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?

-"The network doesn’t care what the data means or how it is used, and that is its main strength and main weakness. It means the Net is open to innovation like email, the web, Spotify or Snapchat – but is also makes it next to impossible to stop spam, abuse or the trading of images of child abuse. These two sides of the network are always with us."

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."

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?

-"Access to dissenting or distinct voices could be limited and managed."

-"It could be a regulated, managed and limited network, of the sort being constructed in China and Libya."

-"We could choose the apparent safety of a closed network and a closed society."

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

-There should be more control on the internet because the younger generation have access to the internet to easily, which leads to them have access to all the wrong things on the internet and this will damage their minds and change them for the the future. for example they shouldn't be to access violent video games that easily at a young age because studies show that it can make them more violent.

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?

-"To label something a profession means to define the ways in which it is more than just a job. In the case of newspapers, professional behaviour is guided both by the commercial imperative and by an additional set of norms about what news- papers are, how they should be staffed and run, what constitutes good journalism, and so forth."

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

-"The newspaper used to be a pretty good answer to that question, but like all such answers, it was dependent on what other solutions were avail-able. Television and radio obviously changed the landscape in which the newspaper operated, but even then printed news had a monopoly on the written word-until the Web came along. The Web didn't introduce a new competitor into the old

ecosystem, as USA Today had done. The Web created a new ecosystem."

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

-Because "two weeks later, having been rebuked by President Bush and by politicians and the press on both the right and the left for his comment, Lott announced that he would not seek to remain majority leader in the new Congress."

4) What is ‘mass amateurisation’?

-Mass amateurisation occurs by removing or weakening the entry barriers to a professional field.

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 current media landscape and fake news because when several places are publishing news over time some of them will take news the wrong way and publish it for the audiences to see and they would believe the fake news, also some publishes put out fake news as a way to gain clout and make conversations.

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?

-The effect that tech changes has on the internet means that we are in chaos, this is because traditionally the news was filtered then publishes but now it has changes to publish then filter. This is because audience want to create conversation between themselves 

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

-Traditionally consumers would only read what was publishes but over time they have also become publishers because they can give out their own opinions and make their own platforms where they publish news, this is because they have more control now that they have digital media to get their voices across.

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?

-He suggest that the newspaper industry has been taken over by the internet as people find it easier to access it.

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

-Amateurs had no outlet for selling their photos, no matter what the quality, leaving the market to professionals. Because one of the services provided by professionals was the simple availability and find-ability of their photos relative to the amateurs, they commanded a premium for each photo sold.

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 allowing both professionals and amateurs allows the audiences to see both sides of it,because professionals can filter then publish,whereas amateurs publish and then get filters