Fashionable New Media

re-sell, re-hire, re-evaluate the future of fashion

natashacowey — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:27:21 +0000

The principles of produsage can and have been applied to a variety of vastly different domains, within the internet and Web 2.0, which all deal with information -in one of its various forms- as their only common characteristic. Forms of information include:

information as code,
information as news,
information as knowledge,
information as metadata,
information as creative work,
information as the glue that binds together our communities and societies and enables democracy to function

According to Jenkins “produsage and its technologies advance processes of convergence, and are involved in a range of crucial conflicts over the shape and balance of our future technological, industrial, economic, cultural and social environments…. These conflicts determine the character of our emerging human knowledge space itself.”

Those who can provide motivating and inspirational topics, divide these up into specific tasks, inspire a wide range of contributors to take on developing solutions, which can then be assembled and combined into an active and dynamic project and community, will determine the success of produsage itself. The future of cyberspace is unclear but it is evident that produsage will play a major role in its evolution. The development of artefacts from products is one such example of where it is heading.

Through the addition of an informational layer to prodused product reviews, recommendations and other associated knowledge to existing products and we can now identify such processes in a growing range of what can be described as social communities operating in much the same way as the communities of knowledge sharing but what is shared is not how-to information but information on getting the most out of a product. These shopping communities such as Stylehive and OSOYOU are engaged in the produsage of knowledge at the same time as advertising and marketing the products discussed. Applications which have the ability to turn products into artefacts either: make buyers more aware about their product in an informational sense where users leave reviews and recommendations (which acts as a positive form of advertising as it is more believable coming from a fellow user) or the resale potential of unwanted or no longer needed products.

Market Publique is the Ebay equivalent for the fashion world and based in America the site allows users to auction off their unwanted fashion. These types of sites have the potential for physical possessions to become more fluid and pieces of clothing or other fashion essentials turn into temporary artefacts of a continual process of material sharing. Being temporary owners has become a more efficient way to live. Although we are not producing goods per se the continuous sharing of (informationally enhanced) goods across a community of participants in our auction culture displays strong produsage characteristics.

Another option for making artefacts out of products is the possibility to make physical items freely available through open source licensing. Licensed items would be co owned and linked to a digital address to allow for tracking. Possession would be shared, distributed, diffused across a larger number of participants. Although items on these websites are owned by the company Dressed Up and Wish to Wear provide a designer clothing hire service to Australian women. They purchase new season items then lease the dress, belt or bag out on a weekly basis. Women are not locked into buying a $2000 for one night/season. With these sites they have the ability to pay $50 to have that same dress for a week then return it so someone else can have it the next week.

blurry lines between expert and enthusiast:

natashacowey — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:48:58 +0000

As briefly touched on in an earlier posts (let the citizens speak! and fashion-pedia) the blur between producer and consumer is becoming more pronounced.

In a folksonimically driven space (Web 2.0), persons previously regarded as experts in their field are no longer the only producers of knowledge. Thanks to Citizen Journalism and other produsage based information applications, such as Wikipedia, citizens of all walks-of-life have the ability to publish their knowledge in cyberspace.

Within open participation governed applications according to Axel Bruns ‘expertise’ exists on a sliding vertical scale from recognized leaders to enthusiasts. It also spans across fields, disciplines, and subsets of knowledge. Therefore those who have qualifications in particular fields are not necessarily able to gain immediate respect due to their research and are seen at the same level as citizens who have an interest in the topic. In cases such as Wikipedia which follows an ‘anyone can edit’ structure, (as seen in the previous post) users of the site have the ability to remove previous edits to a page. Therefore if an expert says one thing any user can edit that content to say the complete opposite. The expert with a qualification is not guaranteed the last word. Although experts have no privileged role in open participation applications, Bruns believes that it requires “expertise to understand and accurately evaluate available evidence does, as does the ability to look to those who have that expertise where participants do not possess it themselves”. As experts alienate themselves from the practices of everyday life, they frame problems differently from citizens. Therefore the perspectives of ordinary people should be allowed to transform the knowledge provided by such experts. The community of knowledge creators and curators requires experts on both ends of the scale to make contributions. This enables all to make contributions to the communal process.

