necessarily willing to contribute to a shared effort of informationproduction even though they have the skills and knowledge to do so Inother words even if it would be easy and not time consuming why wouldthey not contribute Because they experience it as self-publication and theydo not want or are not comfortable engaging in this practice

Produsage in other words should not only be seen as an alternative way ofproducing information but also as an alternative complementary way ofusing it as the fluid ad hoc adoption of a lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo news logic amongstregular news user shows This kind of distributed casual contribution withindecentralised communities such as news sites could be considered casualprodusage When these efforts take a more structural form the form of acollective hive mind driven production of information we could speak ofstructural produsage as intended by Bruns Self-publication as a lsquolsquoprodu-siversquorsquo logic is finding its way into the daily news use of people and in theirmedia use in general As such it should be a point of interest for scientistsresearching (news) produsage too This lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo logic amongst news usersis not replacing the mere use of traditional news it is complementing itHowever looking at news use without taking the produsive logic into accountwould mean to overlook a great deal of ways in which people are using news

The adaptations from a user-oriented perspective on Brunsrsquos theoryproposed in this paper should not be seen as solely a theoretical reflectionIn reality they are the fruit of an iterative process where findings emergingfrom the data analysis are constantly related to theory in the course of thequalitative study and subsequently they are grounded in practice Still theyare open to discussion It could be a valuable argument not to broadenprodusage as to include casual random non-collective contributions frommainly consuming users Maybe produsage should point only towards thecollective user-driven production of information in order to preserve the link

Produsage as a form of self-publication 117

with the specificity of this kind of process excluding other forms of user-generated content From a production point of view this is arguable Whenlooking at the impact of this form of production it is clear that the effect isessentially visible when singular users combine their engagement Not somuch this or that blog makes the blogosphere influential but specifically thenetworked effect that one message can have when it is endorsed by thousandsof bloggers

Still the practice of self-publication what we identified as the nature ofprodusage as a user experience is an important social evolution that cannotbe neglected We believe produsage is a strong conceptualisation that has thepotential to become an important framework to understand the evolutionsunderlying a large array of currently emerging practices and innovations in aworld not necessarily without borders but with different boundaries andmore cross-boundary work (Bockszkowski 2004) By not merely looking atprodusage as a practice where production outweighs consumption but also asa practice where usage can outweigh production and even more as acontinuum between both dimensions we believe we could come to a more in-depth holistic understanding of this process With this article we hope tohave given a valuable first impetus in that direction

Acknowledgements

This research took place within the framework of the FLEET (Flemish E-publishing Trends

project funded by the Flemish Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) This

interdisciplinary research project aims at generating fundamental scientific knowledge about

the e-publishing sector in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium More information and

research outcomes can be found at wwwfleetprojectbe

References

M Ames and M Naaman lsquolsquoWhy we tag Motivations for annotation in mobile and online mediarsquorsquo Paper

presented at the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 28 April3 May 2007 San

Jose California

JA Anderson lsquolsquoThe pragmatics of audience in research and theoryrsquorsquo in The Audience and its Landscape

J Hay L Grossberg and E Wartella (Eds) Oxford Westview Press pp 7593 1996

J Bierhoff and A Eyck lsquolsquoDesigning the digital dailyrsquorsquo Paper presented at the International Conference

New Media amp Information Convergences amp Divergences 69 May 2009 Athens

N Bolger A Davis and E Rafaeli lsquolsquoDiary Methods capturing life as it is livedrsquorsquo Annual Review of

Psychology 54 pp 579616 2003

PJ Boczkowski Digitizing the News Innovation in Online Newspapers Cambridge MIT Press 2004

DM Boyd Taken Out of Context American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics [unpublished doctoral

thesis] University of California 2008

A Bruns Blogs Wikipedia Second Life and Beyond From Production to Produsage New York Peter

Lang 2008

A Bruns lsquolsquoProdusage Towards a broader framework for user-led content creationrsquorsquo Proceedings of the

2007 Conference on Creativity and Cognition New York ACM Press pp 99106 2007a

A Bruns lsquolsquoThe future is user-led The path towards widespread Produsagersquorsquo Paper presented at the

PerthDAC Conference Perth 1518 September 2007b Western Australia

A Bruns lsquolsquoTowards produsage Futures for user-led content productionrsquorsquo Paper presented at the Cultural

Attitudes towards Communication and Technology Conference 28 June1 July 2006 Tartu Estonia

118 I Picone

sharing news with friends via Facebook or mail and certainly face to facemore accessible than putting it online where virtually everybody can see it itis easier to assess whether friends will like it than it is to estimate whether asignificant part of a news sitersquos audience will appreciate it

These factors can be clustered under the term potential public In generalthe more one is able to assess what hisher potential public may like the morelikely heshe is to contribute

Building on the idea of the potential public we found a 13th set of factorsrevolving around the fact that various participants expected their contribu-tion one way or another to form an added value for the people who wouldread it (eg when they could advise others on a certain topic) This can belinked to Thorsonrsquos (2008) research on the most-emailed article list on theNew York Times web site The author concludes that news stories withpractical tips are more likely to be emailed to others The more usefulinformation is the more likely the potential public of the information is toappreciate it Such contributions however were more likely to be shared onlifestyle sections than on the hard news sections A similar set of factors wasfound concerning hard news Users then did not want to help others butmake them aware of certain aspects they think are important another angleto a story elements that need nuance the existence of other stakeholders withdifferent views and so on all with the intention to broaden other usersrsquohorizon Voting for certain articles in order for them to reach the most votedsection is a good example of this A 15th set of factors can be viewed as goingeven a step further by not only raising awareness for certain issues butgaining interest from other users by interacting through comment sections orlinking to other sites concerning the issue

All these sets can be clustered as a form of altruism where users want toshow commitment to the broader community they belong to

A final set of factors could be named lsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo Especially on news sitescomment sections tend to take the form of a wailing wall everyone can postopinions contributions and complaints but usually nothing happens with itFor many participants the fact that their contribution would not be takeninto account or would not have any impact seemed to be a major thresholdto participate Why exert one if it is a lost call anyway

These clusters in turn seem to revolve around a social dimension They allcome forth out of a social reflex users have with their potential public orsociety as a whole

