producing and consuming

Online social media like YouTube is becoming more popular with more people trying to get engaged in it.  I have found myself being interested in watching more YoTube videos everyday than normal TV, even using it as a great source for catching up on shows that I missed on TV.  More people are becoming interested in reality viewing than fiction and users seem to use YouTube as a channel to broadcast their lives to the world.  It is almost as if it is the next generation of television. But do we viewers really consume reality?  It is like nothing is real anymore and every form of identity people display is fake in one or another.  Many people including myself have found a way to produce themselves to the world in different forms of identities based on how we want to be perceived.  This has proven to be easier with the 'series of recent social changes, especially those associated with the internet and web 2.0' (Ritzer & Jurgenson 2010 p.14)

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The use of social network allows us to act as prosumers through the various information that we choose to share and get involved with.  For example, social media has let us act as producers through the information we share online and in-turn act as consumers through the options we are given to like and comment on.  For instance, I have chosen to subscribe to some YouTube channels and also liked some facebook pictures and statuses put up other producers, therefore, that makes me a prosumer.  As much as the digital age has given us the opportunity to share our lives with the world, it is imperative that we choose wisely what information we share.  This is because we are constantly under surveillance (Marshall, 2010) which is done through the circle of presumption as we all act as producers and consumers.  

References:

Marshall, P D 2010, ‘The promotion and presentation of the self: celebrity as marker of presentational media’,Celebrity Studies, vol. 1, no. 1.

Ritzer, George and Jurgenson, Nathan 2010, ‘Production, Consumption, Prosumption: The nature of capitalism in the age of the digital ‘prosumer’’, Journal of Consumer Culture, vol. 10 no. 1, pp 14.