Media in Transition Conference

The MIT Media In Transition Conference (April 27-29) is focusing on "creativity, ownership and collaboration in the digital age." The use of contemporary media provokes an optimistic description of the user's agency and the participation in the culture industries.  This bias makes several issues explicit: Amateur culture which accompanied the mass production of consumer goods for decades, takes place on a global scale. The culture industry is extended into user communities which co-construct products by changing, modifying and innovating. Besides an entire cultural production takes place beyond the conventional channels of production and development.
But the 'socialization of production means' does not necessarily change issues of ownership and control.
The concept of participatory culture recalls how debates on technology development were nourishing a technological imaginary of the consumer's "emergence from self imposed immaturity."
In my talk I revisit concepts of participation and relate user participation to the socio-technical ecosystem wherein the cultural production emerges. (read the abstract)

MIT5: creativity, ownership and collaboration in the digital age. April 27-29, MIT.