Clay Shirky: End of audience blog tasks
Media Magazine reading-MM55
1) Shirkey believes that "a profession is something that exists to solve a hard problem - one that requires some form of specialisation." An example he gave was about car racing- it requires a professional.
In the newspaper industry, this idea of professionalism can be applied to the concept of having a "good journalist." Traditionally journalists had to be trained in order to know how to seek out newsworthy stories, and how to do so quickly (look for intersting content)
2) The impact from the development of the internet and its "new ecosystem", the newspaper industry is asking question on publishing (changed from "why publish this?" to "why not?")
The internet has amplified the concept of mass-amamteurisation, which is focused less on quality and moreon the amount written. Also, "what happens when there's nothing unique about publishing anymore, because users can do it for themselves?" is anpther question regarding publishing.
3)Lott's speech in 2002 became news because his comment was seen as controversal. He pledged allegiance with Thurmond - a man known for his republican views. So when President Bush and many other politicians confronted Lott about his comments that "if the rest of the country had followed [their] lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems." He undermined the efforts of the current president and politicians who had been hard working in the past years. He lost support and his job.
4) 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) This 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.(links to Steave Neale's Repetition).
6) We are in the midst of an internet revolution because the internet enables us to encourage significant changes, such as Brexit or the Arab Spring. However, this can also be viewed as chaos.
7) It means that audiences are no longer just the people that consume/watch the content but they are now able to create it too, seen as the publishers. This links to his line of "end of audience". People don't need to be professionals to publish. 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. Also, shows how people live in their echo-chambers and produce content the want to.
8) The changes brought about due to the Gutenberg/Printing Press Revolution created great anxiety amongst those who prided themselves on their work/lives. 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. He gave an example of the 'Josh Wolf case' and the rise in 'internet horror stories'- implying that we don't know how may times our content has been manipulated.
9) Photography is a good example of mass-amateurisation because people can take professional, high quality pictures on their smartphones without the use of an expensive digital camera. Traditionally, photography required a professional camera in order to produce high quality photographs Also, dark rooms are no longer needed to develop photographs - they can just be uploaded and edited using a computer/device, such as photoshop. Also, the introduction of social media (Instagram people are able to filter their images to make them look better.
10) I believe that this era of mass amateurisation is a positive change to a certain extent.This is because it means that people be producers and really have an input in the media world, they are able to share their voices and express their opinions on platforms and publish them so people around the world can read them and can agree/disagree with them etc. Allows a diverse view rather than homogeneous/biased.
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, jobs in the industries may be in decline due to the rise of mass amateurisation.
A/A* extension work:
1) Positive developments:
- allow people to exchange things- more efficient
- freedom of speech/assembly/press
- connect us to other people
- source of information
- political awareness/attention on different campaigns
2) The negatives/dangers linked to to the development of the internet:
- cyber bullying
- abusive comments
- illegal images
- extremists/radicals to influence people
3) Open technology refers to the concept of allowing all of the different voices of the internet to be heard, through various platforms. It is argued that digital media is hard to control nowadays as people can change content and publish again.
4) Challenges and questions
- Does open technology mean that free software can be used, changed and redistributed without payment or permission?
- Does the internet allows computers to exchange data, even though the network doesn't actually understand the meaning of what is being exchanged?
Clay Shirky: Here Comes Everybody
1) Shirkey believes that "a profession is something that exists to solve a hard problem - one that requires some form of specialisation." An example he gave was about car racing- it requires a professional.
In the newspaper industry, this idea of professionalism can be applied to the concept of having a "good journalist." Traditionally journalists had to be trained in order to know how to seek out newsworthy stories, and how to do so quickly (look for intersting content)
2) The impact from the development of the internet and its "new ecosystem", the newspaper industry is asking question on publishing (changed from "why publish this?" to "why not?")
The internet has amplified the concept of mass-amamteurisation, which is focused less on quality and moreon the amount written. Also, "what happens when there's nothing unique about publishing anymore, because users can do it for themselves?" is anpther question regarding publishing.
3)Lott's speech in 2002 became news because his comment was seen as controversal. He pledged allegiance with Thurmond - a man known for his republican views. So when President Bush and many other politicians confronted Lott about his comments that "if the rest of the country had followed [their] lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems." He undermined the efforts of the current president and politicians who had been hard working in the past years. He lost support and his job.
4) 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) This 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.(links to Steave Neale's Repetition).
6) We are in the midst of an internet revolution because the internet enables us to encourage significant changes, such as Brexit or the Arab Spring. However, this can also be viewed as chaos.
7) It means that audiences are no longer just the people that consume/watch the content but they are now able to create it too, seen as the publishers. This links to his line of "end of audience". People don't need to be professionals to publish. 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. Also, shows how people live in their echo-chambers and produce content the want to.
8) The changes brought about due to the Gutenberg/Printing Press Revolution created great anxiety amongst those who prided themselves on their work/lives. 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. He gave an example of the 'Josh Wolf case' and the rise in 'internet horror stories'- implying that we don't know how may times our content has been manipulated.
9) Photography is a good example of mass-amateurisation because people can take professional, high quality pictures on their smartphones without the use of an expensive digital camera. Traditionally, photography required a professional camera in order to produce high quality photographs Also, dark rooms are no longer needed to develop photographs - they can just be uploaded and edited using a computer/device, such as photoshop. Also, the introduction of social media (Instagram people are able to filter their images to make them look better.
10) I believe that this era of mass amateurisation is a positive change to a certain extent.This is because it means that people be producers and really have an input in the media world, they are able to share their voices and express their opinions on platforms and publish them so people around the world can read them and can agree/disagree with them etc. Allows a diverse view rather than homogeneous/biased.
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, jobs in the industries may be in decline due to the rise of mass amateurisation.
A/A* extension work:
- Read chapters 1 & 4.
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