Clay Shirky: End of audience blog tasks

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 is a good place for people to get information easily, people can publish and collect information much easier, awareness and people can connect with eachother.

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

The negatives are things such as:

- Bullying and abuse 
- Pornography
- Radicals attempting to influence people
- Illegal pictures

3) What does ‘open technology’ refer to? Do you agree with the idea of ‘open technology’?
This term refers to the internet being a platform where everyone's opinions and beliefs can be published but this becomes very hard to control, I do agree that open technology exists.
4) Bill Thompson outlines some of the challenges and questions for the future of the internet. What are they?

He questions whether the internet will allow information to be exchanged without fully knowing what is being exchanged and whether the future of technology will mean that the free software can be changed without pay or permission.

5) Where do you stand on the use and regulation of the internet? Should there be more control or more openness? Why?
In my opinion the fact that there is freedom on the internet is a positive thing because there are so many morals and values we must live by everyday that some people may feel as if they cannot truly express how they feel about certain situations in the world. I also don't believe that there should be too much control because at the end of the day, we all choose what it is we want to see on the internet so we can all satisfy our own needs without causing ourselves harm. However I do believe there should be regulation to a certain extent for things that could potentially harm citizens, for example bullying should be scrutinized and dealt with, sites that deal with pornography which have an age limit should be taken more seriously and have proper rules.

Clay Shirky: Here Comes Everybody

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?

It is defined as something that exists to solve a hard problem, requires some form of specialisation, (e.a race car driver requires specialised training in order to ensure that he/she can drive the car safely and at speed). The idea of professionalism can be applied to the newspaper industry because the journalist had to be skilled in choosing news worthy stories to report on 

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

The questions being asked are why are certain things being published and why things are not, people do not seem to really concentrate on the actual context of what is being reported but if it will interest a large amount of people even though it is not significant.

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

His speech came across as very controversial seeing as he supported Thurmond who had Republican views which seemed condescending of the current politicians and the President who were working extremely hard for the country. 

4) What is ‘mass amateurisation’?

Everyone and anyone being able to publish news and also consume news that has been posted professionally.

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 can be linked to fake news because it is suggesting that if one story is repeated over and over again, may it be true or false, most people will believe it instead of the same story being changed by a small amount of publishers which may be telling the true story.

7) Shirky says that “anyone can be a publisher… [and] anyone can be a journalist”. What does this mean and why is it important?

This highlights the fact that the audience now have access to publish the stories they wish through the internet, all an individual will need is an interesting topic and probably a few images and they can be a journalist and publish news. This is important because people who have no qualifications or have not been taught this profession can now post a story for millions of people to see.

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

Before, in order to get a good quality picture you need to purchase a camera with good quality which would cost hundreds however in the modern people have a good quality camera installed on their phones so they can easily take a picture on their device and even edit it.

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 do agree with the theory of the 'end of audience' because people just have too much freedom and power now to just be passive and take in what we read. We can now create our own blogs or even add to existing blogs, we can comment on news stories and give our opinion however this is positive because it lets us express our opinion. On the other hand it does mean that people who do not research stories properly can post fake news which could have a negative affect on people/