Bona fide experts need to regain their status within the internal hierarchy of contributors like all other users of the produsage application. Despite this the question as to who should be allowed such credibility and how shall it be determined remains. Barriers to participation should not come from joining in the form of member ship or paying a fee but should arise from participation within the community itself. The amount and quality of participation should also determine the level of access persons have allowing higher forms of contribution; it should be hard to gain full access. Persons who gain respect through constructive participation must also remember they have a responsibility that their contribution will be constructive and useful to the common aim.

This topic of who is an expert and what content can be trusted has been explored by The Business of Fashion in its blog post “Can fashion bloggers be trusted online authorities?” With the fashion blogsphere forever expanding and more bloggers gaining access to the fashion world it is fair to wonder whether all of this new content actually adding anything new to the reams of content already out there. Millions of people love fashion but does a love of something deam that you are worthy of publishing information and knowledge to the greater fashion network. Does a love for fashion mean u are an expert in fashion. The answer is no but of those fashion bloggers out there how many could truly be defined as experts? How many bloggers love of fashion has turned into an obsession which they studied – if not in an institution – through working in the industry? Everyone is a fashion critique but who’s opinion deserves be broadcasted?

fashion-pedia…

natashacowey — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 09:49:31 +0000

Two key drivers of Web 2.0 – the second generation of web development and design – are Wikis and Blogs. As this is blog aims to discuss the impact of Web 2.0 and especially New Media, on the fashion industry it is apt that this post highlights Wikipedia’s role in New Media and fashion.

Although Wikipedia was not the first encyclopaedia to take on cyberspace, in terms of userbase and breadth of coverage (number of topics/pages) it is the most successful. It is the first major institution of the emerging knowledge space and according to Clay Shirky, is an excellent example of the collaborative construction of knowledge, interactive web facilities, collaboratively created and edited online encyclopaedia. Implementing a space based structure, it facilitates users to create a network of information and thus knowledge that is structured ad hoc through various interlinkages between individual pages/pieces of information.

The wiki has been designed to easily allow anyone to add or edit the content, and therefore the encyclopaedia’s knowledge it provides, without having gained membership to the application. Along with the ability to edit pages, users of the site can ‘track’ changes in Page Histories as well as participate in forum on each topic in its individual dissuasion page and create new topic pages. Embracing the produsage principles of open participation and communal evaluation is the main reason behind its popularity, but it is also a reason for its controversy and criticisms. Due to its ‘anyone can edit’ approach no singular person or group has the right to control the content, added, removed or changed and by whom, but individuals have the ability to continuously monitor the content of a page (topic) they feel they knowledgeable in through the page history function to rectify any knowledge added they deem unnecessary or incorrect. By doing this fluid hierarchies are created through ad hoc meritocratic governance and at its paramount, functions as a self-correcting adhocracy. Also, this means that there is no guarantee to the credibility of information on the application.

Although Wikipedia was not designed to be and is still not dedicated to fashion, it does play a certain role in the industry. Firstly, as the application is primarily an encyclopaedia it details all aspects of the fashion industry from designers such as Alexander McQueen and Sass and Bide to definitions of the history of fashion itself , haute couture, avant-garde and the Dandy. It is a one-stop-shop to understanding the fashion world but requires some knowledge of fashion terms and names to navigate its thousands of pages for a chance to find topics dedicated to fashion. Secondly, as the pages can be edited by anyone at anytime the information is current and published almost as it happens. For example, the Fashion page was only last edited four days ago. Users of the site are consistently adding to the world of knowledge it already provides, meaning you do not have to purchase the new updated edition each year to stay informed. This way you only have the most current edition and it is completely free.

Wikipedia was not created solely for the fashion industry, which is perhaps a reason for its small impact. Persons with a fashion background are more likely to gravitate towards applications based on similar produsage characteristics which are fashion based. Unfortunately no such site has been created and has such an impact on cyberspace and knowledge as Wikipedia. Many have been created that act as fashion porthole but none have the ‘anyone can edit’ function like Wikipedia.

let the citizens speak!

natashacowey — Wed, 27 May 2009 06:36:36 +0000

Before the rise of Web 2.0, news production and thus journalism was distributed and produced only by the wealthy- those who could afford to purchase printing/publishing companies and television networks such as Rupert Murdoch and Kerri Packer. According to Dan Gillmor, at the time –and now, where organisations have not shifted to incorporate Web 2.0- news was produced and consumed as if it were a lecture. Now new models of citizen journalism have made it possible for information to be treated as a “conversation or seminar”. Now every citizen is a reporter and we are all able to use the internet to provide the world with free news.

