Clay Shirky: End of audience blog tasks

Clay Shirky: End of audience

Media Magazine reading

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

- we could email and exchange files with people at other universities.

- we had access to a way to talk to hundreds of thousands of other computer users around the world.

- at the same time to be acutely aware of what it is, how it works, and how to ensure it is a tool for active citizenship, free expression and social justice, rather than one for oppression, surveillance, control and repression.

- The network connects us to other people, it provides a great source of information, it can be used for campaigning and political action, to draw attention to abuses and fight for human rights. It’s a great place for gaming and education, which can also be used to make a lot of money (for a few people) as well as a place where you can meet your friends.

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

- A lot of bullying and abuse takes place there.

- There’s pornography that you don’t want to see, and illegal images of child abuse that you might come across. 

- Extremists and radicals can use the network to try to influence people to join their cause, and fraud, scams, ripoffs and malicious software are everywhere. 

= Then there’s the dark web, made up of websites and online services accessed via specialised browsers and tools that make it very hard to identify who is using them, which is used to sell drugs and for other illegal activity.

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

The idea of ‘openness’ lies at the centre of this debate: I believe that if we want 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.

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

Digital information is very hard to control in an open world, because it arrives in a form that allows it to be manipulated by its recipient. When you listen to the radio or record a TV programme, all you can easily do with the result is listen or watch again. You may be able to select which bits you watch, but transforming the stored form is complex and often impossible.

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

The fact that we currently have a mostly open network is no reason to believe that there is a pre-ordained path towards constant improvement as we deploy advanced digital technologies throughout the world. Different choices could be made at every stage, and the outcome is far from determined. It could be a regulated, managed and limited network, of the sort being constructed in China and Libya. Access to dissenting or distinct voices could be limited and managed.

Clay Shirky: Here Comes Everybody

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

A profession is something that exists to solve a hard problem - typically one that requires some form of specialisation. (For example a race car driver requires specialised training in order to ensure that he/she can drive the car safely and at speed).

In the newspaper industry, this idea of professionalism can be applied to the concept of having a "good journalist." Journalists traditionally needed to be trained in order to know how to seek out newsworthy stories, and how to do so quickly.

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

As a result of the development of the internet and its "new ecosystem", the newspaper industry now ask different questions regarding publishing. The questions have changed from "why publish this?" to "why not?" The internet has promoted this concept of mass amateurisation and therefore, there seems to be less focus on the quality of the news - mainly the quantity. Another question is "what happens when there's nothing unique about publishing anymore, because users can do it for themselves?"

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

Lott remembered and praised Thurmond's presidential campaign of fifty years earlier and recalled Mississippi's support for it: "I want to say  this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."

4) What is ‘mass amateurisation’?

The growth in the amount of self-published content found on the internet. The idea of everyone being able to produce and publish content as well as consume it.

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 suggestion links to the concept of fake news because it implies that if one news story is consistently repeated throughout the media, then it is more likely to be repeated. Frequency acts as a determinant as to whether something is believed. For example, if nearly all the major newspapers report on climate change being a lie, then people will be more likely to believe them over a small group of professionals saying otherwise.

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?

We are in the midst of an internet revolution because the internet enables us to encourage significant changes. On the other hand, this can also be viewed as chaos because the changes that come about as a result of the internet cannot always be controlled/are not always changes that we welcome. 

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 audiences are no longer just the people that consume/watch the content but they are now able to create it too. This also means that people do not need to be trained to a high standard in order to create news stories. This is important as it hints at the fact that the quality of news may decrease as a result of audiences having less professional skills/know-how when it comes to compiling news stories etc.

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 changes brought about due to the Gutenberg/Printing Press Revolution created great anxiety amongst those who prided themselves on their work/lives as scribes. Because a quicker, more efficient method of printing words in masses was introduced, it meant that these scribes were no longer needed. Being a scribe was a respectable job because you needed a great deal of literacy in order to do so. Therefore, when the job of a scribe could be done by anyone operating the newspaper, this acted as a form of intellectual chaos. 

Recent examples of political chaos - people agreeing with different political parties despite not truly knowing what they mean.

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

Traditionally, photography required a professional camera in order to produce high quality photographs. However, due to the developments in technology, this is no longer needed. People can simply take professional, high quality pictures on their phone without having to spend hundreds on a digital camera. Additionally, dark rooms are no longer needed to develop photographs - they can just be uploaded and edited using a computer/device.

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 that this era of mass amateurisation is a good thing to some extent. This is because it means that people can now add to the media and really develop their own voice by contributing to the news in their own ways. This is a positive thing because it increases the range of opinions and perceptions shared in the media; thus, enabling the media to remain diverse.

On the other hand, it may also be a negative thing because it means that the quality of news is also decreasing due to the lack of professionalism of amateur journalists. Also, it means that those attempting to find professions in the newspaper/journalism industry have more difficulties in doing so because professionally trained journalists are no longer needed.