My thesis

During the last 5-10 years it has become increasingly hard to provide sufficient funding within many business areas, mostly due to both structural changes and, in the last years, the global financial crisis. The media business, especially the film business, has been doubly impacted, as new ways of distributing film and TV (legally and illegally) is challenging the traditional business model. As a result, especially producers of low budget films, has begun looking for new ways of both financing the films and contributing ideas and content to the film.

My thesis analysed one such film production: The finnish Sci-Fi comedy Iron Sky. It has been pioneering in its application of both crowdfunding and crowdsourcing, but has the success come at a cost? Which problems arise when collaborating with fans, and does the collaboration yield any conflicts of interest between professionals and amateurs?

To provide the basis for an analysis of the processes involved, a number of theories and methods has been applied: Netnography, gift economy, Levys theories about Collective Intelligence, Experience Economy and, as to provide some empirical data, interviews with people closely involved with the Iron Sky project.