Clay Shirky: End of audience

 Media Magazine reading

Media Magazine 55 has an overview of technology journalist Bill Thompson’s conference presentation on ‘What has the internet ever done for me?’ It’s an excellent summary of the internet’s brief history and its impact on society. Go to our Media Magazine archive, click on MM55 and scroll to page 13 to read the article ‘What has the internet ever done for me?’ Answer the following questions:

1) Looking over the article as a whole, what are some of the positive developments due to the internet highlighted by Bill Thompson?

- Emailing and exchanging files easier
- Interconnectivity of the world
- Innovation

2) What are the negatives or dangers linked to the development of the internet?

- The network doesn't care about what the data is and how it's used
- Impossible to stop spam, abuse or child abuse

3) What does ‘open technology’ refer to? Do you agree with the idea of ‘open technology’?

The idea that an open society based around principles of equality of opportunity, social justice and free expression is achieved through technology

4) Bill Thompson outlines some of the challenges and questions for the future of the internet. What are they?

- Digital information is hard to control
- Internet is hard to regulate
- Privacy concerns
- The "freedom" people have

5) Where do you stand on the use and regulation of the internet? Should there be more control or more openness? Why?

In my opinion, while I do want openness and freedom in the internet, at the same time I think it should be more controlled - controlling the entire internet is practically impossible, but don't think we shouldn't try at least, for public safety. If it's too free or too controlled, things go wrong; I believe we need a sweet spot.

Clay Shirky: Here Comes Everybody

Clay Shirky’s book Here Comes Everybody charts the way social media and connectivity is changing the world. Read Chapter 3 of his book, ‘Everyone is a media outlet’, and answer the following questions:

1) How does Shirky define a ‘profession’ and why does it apply to the traditional newspaper industry?

A profession exists to solve a hard problem, one that requires some sort of specialization. It applies to the traditional newspaper industry as it's more than just a job.

2) What is the question facing the newspaper industry now the internet has created a “new ecosystem”?

The question raised was how society would be informed of their news nowadays - the internet wasn't a competition to newspapers, but rather a whole new market entirely.

3) Why did Trent Lott’s speech in 2002 become news?

Lott's remarks didn't fit the standard template of news.

4) What is ‘mass amateurization’?

Mass amateurization is a result of the radical spread of expressive capabilities.

5) Shirky suggests that: “The same idea, published in dozens or hundreds of places, can have an amplifying effect that outweighs the verdict from the smaller number of professional outlets.” How can this be linked to the current media landscape and particularly ‘fake news’?

This can link to the current media landscape as everything is quite saturated and gets around fairly, fairly quickly. It can particularly link to fake news seeing as that type of content can easily get shared around due to the ease of access of social media - the same idea being published in dozens and hundreds of places, as suggested before.

6) What does Shirky suggest about the social effects of technological change? Does this mean we are currently in the midst of the internet “revolution” or “chaos” Shirky mentions?

Shirky suggests that social effects lag behind technological ones by decades, and real revolutions don't involve an orderly transition from point A to point B. Rather, they go from A through a long period of chaos and only then reach B.

7) Shirky says that “anyone can be a publisher… [and] anyone can be a journalist”. What does this mean and why is it important?

It means that anyone can make content or publish their viewpoint. It's important as now we have the power of free speech in our world, globally.

8) What does Shirky suggest regarding the hundred years following the printing press revolution? Is there any evidence of this “intellectual and political chaos” in recent global events following the internet revolution?

Shirky claimed that for a hundred years after it started, the printing press broke more things than it fixed, plunging Europe into a period of intellectual and political chaos that ended only in the 1600s. Evidence to suggest this in recent times is the arrest of Josh Wolf, a video blogger who refused to hand over video of a 2005 demonstration he observed in San Francisco.

9) Why is photography a good example of ‘mass amateurization’?

Photography is a good example of mass amateurization as photos can be spread quickly and easily, leaning into the "radical spread" talked about before.

10) What do you think of Shirky’s ideas on the ‘End of audience’? Is this era of ‘mass amateurization’ a positive thing? Or are we in a period of “intellectual and political chaos” where things are more broken than fixed? 

In my opinion, I think Shirky does make some decent points, but not all of it is bad. This era of "mass amateurization" is a positive thing, as innovation and free speech has never been more prevalent in today's culture. However there is some evidence to suggest that we're also in a period of "intellectual and political chaos", due to what's currently going on around the globe, in the news and in society. In general, I don't think it's necessarily good - however that does NOT mean it's necessarily bad either. It's kind of a grey area, I'd say.