321 Conclusion understanding produsage as self-publication The 16 different setsof factors the eight clusters they are organised in and the three overarchingdimensions represent a relevant set of motivational situational and socialfactors shaping the practice of productive news use (Q2) These dimensionsrelating to casual produsage could be pursued further to structuralprodusage as visualised in Figure 1 The passion and dedication of Pro-Ams could be considered as a more intense connection or affection towardsthe idea of information production lsquolsquothinking by writingrsquorsquo lsquolsquoto networkrsquorsquo or

114 I Picone

lsquolsquoto improve writing skillsrsquorsquo could be seen as elements of self-expression orself-development and the impending loss of values driving citizen journalistscould be regarded as a strong social reflex towards a potential public thatneeds to be better informed (see Figure 1)

How can these different sets of factors the clusters they are grouped in andthe dimensions they are categorised in now shed light on produsage as asocial practice from a user perspective more precisely the perspective ofcasual news produsers

A first element that becomes clear through this research is that knowledgeand skills do play an important role to engage with the news also amongstcasual produsers However they are not the only factors relating to the userrsquosindividual dispositions Also self-expression and self-confidence are relevantaspects Interesting is that these elements are interpreted in relation to thepotential public of a userrsquos contribution It is not so much the difficulty ofwriting a comment that holds users back from voting sharing or reacting toa news story but other usersrsquo response to it Users do not express themselvesby producing an opinion but by publicising it

Figure 1 Motivational situational and social factors shaping productive news use

Produsage as a form of self-publication 115

A second interesting element is the identification of situational factors thatdo not only relate to the availability of certain technological artefacts at agiven moment in time but also to the mood and attitude of users in a certaincontext Also the attitude of users towards productive news use seems to acertain extent rooted in cultural values Cultural factors play an importantrole in the way people use news (Vandenbrande 2002 Gasher 2007) and itseems this is also applicable to the productive use of it But remarkable is thata prudent attitude towards productive news use does not in the first placerefer to the articulation of opinions on news stories but to enforcing onersquosown opinion to others Again onersquos concern seems to lie with the potentialpublic and how this public will perceive onersquos contribution and consequentlyoneself

A third important outcome is precisely the emerging importance of usersrsquopotential public when contributing Also the factors lsquolsquoaltruismrsquorsquo andlsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo show that casual produsers attach great importance to the factthat their contribution needs to make a difference In many occasions if theywould have the impression their contribution is not adding anything to thedebate is not reaching anybody or is not helpful or meaningful to others theyask themselves why it would be worth the investment The idea of leveragetakes this a step further referring to the intention of actually having animpact on the issues at stake in society through contributions

To sum up casual produsers seem to treat other users as an audience ofwhich they do not know the reach This potential public plays an importantrole as produsers adapt their contributions to the perceived likes and needs ofit The idea of users reflecting on the lsquolsquoimpactrsquorsquo of their contribution on theirpotential public can be denominated a social reflex This is more than justaltruism It is a reflection on how others are going to perceive the publicationof a personal expression An interesting link is found between this way ofcommunicating online and the notion of performance as defined by Goffman1959 Burnett and Marshall 2003 and Robinson 2007 Performance is everyactivity that takes place during a period of exhibition to a public and that isadapted to the common context of interaction in order to be understood bythat public The performance not only consists of what a person exhibits andhow but also of hisher profile biography the conversation context and howthey both match (Robinson 2007)

Subsequently the user-driven production of information online could beunderstood as a form of self-performance or more suitably self-publicationWe would argue that from a user perspective produsage is not so much aboutthe production of information but rather about the self-publication ofinformation What makes a blog unique is not the fact that users areproducing a diary it is the fact that they can publish it to a potential public ofmillions The true potential of user-generated content lies in the fact that thishappens publicly that this process takes the form of a public performancethat everyone can witness and react to In other words when looking atproductive news use the question is not so much why people do or do notwant to produce information but rather if they want to publicise themselves

116 I Picone

Is the collaborative user-driven production of information as intended byBruns something different from the personal experience of self-publication ofinformation We would argue that they are the both sides of the same pictureWhile Bruns looks at the phenomenon of user-generated content from apoliticaleconomic perspective (from production to produsage) approachingit as a form of self-publication enables us to treat it as a user-experience as asituated social practice (from usage to produsage) We believe it is importantif we want to fully grasp this phenomenon to apply both perspectivesProdusage should not be solely understood as an alternative model for theproduction of information (Bruns 2008) but also as an alternative way ofusing information

Talking about self-publication gives us the opportunity to take intoaccount the stories that do not get to be collectively engaged upon thosecontributions people do not want others to further evaluate and completethose contributions that are not fit for hive mind treatment or the verydistributed acts of produsage that take place in the loosest communitieswhere information is merely being shared without being evaluated and soon The idea of self-publication helps us to understand why certain users arenot necessarily willing to contribute to a shared effort of informationproduction even though they have the skills and knowledge to do so Inother words even if it would be easy and not time consuming why wouldthey not contribute Because they experience it as self-publication and theydo not want or are not comfortable engaging in this practice

Produsage in other words should not only be seen as an alternative way ofproducing information but also as an alternative complementary way ofusing it as the fluid ad hoc adoption of a lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo news logic amongstregular news user shows This kind of distributed casual contribution withindecentralised communities such as news sites could be considered casualprodusage When these efforts take a more structural form the form of acollective hive mind driven production of information we could speak ofstructural produsage as intended by Bruns Self-publication as a lsquolsquoprodu-siversquorsquo logic is finding its way into the daily news use of people and in theirmedia use in general As such it should be a point of interest for scientistsresearching (news) produsage too This lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo logic amongst news usersis not replacing the mere use of traditional news it is complementing itHowever looking at news use without taking the produsive logic into accountwould mean to overlook a great deal of ways in which people are using news

The adaptations from a user-oriented perspective on Brunsrsquos theoryproposed in this paper should not be seen as solely a theoretical reflectionIn reality they are the fruit of an iterative process where findings emergingfrom the data analysis are constantly related to theory in the course of thequalitative study and subsequently they are grounded in practice Still theyare open to discussion It could be a valuable argument not to broadenprodusage as to include casual random non-collective contributions frommainly consuming users Maybe produsage should point only towards thecollective user-driven production of information in order to preserve the link

