In my teen years, when I was a fine young socialist, I used to attend a socialist reading group. It was there that I read the Communist Manifesto. It was there that I learned the difference between top-down and bottom-up.
Fast forward. Today, in discussing the issue of terminology, I've decided that there's an exciting new use for the word "bottom-up." There's a problematic set of words used today in the area of digital creative production. We've used the term "user generated content," which implies that users are a lesser species of producer. We've used the term "social content," which implies that all results of such production are either produced socially or with an overtly social intent.
I'm now thinking that it makes very good sense to advance the term "bottom-up production." This term carries some different connotations to the other two mentioned above. Instead of creating a difference between user and creator, it merely implies a difference in power. A bottom-up creator is one who does not wield traditional trappings of creative power. She may not be professionally classified as a writer/designer/musician/director/whatever, she may not earn a living from her work or be employed in a creative capacity. This does not mean that we need to refer to her simply as a user. The term user renders her passive. It implies that someone else is the creator and that the production of the user is not real creation.
Thus, the term bottom-up production lends a different sort of connotation. It does not make judgements on the ability or classification of the producer, merely on the sort of power and position she wields. She is not a passive user. She is, instead, an active creator, merely one who happens to be operating from a place of potentially marginal power. But that doesn't mean that her output will be any less valid or good. In fact, the work of bottom-up creative producers may just have the agility and perspective to be far more interesting than that of top-down creative producers.
Fast forward. Today, in discussing the issue of terminology, I've decided that there's an exciting new use for the word "bottom-up." There's a problematic set of words used today in the area of digital creative production. We've used the term "user generated content," which implies that users are a lesser species of producer. We've used the term "social content," which implies that all results of such production are either produced socially or with an overtly social intent.
I'm now thinking that it makes very good sense to advance the term "bottom-up production." This term carries some different connotations to the other two mentioned above. Instead of creating a difference between user and creator, it merely implies a difference in power. A bottom-up creator is one who does not wield traditional trappings of creative power. She may not be professionally classified as a writer/designer/musician/director/whatever, she may not earn a living from her work or be employed in a creative capacity. This does not mean that we need to refer to her simply as a user. The term user renders her passive. It implies that someone else is the creator and that the production of the user is not real creation.
Thus, the term bottom-up production lends a different sort of connotation. It does not make judgements on the ability or classification of the producer, merely on the sort of power and position she wields. She is not a passive user. She is, instead, an active creator, merely one who happens to be operating from a place of potentially marginal power. But that doesn't mean that her output will be any less valid or good. In fact, the work of bottom-up creative producers may just have the agility and perspective to be far more interesting than that of top-down creative producers.
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