The perks and downsides of being a digital prosumer: optimistic and pessimistic approaches to digital prosumption

The recent evolution of users’ position and agency in digital environments absorbs the attention of several scholars in different fields of study. Users’ new ontological status as prosumers, simultaneously producers and consumers, and their role regarding productive paradigms has raised a lot of contrasting opinions. Different discursive techniques are employed to investigate production practices in digital worlds and are often crafted with the conventions of utopian and anti-utopian approaches. Nevertheless, the adoption of optimistic or pessimistic analytical and rhetorical strategies appears to be prejudiced towards the study of emerging online practices. In reality, the analysis of positive and negative approaches to productive paradigms in digital environments results in the detection of their limitations in reaching a comprehensive understanding of the investigated phenomena. Therefore, the adoption of a more neutral perspective is suggested, one that could potentially foster a holistic approach and therefore a broader and deeper comprehension of the analyzed phenomena

Digital Divide in Social Media Prosumption: Proclivity, Production Intensity, and Prosumer Typology among College Students and General Population

This paper examines the digital divide in social media prosumption. It compares college students’ and general population’s prosumption behavior in social media and proposes a set of measures of prosumption in online media settings with special emphasis on social media including prosumption proclivity, production intensity, and a prosumption index which can be used in future studies on social media and other usergenerated content sites. We classified prosumption behavior in a quadrant of four main types along the two dimensions of production and consumption. A polarized trend of prosumption was observed. Prosumption proclivity is a much stronger facilitator of social media consumption than participation or production intensity especially among college students

Achieving the Dispatchability of Distribution Feeders through Prosumers Data Driven Forecasting and Model Predictive Control of Electrochemical Storage

We propose and experimentally validate a control strategy to dispatch the operation of a distribution feeder interfacing heterogeneous prosumers by using a grid-connected battery energy storage system (BESS) as a controllable element coupled with a minimally invasive monitoring infrastructure. It consists in a two-stage procedure: day-ahead dispatch planning, where the feeder 5-minute average power consumption trajectory for the next day of operation (called \emph{dispatch plan}) is determined, and intra-day/real-time operation, where the mismatch with respect to the \emph{dispatch plan} is corrected by applying receding horizon model predictive control (MPC) to decide the BESS charging/discharging profile while accounting for operational constraints. The consumption forecast necessary to compute the \emph{dispatch plan} and the battery model for the MPC algorithm are built by applying adaptive data driven methodologies. The discussed control framework currently operates on a daily basis to dispatch the operation of a 20~kV feeder of the EPFL university campus using a 750~kW/500~kWh lithium titanate BESS.Comment: Submitted for publication, 201

Blurring the boundaries: Prosumption, circularity and online sustainable consumption through Freecycle

© The Author(s) 2015. This article explores the digital exchange and moral ordering of sustainable and ethical consumption in online Freecycle groups. Through interactive exchanges in digital (online posts) and material (consumer items) modes, Freecycling blurs three common binaries in analyses of consumption: (1) consumption/production, (2) digital/material and (3) mainstream/alternative. Drawing on Ritzer's notion of 'implosions' as well as practice theory, I show that Freecycling practices reimagine and reproduce both products and consumers, practising prosumption through mixed digital and material practices in a performative economy, and how mainstream and alternative ways of consuming are entangled in pursuit of more sustainable, ethical consumption. This challenges us to think beyond these traditional binaries and to conceptualise a more blurred, less analytically clean and more circular approach to studying consumption

Digital Prosumption and Alienation

Since the hybrid producer-consumer – the prosumer – was conceptualized three decades ago, prosumption has been embraced by both mainstream and progressive analysts. With digital technologies enabling more people to engage in an array of online prosumption activities, one shared claim is particularly striking: the empowering and humanizing implications of prosumption will mark the end of human alienation. In this paper, I assess this extraordinary prediction by, first, establishing that the core of Marx’s conceptualization of alienation is capital’s dominance over human relations, compelling people to become mere tools of the production process. Second, I assess both general and specific digital prosumption developments in light of this understanding of alienation. Third, my analysis concludes that people will participate in prosumption in at least three discernible ways: most will remain relatively powerless tools of capital; some will act as capital’s creative tools; and a minority (those possessing extraordinary capabilities) will have the potential to employ prosumption in ways that redress their alienation

