Prosumption is characterized by the blurring of production and consumption. Prosumption analyses therefore focus on both production and consumption simultaneously, rather than on either independently. Prosumers consume what they produce and/or produce what they consume. Prosumptive practices are increasingly common, and the prosumption concept is particularly relevant to the explosion of user‐generated content online. Users now produce not only open source software, mobile apps, and content for most of “Web 2.0” (including social networking sites) but also individual and collective identities – as well as entire subcultures – through prosuming online content. It is debatable, however, whether the expansion of prosumption online signifies empowerment or exploitation for consumers. Prosumption characterizes prosumer capitalism, and has been further analyzed through the Marxist “labor theory of value,” through Foucauldian notions of government, and through Bourdieusian theories of cultural/social (re)production.
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