Produsage as a form of self-publication 117

with the specificity of this kind of process excluding other forms of user-generated content From a production point of view this is arguable Whenlooking at the impact of this form of production it is clear that the effect isessentially visible when singular users combine their engagement Not somuch this or that blog makes the blogosphere influential but specifically thenetworked effect that one message can have when it is endorsed by thousandsof bloggers

Still the practice of self-publication what we identified as the nature ofprodusage as a user experience is an important social evolution that cannotbe neglected We believe produsage is a strong conceptualisation that has thepotential to become an important framework to understand the evolutionsunderlying a large array of currently emerging practices and innovations in aworld not necessarily without borders but with different boundaries andmore cross-boundary work (Bockszkowski 2004) By not merely looking atprodusage as a practice where production outweighs consumption but also asa practice where usage can outweigh production and even more as acontinuum between both dimensions we believe we could come to a more in-depth holistic understanding of this process With this article we hope tohave given a valuable first impetus in that direction

Acknowledgements

This research took place within the framework of the FLEET (Flemish E-publishing Trends

project funded by the Flemish Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) This

interdisciplinary research project aims at generating fundamental scientific knowledge about

the e-publishing sector in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium More information and

research outcomes can be found at wwwfleetprojectbe

References

M Ames and M Naaman lsquolsquoWhy we tag Motivations for annotation in mobile and online mediarsquorsquo Paper

presented at the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 28 April3 May 2007 San

Jose California

JA Anderson lsquolsquoThe pragmatics of audience in research and theoryrsquorsquo in The Audience and its Landscape

J Hay L Grossberg and E Wartella (Eds) Oxford Westview Press pp 7593 1996

J Bierhoff and A Eyck lsquolsquoDesigning the digital dailyrsquorsquo Paper presented at the International Conference

New Media amp Information Convergences amp Divergences 69 May 2009 Athens

N Bolger A Davis and E Rafaeli lsquolsquoDiary Methods capturing life as it is livedrsquorsquo Annual Review of

Psychology 54 pp 579616 2003

PJ Boczkowski Digitizing the News Innovation in Online Newspapers Cambridge MIT Press 2004

DM Boyd Taken Out of Context American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics [unpublished doctoral

thesis] University of California 2008

A Bruns Blogs Wikipedia Second Life and Beyond From Production to Produsage New York Peter

Lang 2008

A Bruns lsquolsquoProdusage Towards a broader framework for user-led content creationrsquorsquo Proceedings of the

2007 Conference on Creativity and Cognition New York ACM Press pp 99106 2007a

A Bruns lsquolsquoThe future is user-led The path towards widespread Produsagersquorsquo Paper presented at the

PerthDAC Conference Perth 1518 September 2007b Western Australia

A Bruns lsquolsquoTowards produsage Futures for user-led content productionrsquorsquo Paper presented at the Cultural

Attitudes towards Communication and Technology Conference 28 June1 July 2006 Tartu Estonia

118 I Picone

lsquolsquoto improve writing skillsrsquorsquo could be seen as elements of self-expression orself-development and the impending loss of values driving citizen journalistscould be regarded as a strong social reflex towards a potential public thatneeds to be better informed (see Figure 1)

How can these different sets of factors the clusters they are grouped in andthe dimensions they are categorised in now shed light on produsage as asocial practice from a user perspective more precisely the perspective ofcasual news produsers

A first element that becomes clear through this research is that knowledgeand skills do play an important role to engage with the news also amongstcasual produsers However they are not the only factors relating to the userrsquosindividual dispositions Also self-expression and self-confidence are relevantaspects Interesting is that these elements are interpreted in relation to thepotential public of a userrsquos contribution It is not so much the difficulty ofwriting a comment that holds users back from voting sharing or reacting toa news story but other usersrsquo response to it Users do not express themselvesby producing an opinion but by publicising it

Figure 1 Motivational situational and social factors shaping productive news use

Produsage as a form of self-publication 115

A second interesting element is the identification of situational factors thatdo not only relate to the availability of certain technological artefacts at agiven moment in time but also to the mood and attitude of users in a certaincontext Also the attitude of users towards productive news use seems to acertain extent rooted in cultural values Cultural factors play an importantrole in the way people use news (Vandenbrande 2002 Gasher 2007) and itseems this is also applicable to the productive use of it But remarkable is thata prudent attitude towards productive news use does not in the first placerefer to the articulation of opinions on news stories but to enforcing onersquosown opinion to others Again onersquos concern seems to lie with the potentialpublic and how this public will perceive onersquos contribution and consequentlyoneself

A third important outcome is precisely the emerging importance of usersrsquopotential public when contributing Also the factors lsquolsquoaltruismrsquorsquo andlsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo show that casual produsers attach great importance to the factthat their contribution needs to make a difference In many occasions if theywould have the impression their contribution is not adding anything to thedebate is not reaching anybody or is not helpful or meaningful to others theyask themselves why it would be worth the investment The idea of leveragetakes this a step further referring to the intention of actually having animpact on the issues at stake in society through contributions

To sum up casual produsers seem to treat other users as an audience ofwhich they do not know the reach This potential public plays an importantrole as produsers adapt their contributions to the perceived likes and needs ofit The idea of users reflecting on the lsquolsquoimpactrsquorsquo of their contribution on theirpotential public can be denominated a social reflex This is more than justaltruism It is a reflection on how others are going to perceive the publicationof a personal expression An interesting link is found between this way ofcommunicating online and the notion of performance as defined by Goffman1959 Burnett and Marshall 2003 and Robinson 2007 Performance is everyactivity that takes place during a period of exhibition to a public and that isadapted to the common context of interaction in order to be understood bythat public The performance not only consists of what a person exhibits andhow but also of hisher profile biography the conversation context and howthey both match (Robinson 2007)

Subsequently the user-driven production of information online could beunderstood as a form of self-performance or more suitably self-publicationWe would argue that from a user perspective produsage is not so much aboutthe production of information but rather about the self-publication ofinformation What makes a blog unique is not the fact that users areproducing a diary it is the fact that they can publish it to a potential public ofmillions The true potential of user-generated content lies in the fact that thishappens publicly that this process takes the form of a public performancethat everyone can witness and react to In other words when looking atproductive news use the question is not so much why people do or do notwant to produce information but rather if they want to publicise themselves

