Historical forms of user production

Common conceptions of user production overstate its novelty while understating its variety. To respond to these lacks, this article develops an analytic map that enables a more nuanced historical and critical understanding and investigation of user production. Historical approaches are well suited for capturing the multifarious forms of user production while also avoiding the problem of a-historicism. The article develops a contextual typology of user production by theorizing it as a cultural form. Primary forms discussed include those of buyer; source, subject, interviewee; contestant; supplier; financier; inventor; activist; and member, all of which are related to their generative formations and conditions. The article concludes by suggesting the kinds of questions and studies that such a framework makes possible.