OSP: Clay Shirky - End of audience

 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?
It allows people to share their opinions more openly as more people are able to see it, this can also range to news and how majority of people can read them.

2) What are the negatives or dangers linked to the development of the internet?
There are some people who use the internet in an abusive manner such as cyberbullying, grooming or engage into extremist groups.

3) What does ‘open technology’ refer to? Do you agree with the idea of ‘open technology’?
Refers to the openness of the internet and how there are many different opinions and views on things that people will put on the internet.

4) Bill Thompson outlines some of the challenges and questions for the future of the internet. What are they?
He talks about how the media is now pervasive and how all the problems such as child abuse may prevail on the platforms and how they are not being regulated enough to keep them safe.

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

I think that the internet should have some more regulations in terms of safety of children especially as there are many things a child can accidentally come across on and could possible affect them negatively, but in a way that it doesn't completely obstruct regular competent users of the internet so that everything they do is considered "unsuitable for children" as there are older people who use the internet as well.

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?
He says: "A profession exists to solve a hard problem, one that requires some sort of specialization."

2) What is the question facing the newspaper industry now the internet has created a “new ecosystem”?
As the newspaper relies on paper and ink to function we can see how the internet has gotten rid of that aspect and now people are able to read them online, He also writes: "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?
Lott talked about his campaign for president and Thurmond, but then was rebuked by President Bush and the press.

4) What is ‘mass amateurisation’?

The concept of everyone being able to produce and publish content.

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’?
Fake news is something that can be repeated and not easy to notice at times, so it makes it so that they seem real sometimes.

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?

Could be seen as a revolution with unforeseen outcomes as we never truly know what will happen with the internet and how volatile people can be.


7) Shirky says that “anyone can be a publisher… [and] anyone can be a journalist”. What does this mean and why is it important?
So called "audiences" can now participate to become the producers, this is important as it implies that no one is truly and audience but has the power to become a producer

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 Guttenburg Print made is so that scribes were no longer needed, this was also a problem as being a scribe at the time was a required profession.

9) Why is photography a good example of ‘mass amateurisation’?
Anybody can do it on most devices and still have a high quality image come out, there are many software such as photoshop in which people can alter an image and how some apps come with an inbuilt filter and how they can also edit their image.

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 it could be a positive thing as it allows people to express their creativity more freely and towards more people than if they just did it without the internet, however I do think that sometimes it can be bad as there are people who are comprising things they own or their futures to become a producer of some sort.