116 I Picone

Is the collaborative user-driven production of information as intended byBruns something different from the personal experience of self-publication ofinformation We would argue that they are the both sides of the same pictureWhile Bruns looks at the phenomenon of user-generated content from apoliticaleconomic perspective (from production to produsage) approachingit as a form of self-publication enables us to treat it as a user-experience as asituated social practice (from usage to produsage) We believe it is importantif we want to fully grasp this phenomenon to apply both perspectivesProdusage should not be solely understood as an alternative model for theproduction of information (Bruns 2008) but also as an alternative way ofusing information

Talking about self-publication gives us the opportunity to take intoaccount the stories that do not get to be collectively engaged upon thosecontributions people do not want others to further evaluate and completethose contributions that are not fit for hive mind treatment or the verydistributed acts of produsage that take place in the loosest communitieswhere information is merely being shared without being evaluated and soon The idea of self-publication helps us to understand why certain users arenot necessarily willing to contribute to a shared effort of informationproduction even though they have the skills and knowledge to do so Inother words even if it would be easy and not time consuming why wouldthey not contribute Because they experience it as self-publication and theydo not want or are not comfortable engaging in this practice

Produsage in other words should not only be seen as an alternative way ofproducing information but also as an alternative complementary way ofusing it as the fluid ad hoc adoption of a lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo news logic amongstregular news user shows This kind of distributed casual contribution withindecentralised communities such as news sites could be considered casualprodusage When these efforts take a more structural form the form of acollective hive mind driven production of information we could speak ofstructural produsage as intended by Bruns Self-publication as a lsquolsquoprodu-siversquorsquo logic is finding its way into the daily news use of people and in theirmedia use in general As such it should be a point of interest for scientistsresearching (news) produsage too This lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo logic amongst news usersis not replacing the mere use of traditional news it is complementing itHowever looking at news use without taking the produsive logic into accountwould mean to overlook a great deal of ways in which people are using news

The adaptations from a user-oriented perspective on Brunsrsquos theoryproposed in this paper should not be seen as solely a theoretical reflectionIn reality they are the fruit of an iterative process where findings emergingfrom the data analysis are constantly related to theory in the course of thequalitative study and subsequently they are grounded in practice Still theyare open to discussion It could be a valuable argument not to broadenprodusage as to include casual random non-collective contributions frommainly consuming users Maybe produsage should point only towards thecollective user-driven production of information in order to preserve the link

Produsage as a form of self-publication 117

with the specificity of this kind of process excluding other forms of user-generated content From a production point of view this is arguable Whenlooking at the impact of this form of production it is clear that the effect isessentially visible when singular users combine their engagement Not somuch this or that blog makes the blogosphere influential but specifically thenetworked effect that one message can have when it is endorsed by thousandsof bloggers

Still the practice of self-publication what we identified as the nature ofprodusage as a user experience is an important social evolution that cannotbe neglected We believe produsage is a strong conceptualisation that has thepotential to become an important framework to understand the evolutionsunderlying a large array of currently emerging practices and innovations in aworld not necessarily without borders but with different boundaries andmore cross-boundary work (Bockszkowski 2004) By not merely looking atprodusage as a practice where production outweighs consumption but also asa practice where usage can outweigh production and even more as acontinuum between both dimensions we believe we could come to a more in-depth holistic understanding of this process With this article we hope tohave given a valuable first impetus in that direction

Acknowledgements

This research took place within the framework of the FLEET (Flemish E-publishing Trends

project funded by the Flemish Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) This

interdisciplinary research project aims at generating fundamental scientific knowledge about

the e-publishing sector in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium More information and

research outcomes can be found at wwwfleetprojectbe

References

M Ames and M Naaman lsquolsquoWhy we tag Motivations for annotation in mobile and online mediarsquorsquo Paper

presented at the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 28 April3 May 2007 San

Jose California

JA Anderson lsquolsquoThe pragmatics of audience in research and theoryrsquorsquo in The Audience and its Landscape

J Hay L Grossberg and E Wartella (Eds) Oxford Westview Press pp 7593 1996

J Bierhoff and A Eyck lsquolsquoDesigning the digital dailyrsquorsquo Paper presented at the International Conference

New Media amp Information Convergences amp Divergences 69 May 2009 Athens

N Bolger A Davis and E Rafaeli lsquolsquoDiary Methods capturing life as it is livedrsquorsquo Annual Review of

Psychology 54 pp 579616 2003

PJ Boczkowski Digitizing the News Innovation in Online Newspapers Cambridge MIT Press 2004

DM Boyd Taken Out of Context American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics [unpublished doctoral

thesis] University of California 2008

A Bruns Blogs Wikipedia Second Life and Beyond From Production to Produsage New York Peter

Lang 2008

A Bruns lsquolsquoProdusage Towards a broader framework for user-led content creationrsquorsquo Proceedings of the

2007 Conference on Creativity and Cognition New York ACM Press pp 99106 2007a

A Bruns lsquolsquoThe future is user-led The path towards widespread Produsagersquorsquo Paper presented at the

PerthDAC Conference Perth 1518 September 2007b Western Australia

A Bruns lsquolsquoTowards produsage Futures for user-led content productionrsquorsquo Paper presented at the Cultural

Attitudes towards Communication and Technology Conference 28 June1 July 2006 Tartu Estonia

118 I Picone

A second interesting element is the identification of situational factors thatdo not only relate to the availability of certain technological artefacts at agiven moment in time but also to the mood and attitude of users in a certaincontext Also the attitude of users towards productive news use seems to acertain extent rooted in cultural values Cultural factors play an importantrole in the way people use news (Vandenbrande 2002 Gasher 2007) and itseems this is also applicable to the productive use of it But remarkable is thata prudent attitude towards productive news use does not in the first placerefer to the articulation of opinions on news stories but to enforcing onersquosown opinion to others Again onersquos concern seems to lie with the potentialpublic and how this public will perceive onersquos contribution and consequentlyoneself

