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Nick Carr recently commented on the prominence of social production in today’s digital media markets. Carr asks whether lowered economic barriers to producing, distributing and packaging digital media is preferable to traditional sources of creativity. As usual, Carr’s showcases his power of insight, by arguing that with the widespread proliferation of social production, valuable cuture may be lost in the pile rather than more accessible to society. It's often assumed that once you loosen big companies' chokehold over popular media, you'll make it easier for good work to find an audience… it's not so simple. The good stuff may get more lost than ever in the widening (expletive)stream. Citing another social observer’s comment that some social production is “proudly dorky” and in many ways not preferable to traditional media outlets, Carr refers to the “non-monetary” economy as one out of tune with the economic barriers and filters of supply/demand. Individuals who upload media to YouTube or MySpace are not amenable to traditional supply/demand economics and thus are not likely motivated to enrich culture.It would be a mistake to think the motivations of the artist and the craftsman can be reduced to a set of signals from the marketplace. But it would also be a mistake to think those motivations exist outside the influence of those signals. Even in the sphere of culture, demand drives supply. Out of ideology, social production proponents may want to remove all barriers to entry and production, oppose means of incumbency leveraged by "big media" and have a heightened sense of accomplishment clothed in “revolutionary” terms. While not all valuations of social production show a tendancy to be too easily impressed (social production *is important and valuable* at times), however, if somebody thinks they are the next creative genius, or symbolize cultural greatness, then fine. Just don’t ask for regulatory changes such as eliminating fair use criteria or repealing the DMCA when it’s the limitations of social production that hold it back.
posted by Noel Le @ 3:50 PM | Free Culture Movement
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