OSP: 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?

It is made it next to impossible to stop spam, abuse or the trading of images of child abuse.

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

Today, the network is becoming invisible, as connectivity becomes seamless, pervasive and

fast enough to just work most of the time. We stop seeing it – we only see the connectivity. The internet  delivers freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of the press in a single connection. It’s only vital to the livelihood, social lives, health, civic engagement, education and leisure of hundreds of millions of people

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

The belief for an open society based around principles of equality of opportunity, social justice and free expression, we need to build it on technologies which are themselves ‘open’, and that this is the only way to encourage a diverse online culture that allows all voices to be heard. I think the idea of 'open technology' needs to be more specific because unlimited, open access is too risky.

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

Privacy – how can the network deliver that?

Information and surveillance-  how do we deliver news media that can operate effectively online and still make money?

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

The internet is the fastest evolution that impacts billions of people so I think there should be more regulation especially with the access to AI. The internet is the fastest evolution that impacts billions of people 

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 specialisation. In the case of newspapers, professional behaviour is guided both by the commercial imperative and by an additional set of norms about what newspapers are, how they should be staffed and run, what constitutes good journalism, and so forth.

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

The permanently important question is how society will be informed of the news of the day. The newspaper used to be a pretty good answer to that question, but like all such answers, it was dependent on what other solutions were available.

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

the press almost completely missed the story. This isn't to say that they intentionally ignored it; several reporters from national news media heard Lott speak, but his remark simply didn't fit the standard template of news. Because Thurmond's birthday was covered as a salutary event instead of as a political one, the actual contents of the evening were judged in advance to be relatively unimportant. 

4) What is ‘mass amateurisation’?

Capabilities that new forms of media have given to non-professionals and the ways in which those non-professionals have applied those capabilities to solve problems that compete with the solutions offered by larger, professional institutions.

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’?

News being published multiple times across multiple platforms makes the news less reliable as it is being told by unprofessional 

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?

Social effects lag behind technological ones by decades, 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?

The internet gives consumers to post information about anything and this changes the roles and dynamics from the professional publishers and consumers who now have access to platforms that give them this power. 'The mass amateurization of publishing undoes the limitations inherent in having a small number of traditional press outlets.'

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?

The scribe was the only bulwark against great intellectual loss.

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

If anyone can be a publisher, then anyone can be a journalist. These days everyone has a phone so everyone has access to a camera. Therefore, anyone could be a photographer 

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

I think we are in an era of political and intellectual chaos because consumers wiull not loom to the professionals for news, instead they go to social media where anyone is a journalist. People do not fact check and professionals struggle to compete with prosumers