A third important outcome is precisely the emerging importance of usersrsquopotential public when contributing Also the factors lsquolsquoaltruismrsquorsquo andlsquolsquoleveragersquorsquo show that casual produsers attach great importance to the factthat their contribution needs to make a difference In many occasions if theywould have the impression their contribution is not adding anything to thedebate is not reaching anybody or is not helpful or meaningful to others theyask themselves why it would be worth the investment The idea of leveragetakes this a step further referring to the intention of actually having animpact on the issues at stake in society through contributions

To sum up casual produsers seem to treat other users as an audience ofwhich they do not know the reach This potential public plays an importantrole as produsers adapt their contributions to the perceived likes and needs ofit The idea of users reflecting on the lsquolsquoimpactrsquorsquo of their contribution on theirpotential public can be denominated a social reflex This is more than justaltruism It is a reflection on how others are going to perceive the publicationof a personal expression An interesting link is found between this way ofcommunicating online and the notion of performance as defined by Goffman1959 Burnett and Marshall 2003 and Robinson 2007 Performance is everyactivity that takes place during a period of exhibition to a public and that isadapted to the common context of interaction in order to be understood bythat public The performance not only consists of what a person exhibits andhow but also of hisher profile biography the conversation context and howthey both match (Robinson 2007)

Subsequently the user-driven production of information online could beunderstood as a form of self-performance or more suitably self-publicationWe would argue that from a user perspective produsage is not so much aboutthe production of information but rather about the self-publication ofinformation What makes a blog unique is not the fact that users areproducing a diary it is the fact that they can publish it to a potential public ofmillions The true potential of user-generated content lies in the fact that thishappens publicly that this process takes the form of a public performancethat everyone can witness and react to In other words when looking atproductive news use the question is not so much why people do or do notwant to produce information but rather if they want to publicise themselves

116 I Picone

Is the collaborative user-driven production of information as intended byBruns something different from the personal experience of self-publication ofinformation We would argue that they are the both sides of the same pictureWhile Bruns looks at the phenomenon of user-generated content from apoliticaleconomic perspective (from production to produsage) approachingit as a form of self-publication enables us to treat it as a user-experience as asituated social practice (from usage to produsage) We believe it is importantif we want to fully grasp this phenomenon to apply both perspectivesProdusage should not be solely understood as an alternative model for theproduction of information (Bruns 2008) but also as an alternative way ofusing information

Talking about self-publication gives us the opportunity to take intoaccount the stories that do not get to be collectively engaged upon thosecontributions people do not want others to further evaluate and completethose contributions that are not fit for hive mind treatment or the verydistributed acts of produsage that take place in the loosest communitieswhere information is merely being shared without being evaluated and soon The idea of self-publication helps us to understand why certain users arenot necessarily willing to contribute to a shared effort of informationproduction even though they have the skills and knowledge to do so Inother words even if it would be easy and not time consuming why wouldthey not contribute Because they experience it as self-publication and theydo not want or are not comfortable engaging in this practice

Produsage in other words should not only be seen as an alternative way ofproducing information but also as an alternative complementary way ofusing it as the fluid ad hoc adoption of a lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo news logic amongstregular news user shows This kind of distributed casual contribution withindecentralised communities such as news sites could be considered casualprodusage When these efforts take a more structural form the form of acollective hive mind driven production of information we could speak ofstructural produsage as intended by Bruns Self-publication as a lsquolsquoprodu-siversquorsquo logic is finding its way into the daily news use of people and in theirmedia use in general As such it should be a point of interest for scientistsresearching (news) produsage too This lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo logic amongst news usersis not replacing the mere use of traditional news it is complementing itHowever looking at news use without taking the produsive logic into accountwould mean to overlook a great deal of ways in which people are using news

The adaptations from a user-oriented perspective on Brunsrsquos theoryproposed in this paper should not be seen as solely a theoretical reflectionIn reality they are the fruit of an iterative process where findings emergingfrom the data analysis are constantly related to theory in the course of thequalitative study and subsequently they are grounded in practice Still theyare open to discussion It could be a valuable argument not to broadenprodusage as to include casual random non-collective contributions frommainly consuming users Maybe produsage should point only towards thecollective user-driven production of information in order to preserve the link

Produsage as a form of self-publication 117

with the specificity of this kind of process excluding other forms of user-generated content From a production point of view this is arguable Whenlooking at the impact of this form of production it is clear that the effect isessentially visible when singular users combine their engagement Not somuch this or that blog makes the blogosphere influential but specifically thenetworked effect that one message can have when it is endorsed by thousandsof bloggers

Still the practice of self-publication what we identified as the nature ofprodusage as a user experience is an important social evolution that cannotbe neglected We believe produsage is a strong conceptualisation that has thepotential to become an important framework to understand the evolutionsunderlying a large array of currently emerging practices and innovations in aworld not necessarily without borders but with different boundaries andmore cross-boundary work (Bockszkowski 2004) By not merely looking atprodusage as a practice where production outweighs consumption but also asa practice where usage can outweigh production and even more as acontinuum between both dimensions we believe we could come to a more in-depth holistic understanding of this process With this article we hope tohave given a valuable first impetus in that direction

Acknowledgements

This research took place within the framework of the FLEET (Flemish E-publishing Trends

project funded by the Flemish Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) This

interdisciplinary research project aims at generating fundamental scientific knowledge about

the e-publishing sector in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium More information and

research outcomes can be found at wwwfleetprojectbe

References

M Ames and M Naaman lsquolsquoWhy we tag Motivations for annotation in mobile and online mediarsquorsquo Paper

presented at the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 28 April3 May 2007 San

Jose California

JA Anderson lsquolsquoThe pragmatics of audience in research and theoryrsquorsquo in The Audience and its Landscape

J Hay L Grossberg and E Wartella (Eds) Oxford Westview Press pp 7593 1996

J Bierhoff and A Eyck lsquolsquoDesigning the digital dailyrsquorsquo Paper presented at the International Conference

New Media amp Information Convergences amp Divergences 69 May 2009 Athens

N Bolger A Davis and E Rafaeli lsquolsquoDiary Methods capturing life as it is livedrsquorsquo Annual Review of

