Producer vs Produser

When i first heard about the produser i wasn't really fussed by it because i had assumed that the recreation of original concepts was just the usual norm. Music, movies and a range of other media are constantly taking the ideas of others in order to create something new and the introduction of social websites such as Youtube and Facebook have aided this further. Nowadays the average Joe can take a song they heard on the radio, put their own spin on it and then re-release it on sites such as Youtube in order to gain public exposure. The reach of Youtube is almost worldwide and can allow an individual to view anything ranging from world changing events to acts of stupidity within someones backyard. The following video is a prime example of how produsage can be applied. In this case it is the recreation of a number of different movie concepts compiled into one storyline.



Now in the grand scheme of things produsage can be a good thing. Classic movies which may have died out years ago are recreated and given the chance to be exposed to future generations and allows all of us to enjoy a good original story line every once in a while. The same goes for music in that old classics or great hits of previous generations are remixed in order to appeal to the general public of today. A perfect example of this would be Elvises "Little Less Conversation" hit which was remixed in 2002 for a Nike commercial. The song was a huge success and rebirthed the king of pop into the 21st century.

Now in cases such as the above produsage can be beneficial however there are instances when this is not the case. Produsage can actually ruin some original concepts and can take away the meaning intended by the initial creator. The Star Wars saga for example has been rewritten and remade countless times by die hard fans and in most cases has actually proved to be more detrimental to the story than beneficial. The same applies in music where individuals create covers of their favorite songs from their bedrooms and post them up on the internet for all to see. In most cases these are quite horrible and merely ruin the song. But the use of produsage in a negative way also exceeds beyond these areas. Input based pages such as Wikipedia which allows individuals to alter and edit information written by other people can also be displayed as a negative form of produsage due to the fact that information on the site may be inaccurate. This not only creates a snowball effect of misinformed individuals but also makes it difficult to remedy any wrong knowledge passed on by these websites.

So what does produsage mean for the future? Well i think that creativity may be hindered but at the same time produsage will help to preserve the classics of the past. By constantly rebirthing and reforming ideas we can ensure that great musicians such as Elvis and great movies such as Star Wars are not forgotten. At the same time though care must be taken in order to ensure that we don't believe everything we see on the internet.