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?

- We could email and exchange files with people

- We had access to a way to talk to hundreds of thousands of other computer users around the world.

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

It makes it next to impossible to stop spam, abuse or the trading of images of child abuse. Also show how using social media has become such a normal thing now and so many people have started using it without even knowing what they're actually using. 

3) What does ‘open technology’ refer to? Do you agree with the idea of ‘open technology’?

The openness shows how the media gives people a voice to talk about different subjects openly.

4) Bill Thompson outlines some of the challenges and questions for the future of the internet. What are they?

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

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.

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

'How society will be informed of the news of the day.'

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

4) What is ‘mass amateurisation’?

Refers to the capabilities that new forms of media have given to non-professionals and the ways in which those non-professionals have applied those capabilities to solve problems.

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 applied to today's media landscape as soon as one big thing happens all media platforms and companies start talking about it and giving their opinion and some even end up being biased. 

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 we are perhaps in a state of chaos as revolutions involve going from point A to point B, with a state of chaos on the way.

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 defines the idea of 'end of audience' as today's media and especially social media gives everyone a platform and the chance to become an influencer, publisher, journalist due to social media.

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?

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

Because on social media platforms such as Snapchat, Instagram and so on, people are able to create an image for themselves .An individual with a camera or a keyboard is now a non-profit of one, and self-publishing is now the normal case.

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?