Psychology 54 pp 579616 2003

PJ Boczkowski Digitizing the News Innovation in Online Newspapers Cambridge MIT Press 2004

DM Boyd Taken Out of Context American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics [unpublished doctoral

thesis] University of California 2008

A Bruns Blogs Wikipedia Second Life and Beyond From Production to Produsage New York Peter

Lang 2008

A Bruns lsquolsquoProdusage Towards a broader framework for user-led content creationrsquorsquo Proceedings of the

2007 Conference on Creativity and Cognition New York ACM Press pp 99106 2007a

A Bruns lsquolsquoThe future is user-led The path towards widespread Produsagersquorsquo Paper presented at the

PerthDAC Conference Perth 1518 September 2007b Western Australia

A Bruns lsquolsquoTowards produsage Futures for user-led content productionrsquorsquo Paper presented at the Cultural

Attitudes towards Communication and Technology Conference 28 June1 July 2006 Tartu Estonia

118 I Picone

Is the collaborative user-driven production of information as intended byBruns something different from the personal experience of self-publication ofinformation We would argue that they are the both sides of the same pictureWhile Bruns looks at the phenomenon of user-generated content from apoliticaleconomic perspective (from production to produsage) approachingit as a form of self-publication enables us to treat it as a user-experience as asituated social practice (from usage to produsage) We believe it is importantif we want to fully grasp this phenomenon to apply both perspectivesProdusage should not be solely understood as an alternative model for theproduction of information (Bruns 2008) but also as an alternative way ofusing information

Talking about self-publication gives us the opportunity to take intoaccount the stories that do not get to be collectively engaged upon thosecontributions people do not want others to further evaluate and completethose contributions that are not fit for hive mind treatment or the verydistributed acts of produsage that take place in the loosest communitieswhere information is merely being shared without being evaluated and soon The idea of self-publication helps us to understand why certain users arenot necessarily willing to contribute to a shared effort of informationproduction even though they have the skills and knowledge to do so Inother words even if it would be easy and not time consuming why wouldthey not contribute Because they experience it as self-publication and theydo not want or are not comfortable engaging in this practice

Produsage in other words should not only be seen as an alternative way ofproducing information but also as an alternative complementary way ofusing it as the fluid ad hoc adoption of a lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo news logic amongstregular news user shows This kind of distributed casual contribution withindecentralised communities such as news sites could be considered casualprodusage When these efforts take a more structural form the form of acollective hive mind driven production of information we could speak ofstructural produsage as intended by Bruns Self-publication as a lsquolsquoprodu-siversquorsquo logic is finding its way into the daily news use of people and in theirmedia use in general As such it should be a point of interest for scientistsresearching (news) produsage too This lsquolsquoprodusiversquorsquo logic amongst news usersis not replacing the mere use of traditional news it is complementing itHowever looking at news use without taking the produsive logic into accountwould mean to overlook a great deal of ways in which people are using news

The adaptations from a user-oriented perspective on Brunsrsquos theoryproposed in this paper should not be seen as solely a theoretical reflectionIn reality they are the fruit of an iterative process where findings emergingfrom the data analysis are constantly related to theory in the course of thequalitative study and subsequently they are grounded in practice Still theyare open to discussion It could be a valuable argument not to broadenprodusage as to include casual random non-collective contributions frommainly consuming users Maybe produsage should point only towards thecollective user-driven production of information in order to preserve the link

Produsage as a form of self-publication 117

with the specificity of this kind of process excluding other forms of user-generated content From a production point of view this is arguable Whenlooking at the impact of this form of production it is clear that the effect isessentially visible when singular users combine their engagement Not somuch this or that blog makes the blogosphere influential but specifically thenetworked effect that one message can have when it is endorsed by thousandsof bloggers

Still the practice of self-publication what we identified as the nature ofprodusage as a user experience is an important social evolution that cannotbe neglected We believe produsage is a strong conceptualisation that has thepotential to become an important framework to understand the evolutionsunderlying a large array of currently emerging practices and innovations in aworld not necessarily without borders but with different boundaries andmore cross-boundary work (Bockszkowski 2004) By not merely looking atprodusage as a practice where production outweighs consumption but also asa practice where usage can outweigh production and even more as acontinuum between both dimensions we believe we could come to a more in-depth holistic understanding of this process With this article we hope tohave given a valuable first impetus in that direction

Acknowledgements

This research took place within the framework of the FLEET (Flemish E-publishing Trends

project funded by the Flemish Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) This

interdisciplinary research project aims at generating fundamental scientific knowledge about

the e-publishing sector in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium More information and

research outcomes can be found at wwwfleetprojectbe

References

M Ames and M Naaman lsquolsquoWhy we tag Motivations for annotation in mobile and online mediarsquorsquo Paper

presented at the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 28 April3 May 2007 San

Jose California

JA Anderson lsquolsquoThe pragmatics of audience in research and theoryrsquorsquo in The Audience and its Landscape

J Hay L Grossberg and E Wartella (Eds) Oxford Westview Press pp 7593 1996

J Bierhoff and A Eyck lsquolsquoDesigning the digital dailyrsquorsquo Paper presented at the International Conference

New Media amp Information Convergences amp Divergences 69 May 2009 Athens

N Bolger A Davis and E Rafaeli lsquolsquoDiary Methods capturing life as it is livedrsquorsquo Annual Review of

Psychology 54 pp 579616 2003

PJ Boczkowski Digitizing the News Innovation in Online Newspapers Cambridge MIT Press 2004

DM Boyd Taken Out of Context American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics [unpublished doctoral

thesis] University of California 2008

A Bruns Blogs Wikipedia Second Life and Beyond From Production to Produsage New York Peter

Lang 2008

A Bruns lsquolsquoProdusage Towards a broader framework for user-led content creationrsquorsquo Proceedings of the

2007 Conference on Creativity and Cognition New York ACM Press pp 99106 2007a

A Bruns lsquolsquoThe future is user-led The path towards widespread Produsagersquorsquo Paper presented at the

PerthDAC Conference Perth 1518 September 2007b Western Australia

A Bruns lsquolsquoTowards produsage Futures for user-led content productionrsquorsquo Paper presented at the Cultural