Citizen journalism, to Bowman and Willis, is the “act of a citizen, or group of citizens, playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting analysing and disseminating news and information.” It also aims to make information that is reliable, accurate, relevant and wide ranging available to the masses.

For citizen journalism to rise to its potential three elements need to be considered and approached in the production of new applications. These are open publishing, collaborative editing and distributed content. The architecture of open publishing was a landmark development that enabled new forms of news production and parallels can now be drawn between open publishing and the free software movement. Therefore it can also be said that the key to the success of both of these applications was that the process of production was open. The second element crucial to the rise of citizen journalism is collaborative editing. Axel Bruns believes, sites can be differentiated between based on their allowance for user participation at “ the input stage (contributing stories), output stage (ability to edit or shape final content) and response stage (ability to comment on, extend, filter or edit any published content) and the extent to which specific roles (editor journalist, user, reader) are fixed in the production process”. The final element needed for eh rise of citizen journalism is distributed content. Although RSS (Really Simple Syndication)was developed at a relatively far distance form citizen journalism, according to Terry Flew, the application allows users to reduce search costs associated with locating and researching information, “building user communities and therefore transforming news barriers to entry to a more decentralised and networked model.” Despite citizen journalism not having reached it full potential, one can see the effects it is having on the space, its users and therefore the world. One example of this is the power bloggers have to swing votes in political campaigns. Notably bloggers are credited with the demise of Senate majority Trent Lott after making comments that he supported the segregation of race.

According to Gillmor, citizen journalism is one reason the lines between producer and consumer are blurring and communication production and networks “will become a medium for everyone’s voice”. This blur between producer and consumer will be discussed in detail in a later blog. For now, I would like to touch briefly on the impact citizen journalism is having on the fashion industry especially in terms of Twitter. Twitter is an online application which allows users to publish small statements for their followers to read. It has taken the fashion world by storm and allows everyday people to follow their favourite designers lives, musings, or inspiration. Marc Jacobs posted that he does not wear underwear under his kilt and and fashion blogger Garance Dore posts street styles as she sees them. The more random the “tweet” the better. It has been argued by some that the application is just contributing to the information overload, but is it? Could it just allow us to be closer to our favourite designers and follow the trends before they hit the runways?

the future of the fashion industry:

natashacowey — Wed, 13 May 2009 01:50:57 +0000

According to Axel Bruns, produsage is the process where community members change, add or improve information in the hope to add knowledge and thus impact and make a constructive contribution to their network. It is the collision of old and new media, is at the intersection of grassroots and corporate media and is blurring the lines of the producer and consumer. Produsage equalizes the users of media technology and has therefore rearranged the production value chain. Initially interesting niche communities produsage has moved from open source software development to collaborative knowledge management application such as Wikipedia and Henry Jenkins believes that it has allowed for participatory convergence culture. Consumers now have the chance to take media into their own hands. Everyone is now a participant but each person has his or her own degree of influence and status. This increase in grassroots media and user generated content has impacted cultural institutions and media organisations who were previously the primary producers and distributers of cultural content. As cultural convergence is driven by the rise of produsage, those institutions and organisations will begin to collapse if they do not take immediate action to maintain on top of what is “new” in new media. Although existing corporations are being forced to keep up with media advances there is an increasing opportunity for new corporations such as Google, which are built on convergence models to extend their portfolio and build feeder businesses which are good for both consumer and owner. Collaborative content creation will not only affect the media field but as the possibility for creativity to impact content is significantly increased through produsage, all areas of society will be impacted. Produsage should be embraced, content changes be considered established knowledge and the structure and presentation of the knowledge should be considered. The fashion industry is just one industry which is embracing produsage.

Last year The Walpole Group hosted a half day seminar which aimed to assist existing companies to “reharness the creative power of technology”. This conference along with another titled: Web 2.0 – Are you on Board? included speakers such as Natalie Massenet of Net-A-Porter, whom have made a significant success in online innovation.

When Malcolm Harris, a designer behind the Katsumi & Malcolm label, wanted to launch a new lable he turned to web 2.0 applications. He used Myspace and Youtube to promote the new brand and has since been writing Cut, Sew & Blog which has managed grabbed the attention of fashion insiders and other bloggers which is not always an easy task. He might be the first designer to revolve their entire business strategy around the Internet instead of attempting to include it as an afterthought.