Which term describes the rise of audiences as content creators challenging the primacy of professional media?

• A. Cognitive surplus
• B. Web 2.0
• C. Prosumer
• D. Mass amateurisation

Answer: (D)

Audiences becoming producers at scale is described by mass amateurisation. This term captures how digital tools and platforms have lowered the barriers to creating and sharing content, so ordinary people across the population can produce media and challenge the traditional gatekeepers of professional media. It’s about a widespread shift in who can generate content, not just a single person who both consumes and produces.

Web 2.0 is the structural shift that enables participation and sharing, but it’s the environment, not the phenomenon itself. A prosumer focuses on an individual who both produces and consumes, which overlaps with the idea but doesn’t describe the broad, systemic move of many people producing content. Cognitive surplus refers to the potential time and energy people have to contribute, which underpins the trend, but again it’s about the resource rather than the movement. Mass amateurisation best name reflects the widespread rise of amateur producers challenging professional media.