Attitudes towards Communication and Technology Conference 28 June1 July 2006 Tartu Estonia

118 I Picone

with the specificity of this kind of process excluding other forms of user-generated content From a production point of view this is arguable Whenlooking at the impact of this form of production it is clear that the effect isessentially visible when singular users combine their engagement Not somuch this or that blog makes the blogosphere influential but specifically thenetworked effect that one message can have when it is endorsed by thousandsof bloggers

Still the practice of self-publication what we identified as the nature ofprodusage as a user experience is an important social evolution that cannotbe neglected We believe produsage is a strong conceptualisation that has thepotential to become an important framework to understand the evolutionsunderlying a large array of currently emerging practices and innovations in aworld not necessarily without borders but with different boundaries andmore cross-boundary work (Bockszkowski 2004) By not merely looking atprodusage as a practice where production outweighs consumption but also asa practice where usage can outweigh production and even more as acontinuum between both dimensions we believe we could come to a more in-depth holistic understanding of this process With this article we hope tohave given a valuable first impetus in that direction

Acknowledgements

This research took place within the framework of the FLEET (Flemish E-publishing Trends

project funded by the Flemish Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) This

interdisciplinary research project aims at generating fundamental scientific knowledge about

the e-publishing sector in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium More information and

research outcomes can be found at wwwfleetprojectbe

References

M Ames and M Naaman lsquolsquoWhy we tag Motivations for annotation in mobile and online mediarsquorsquo Paper

presented at the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 28 April3 May 2007 San

Jose California

JA Anderson lsquolsquoThe pragmatics of audience in research and theoryrsquorsquo in The Audience and its Landscape

J Hay L Grossberg and E Wartella (Eds) Oxford Westview Press pp 7593 1996

J Bierhoff and A Eyck lsquolsquoDesigning the digital dailyrsquorsquo Paper presented at the International Conference

New Media amp Information Convergences amp Divergences 69 May 2009 Athens

N Bolger A Davis and E Rafaeli lsquolsquoDiary Methods capturing life as it is livedrsquorsquo Annual Review of

Psychology 54 pp 579616 2003

PJ Boczkowski Digitizing the News Innovation in Online Newspapers Cambridge MIT Press 2004

DM Boyd Taken Out of Context American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics [unpublished doctoral

thesis] University of California 2008

A Bruns Blogs Wikipedia Second Life and Beyond From Production to Produsage New York Peter

Lang 2008

A Bruns lsquolsquoProdusage Towards a broader framework for user-led content creationrsquorsquo Proceedings of the

2007 Conference on Creativity and Cognition New York ACM Press pp 99106 2007a

A Bruns lsquolsquoThe future is user-led The path towards widespread Produsagersquorsquo Paper presented at the

PerthDAC Conference Perth 1518 September 2007b Western Australia

A Bruns lsquolsquoTowards produsage Futures for user-led content productionrsquorsquo Paper presented at the Cultural

Attitudes towards Communication and Technology Conference 28 June1 July 2006 Tartu Estonia

118 I Picone

A Bruns 2005 Some exploratory notes on produsers and produsage Available online at httpsnurbinfo

indexphpqnode329 (accessed 12 February 2010)

EP Bucy lsquolsquoInteractivity in society Locating an elusive conceptrsquorsquo The Information Society 20 pp 373383

2004

R Burnett and PD Marshall Web Theory An Introduction New York Routledge 2003

C-H Chen LP Khoo and W Yan lsquolsquoA strategy for acquiring customer requirement patterns using

laddering technique and ART2 neural networkrsquorsquo Advanced Engineering Informatics 16 pp 229240 2002

DJ Cohen LC Leviton N Isaacson AF Tallia and BF Crabtree lsquolsquoOnline diaries for qualitative

evaluation Gaining real-time insightsrsquorsquo American Journal of Evaluation 27 pp 163184 2006

M Deuze lsquolsquoThe changing context of news work Liquid journalism and monitorial citizenshiprsquorsquo

International Journal of Communication 2 pp 848865 2008

D Domingo T Quandt A Heinonen S Paulussen J Singer and M Vujnovic lsquolsquoParticipatory journalism

practices in the media and beyondrsquorsquo Paper presented at the Future of Newspapers Conference 1213

September 2007 Cardiff

Eurostat 2009 Information society indicatorsUse of the Internet for private purposes for advanced

communication activities (excluding e-mail) [online data set] Available online at httpeppeurostat

eceuropaeuportalpageportalinformation_societydatadatabase (accessed 1 February 2010)

A Foslashlstad 2008 lsquolsquoLiving labs for innovation and development of information and communication

technology A literature reviewrsquorsquo The Electronic Journal for Virtual Organizations and Networks 10

Available online at httpeJOV10_SPILL7_Folstad_Living Labs for Innovation and Developmentpdf

(accessed 4 August 2009)

J Galtung and M Ruge lsquolsquoThe structure of foreign news The presentation of the Congo Cuba and Cyprus

crises in four Norwegian newspapersrsquorsquo Journal of International Peace Research 2 pp 6491 1965

M Gasher lsquolsquoThe view from here A news-flow study of the on-line editions of Canadarsquos national

newspapersrsquorsquo Journalism Studies 8 pp 299319 2007

B Glaser and A Strauss The Discovery of Grounded Theory Strategies for Qualitative Research Chicago

Aldine 1967

I Glorieux S Koelet I Mestad J Minnen M Moens and J Vandeweyer De 24 uur van Vlaanderen

Leuven LannooCampus 2006

E Goffman The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life New York Anchor Books 1959

KG Grunert and SC Grunert lsquolsquoMeasuring subjective meaning structures by the laddering method

Theoretical considerations and methodological problemsrsquorsquo International Journal of Research in Marketing

12 pp 209225 1995

T Harcup and D OrsquoNeil lsquolsquoWhat is news Galtung and Ruge revisitedrsquorsquo Journalism Studies 2 pp 261280

2001

J Hartley lsquolsquoInvisible fictions Television audiences paedocracy pleasurersquorsquo Textual Practice 1 pp 121138

1987

B Horowitz 2006 Creators synthesizers and consumers Available online at httpblogelatablecom

200602creators-synthesizers-and-consumershtml (accessed 4 April 2007)