Involving Consumers: The Role of Digital Technologies in Promoting 'Prosumption' and User Innovation

Since the First Industrial Revolution, consumers have been mainly considered as playing a passive role with regard to production. However, the recent decades have seen a progressive growth in consumer involvement in production processes, for instance, in the form of user innovation, DIY and mass customisation. Yet, it was not until the advent of digital technologies that consumers’ input in production processes could become really significant in all dimensions of production (design, manufacturing and distribution). This increased (sometimes leading) role of consumers in production has been referred to as ‘prosumption’. While prosumption has so far been mainly significant online (where consumers have arguably taken over the creation and distribution of content), recent advances in digital technologies (mobile networks, 3D printing) have enabled prosumption to reach to world of physical objects, as illustrated by the increased importance of consumer-made goods (‘makers’ movement) and of the ‘sharing economy’. Although prosumption can be highly disruptive to markets, there has not been so far a thorough investigation of the nature of this phenomenon. Yet, understanding this nature is critical to apprehend disruptions. Furthermore, while digital technologies have been acknowledged as a key factor in the rise of prosumption, the exact role of each set of technologies has not yet been studied, which is a problem, as different technologies enable different types of prosumption. The aim of this article is to fill these two gaps. To do so, a framework of prosumption, which encompasses both inputs and outputs of consumer contribution, is introduced. This framework is then applied to multiple case studies, which enables to show how prosumption has evolved and what changes lie ahead

Designing Scalable Business Models

Digital business models are often designed for rapid growth, and some relatively young companies have indeed achieved global scale. However despite the visibility and importance of this phenomenon, analysis of scale and scalability remains underdeveloped in management literature. When it is addressed, analysis of this phenomenon is often over-influenced by arguments about economies of scale in production and distribution. To redress this omission, this paper draws on economic, organization and technology management literature to provide a detailed examination of the sources of scaling in digital businesses. We propose three mechanisms by which digital business models attempt to gain scale: engaging both non- paying users and paying customers; organizing customer engagement to allow self- customization; and orchestrating networked value chains, such as platforms or multi-sided business models. Scaling conditions are discussed, and propositions developed and illustrated with examples of big data entrepreneurial firms

New consumer trends

The aim of the discussion is to examine the new trends observed in consumer behaviour of today’s households around the world. This article contains a purely theoretical analysis of the new trends. Its structure is as follows: after explaining the concept of a consumption trend and its main characteristics, the further part of this text analyses the key “new” or “alternative” consumer trends, such as: deconsumption, eco-consumption, conscious consumption, collaborative consumption, freeganism, prosumption, smart shopping and cocooning, followed by a conclusion.Wydanie współfinansowane ze środków Miasta Łodzi w ramach zadania “Współpraca z wyższymi uczelniami” – umowa 100/03/201

New media practices in India: bridging past and future, markets and development

This article provides a review of the academic and popular literature on new media practices in India, focusing on the country’s youth's use of mobile phones and the Internet, as well as new media prosumption. One particular feature of the Indian case is the confluence of commercial exploitation of new media technologies and their application for development purposes in initiatives that aim to bring these technologies to marginalized segments of the Indian population. Technology usage in turn is shaped by the socioeconomic location of the user, especially in regards to gender and caste. The potential of new media technologies to subvert such social stratifications and associated norms has inspired much public debate, which is often carried out on the Internet, giving rise to an online public sphere. In all of the writings reviewed here, the tension surrounding new media technologies as a meeting place of the old and the new in India is paramount