Sagittarius
In my mind, closed culture is defined by gatekeepers, so it's traditional culture as we understand it. Take a newspaper, for example, where you have editors and publishers within a closed ecosystem, and out of all that, you get the ultimate product: the information and the content. The upshot of that is the blogosphere, which is completely the opposite. Anyone can publish, and it doesn't require any particular skills. Everyone has access to the same information, so it's a network economy.
Of course, in my book The Cult Of The Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture, I've referred to some of the people engaging in this network economy as 'exuberant monkeys.' When I called them monkeys, that was just a metaphor. I'm not suggesting they're really primates; they are as human as I am, so it was slightly tongue-in-cheek, although if I was referred to as a monkey, I wouldn't find it funny either. I don't necessarily hold this group in disdain; I respect them as people and I believe they are doing their best. What I'm critical of is the idea that they are as capable of generating information and entertainment as reliably as professionals.
I'm concerned that the idealists behind open culture think that these people - these amateurs, these intermediate innocents - are capable of replacing established closed media. I think it will result in profound media illiteracy in our society because we won't know where to look or who to trust or what to know. The closed media does a reasonably good job of creating the foundation for media literacy. There are always scandals and criticisms one can make, but it generally does a decent job because it's an ecosystem that has been built up by many decades.
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"Having said all that, you
By jdenton, June 29, 2007 at 15:10"Having said all that, you clearly see the significant layoffs in the music business, the collapse of retail and the massive layoffs among journalists in mainstream newspapers-the storm will quickly engulf the television, the movie industry, and ultimately, even the publishing industry. All these are consequences of the digital revolution."
Yup, and in 1980 the digital revolution was going to give us the 'paperless office'. If these predictions had been made in 1995, they might have been believable. To seriously claim today that the television, movie and publishing industries are under immediate threat from the democratic creation of digital content is laughable. Business models have and will continue to adapt in order to protect enormous interests and guess what, people still read books. Why, I even read one last week...and my wife and kids read too!
So please, don't fear the YouTube flunkies. Are they a passing fad? No. Will they ever define culture? Sure they will - for a certain demographic. But it ticks me off when the elites assume we're all too stupid to decide high culture for ourselves and, if it weren't for their guidance, we'd all be drooling chimps squealing over the latest web video vulgarity. Please!
Re: How The Internet And Innocence Kill Culture
By johnhatch, August 10, 2008 at 15:21I think Mr. Keen is trying to make a meal out of some pretty thin gruel.
Kill culture? I think the internet has enriched it by readily providing vast instantaneous information to anyone who wants it.
Of course one has to check for veracity, but that is true of all media. If I write something for ICH or Orato, I'm as careful as any 'trained' journalist. This is out of respect for potential readers, my own reputation, and the truth.
The popularity of 'citizen journalism' has come about precisely (in part) because the so-called mainstream media cannot be trusted. As such I have been published alongside the likes of Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Ralph Nader, Gore Vidal, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, John Pilger, Harold Pinter, to name a few. Many of my articles have been reprinted at many sources, from Moscow to the Philippines. I may not get paid, but nor am I in anyone's pocket. No one tells me what to say, or not say. My pieces aren't news, they are just opinion pieces. Editorials. Agree or not, but it's to my advantage to get my facts straight and to try to write in a manner that readers will find interesting.
According to Mr. Keen, we should accept what 'professionals' like Judith Miller write.
If the New York Times is the newspaper of record, then we're in a lot of trouble.
The Wall Street Journal is now owned by Rupert Murdoch, and now is even more a biased shill for the neo-cons.
I'm not really interested in listening to what Sun Yeung Moon has to say, although George W. Bush is, and is happy to take his money (so was his father).
The people on hate radio make hundreds of millions. That certainly doesn't make them journalists.
Neither is Bill O'Reilly. Fox news has no journalists. Neither does CNN (Wolf Blitzer: 'Thanks for comin' in.')
ABC falsely reported that Saddam was behind the anthrax attacks, claiming four high level sources. They were lied to, but although they have no debt of loyalty to liars, they refuse to expose the liars, and thus the most likely real perps.
The media are guilty of huge sins of commission (propaganda and outright lies), but also sins of omission- anything the authorities don't want mentioned- the truth behind 9/11, the truth about war in Afghanistan and Iraq, torture, kidnappings, murder, and on and on. New Orleans. Blackwater. Halliburton. Corruption in the VP's office. The sub-prime scandal. No bid contracts.The state of health care. The state of education. Big pharma. Etc.
In the US (and to a large extent in Canada) with a few exceptions there is no longer a functioning independent media. Do you think you'll learn the truth about Israel's brutal 60 year holocaust in an Asper-owned newspaper? Was Time magazine ever independent of Republican party bias? Even the Reader's Digest used to be (and probably still is) a source for CIA planted stories.
In the face of so much paid media prostitution, to argue that citizens seeking truth are somehow 'killing culture' is beyond ludicrous.