Clay Shirky: End of audience blog tasks

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?

• The internet is open to innovation like email, the web, Spotify or Snapchat

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

• The network doesn’t care what the data means or how it is used, and that is its main strength and main weakness.
• makes it next to impossible to stop spam, abuse or the trading of images of child abuse.

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?

• Does it mean an internet built around the ‘end-to-end’ principle, where any connected computer can exchange data with any other computer, while the network itself is unaware of the ‘meaning’ of the bits exchanged?
• Does it mean computers that will run any program written for them, rather than requiring them to be vetted and approved by gateway companies?
• Does it mean free software that can be used, changed and redistributed by anyone without payment or permission?

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

• Personally I believe that it is almost impossible to completely regulate the internet as by regulating what people can say or do you can hinder your target audiences ability to utilise the services while the people you want to prevent from doing inappropriate things find loopholes and alternative services in order to continue doing as they please without facing any consequences. I believe that making an attempt to regulate certain things is necessary as it should be difficult for people to access content that breaks the law and it should be kept away from places where younger people could potentially have access to e.g. YouTube.

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.
• Most professions exist because there is a scarce resource that requires ongoing management: newspaper executives are responsible for deciding what goes on the front page.

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

• The future presented by the internet is the mass amateurization of publishing and a switch from "Why publish this ?" to "Why not?"

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

• After initially being ignored by the press due to the event being deemed unimportant it was then picked up by both republican and democrat blogs online who then dug deeper finding out more about Trent Lott causing the news to finally speak on what happened.

4) What is ‘mass amateurisation’?

• Mass amateurisation is a result of the radical spread of expressive capabilities, and the most obvious precedent is the one that gave birth to the modern world: the spread of the printing press five centuries ago.

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’?

• The influence of fake news and misinformation has been amplified by the Internet, due to the combination of audiences' lack of trust in traditional news outlets and the lack of regulation as to what can be posted by anybody. 

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 the social effects of technological change fully manifest themselves much later after the actual changes in the infrastructure have taken place, using the example of the printing press. 

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 enables anybody to publish their content and work for an audience of millions to see. This contradicts the traditional model of professional work where producers of media would gatekeep the ability to disseminate their content to the public through occupations such as one of a journalist.

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 suggests that the printing press revolution ushered in an era of intellectual and political chaos that only hit a plateau around the 1600s, as the ability to mass produce texts, such as the Bible, enabled the spread of religion. In comparison, the rapid evolution of the Internet has had a significant impact on society that could be considered greater than the creation of the printing press.

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

• Shirky discusses the traditional practice of photography as having been gatekept by the scarcity of resources available and ability to display work to an audience through industry connections and exhibitions. However, the Internet has allowed amateur photographers to have both of these things in abundance through blog posting and social media. The technology used to produce photography has also become better and cheaper with most people being able to take high quality photos with their mobile phones.

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 believe that it can be both positive while also causing intellectual and political chaos. This era of 'mass amateurisation' has helped people's talents be discovered that would have stayed irrelevant in the past as they wouldn't have been able to find an audience due to their lack of connections in the industry. We are also in a period of intellectual and political chaos as the ability for people to share anything without it being checked has allowed for misinformation to be rampant, additionally the ability to share your opinion without filters has allowed people to spread political chaos as they fight people online who have different opinions then them.

A/A* extension work: Read Chapter 1 ‘It takes a village to find a phone’ and Chapter 4 ‘Publish, then filter’ to further understand Shirky’s ideas concerning the ‘End of audience’.