H Hutchinson W Mackay B Westerlund BB Bederson A Druin C Plaisant and JD Lasica lsquolsquoBlogs

and journalism need each otherrsquorsquo Nieman Reports 2003

A Jacobs and W Van den Broeck lsquolsquoValidation of auto-collective research methods diary methodrsquorsquo QoE

project deliverable Brussels IBBT-SMIT 2008

C Leadbeater and P Miller The Pro-Am Revolution How Enthusiasts are Changing Our Economy and

Society London Demos 2004

D Li lsquolsquoWhy do you blog A uses-and-gratifications inquiry into bloggersrsquo motivationsrsquorsquo Paper presented at

the annual meeting of the International Communication Association 24 May 2007 San Francisco

LA Lievrouw and S Livingstone (Eds) lsquolsquoIntroduction to the updated student editionrsquorsquo in The Handbook

of New Media Social Shaping and Consequences of ICTs (updated student ed) London SAGE pp 114

2006

D List 2004 Maximum variation sampling for surveys and consensus groups Audience dialogue

Available online at httpwwwaudiencedialogueorgmaxvarhtml (accessed 28 April 2009)

D Masten and TMP Plowman lsquolsquoDigital ethnography The next wave in understanding the consumer

experiencersquorsquo Design Management Journal 14 pp 7581 2003

D Murthy lsquolsquoDigital Ethnography An examination of the use of new technologies for social researchrsquorsquo

Sociology 42 pp 837855 2008

Produsage as a form of self-publication 119

B Nardi D Schiano M Gumbrecht and L Swartz 2004a lsquolsquoIrsquom blogging thisrsquorsquo A closer look at why

people blog Available online at httpwwwicsuciedu7Ejpdclassesics234cw04nardipdf (accessed 12

August 2007)

BA Nardi DJ Schiano and M Gumbrecht lsquolsquoBlogging as social activity or would you let 900 million

people read your diaryrsquorsquo Paper presented at the 2004 ACM Conference On Computer Supported

Cooperative Work 610 November 2004b Chicago IL

A Nguyen The Penetration of Online News Past Present and Future Saarbrucken Verlag Dr Muller

2008

B Nonnecke D Andrews and J Preece lsquolsquoNon-public and public online community participation Needs

attitudes and behaviorrsquorsquo Electronic Commerce Research 6 pp 720 2006

D Osimo Web 20 in Government Why and How Sevilla P Office 2008

MQ Patton Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods (2nd ed) Thousand Oaks CA Sage pp

172182 1990

S Paulussen A Heinonen D Domingo and T Quandt lsquolsquoDoing it together Citizen participation in the

professional news making processrsquorsquo Paper presented at the Future of Newspapers Conference 1213

September 2007 Cardiff

Pew Research Centre The 2009 Online activities 20002009 Pew Internet amp American Life Project

Available online at httppewinternetorgStatic-PagesTrend-DataOnline-Activities-20002009aspx

(accessed 1 February 2010)

I Picone lsquolsquoConceptualising online news usersquorsquo in Innovating For and By Users J Pierson E Mante-Meijer

E Loos and B Sapio Eds Luxembourg OOPEC pp 145157 2008

I Picone and S Depreeuw lsquolsquoOnline reageren is meer dan scheldenrsquorsquo De Standaard 13 June p 17 2009

J Pierson B Lievens and P Ballon lsquolsquoLiving labs for broadband innovation Configuring user

involvementrsquorsquo Paper presented at the BBEurope 2005 Conference 1215 December 2005 Bordeaux

France

DE Polkinghorne lsquolsquoLanguage and meaning Data collection in qualitative researchrsquorsquo Journal of

Counseling Psychology 52 pp 137145 2005

Y Punie lsquolsquoGebruik van media en informatie- en communicatietechnologiersquorsquo in De interpretatieve

benadering in de communicatiewetenschap Theorie methodologie en case-studies J Servaes and V Frissen

(Eds) Amersfoort Acco pp 251272 1997

L Quere lsquolsquoLes boıtes noires de B Latour ou le bien social dans la machinersquorsquo Reseaux 7 pp 95117 1989

MN Razavi and L Iverson lsquolsquoDesigning for privacy in personal learning spacesrsquorsquo New Review of

Hypermedia and Multimedia 13 pp 163185 2007

TJ Reynolds and J Gutman lsquolsquoLaddering theory method analysis and interpretationrsquorsquo Journal of

Advertising Research 28 pp 1131 1988

L Robinson lsquolsquoThe cyberself The self-ing project goes online symbolic interaction in the digital agersquorsquo New

Media Society 9 pp 93110 2007

D Ryfe and D Mensing lsquolsquoDoing journalism together Experiments in collaborative newsgatheringrsquorsquo Paper

presented at the Future of Newspapers Conference 1213 September 2007 Cardiff

DJ Schiano BA Nardi M Gumbrecht and L Swartz lsquolsquoBlogging by the rest of usrsquorsquo Paper presented at

the CHI rsquo04 Conference on Human Factors In Computing Systems 2429 April 2004 Vienna Austria

LA Suchman Plans and Situated Actions The Problem of Human-Machine Communication Cambridge

Cambridge University Press 1987

Technorati 2008 State of the blogosphere 2008 Day 2 The what and why of blogging (Research report)

San Francisco CA Technorati Available online at httptechnoraticombloggingarticleday-2-the-what-

and-whypage-2 (accessed 29 January 2009)

E Thorson lsquolsquoChanging patterns of news consumption and participationrsquorsquo Information Communication amp

Society 11 pp 473489 2008

A Toffler The Third Wave New York Morrow 1980

J Van Dijck lsquolsquoUsers like you Theorizing agency in user-generated contentrsquorsquo Media Culture amp Society 31

pp 4158 2009

K Vandenbrande Verscholen achter de krant Media nieuws en burgerschap in het dagelijks leven Een

publieksonderzoek naar de betekenis en beleving van de krant in een gemediatiseerde laat-moderne

samenleving PhD Dissertation Vrije Universiteit Brussel 2002

E Von Hippel Democratizing Innovation Cambridge MA The MIT Press 2005

120 I Picone

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may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holders express

written permission However users may print download or email articles for individual use