Thursday, August 4, 2011

Mass Amateurization - Edina Kacic


Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody opens his chapter, “Everyone Is A Media Outlet” with a short paragraph about social tools we use today. “Our social tools remove older obstacles to public expression, and thus remove the bottlenecks that characterized mass media. The result is the mass amateurization of efforts previously reserved for media professionals” (55). A lot of people complain about the Internet and social media especially as ruining society in many different ways but as Shirky explains, social media is in fact empowering young people in ways that many believed to be unimaginable.


Shirky discusses the idea of the “professional” in this chapter, quoting UCLA sociologist, James Q. Wilson. “A professional is someone who receives important occupational rewards from a reference group whose membership is limited to people who have undergone specialized formal education and have accepted a group-defined code of proper conduct” (58). Basically, a professional is one who has gone to an institute of higher education and knows how to behave in certain situations.


The discussion of amateurism is first mentioned as copyability as described by Shirky. “As new capabilities go, unlimited perfect copyability is a lulu, and that capability now exists in the hands of everyone who owns a computer. Digital means of distributing words and images have robbed newspapers of the coherence they formerly had” (59). What can be considered the “problem” with amateurism is what makes it such an amazing thing that people can take part in. The “problem” is that with social media tools, news can be shared and posted faster than ever, much faster than a newspaper can print the same story. Why should people have to wait until the morning newspaper to be printed in order to receive news that might have happened in the middle of the day. And sure, television news outlets might be able to call “breaking news” and interrupt whatever programming might be on the television at the time but how fast can reporters and their cameramen arrive on the scene of whatever news? The reason why amateurism is so successful is because with the use of a camera phone which everyone has today, an event can be captured and posted onto Facebook and Twitter with the click of a button. Today, people should be worried that a news source - online, printed or otherwise - is engaging in copyability of amateur reporters. Why can CNN take a video of something a citizen at the scene taped via their cell phone and then post in on their website as breaking news? Because of the whole idea of “professionalism”. CNN reporters are “specially trained” to report on the news and events of the world because they have graduated from a university and have all the world’s experience and other things that make me say blah blah blah.


An interesting point that Shirky brings up is Martin Luther’s 95 Theses during the Protestant Reformation. He writes, “Two things are true about the remaking of the European intellectual landscape during the Protestant Reformation: first, it was not caused by the invention of movable type, and second, it was possible only after the invention of movable type, which aided the rapid dissemination of Martin Luther’s complaints about the Catholic Church (the 95 Theses) and the spread of Bibles printed in local languages, among its other effects” (67). The interesting point about the 95 Theses is that even before social media, the 95 Theses were “passed” around widely due to people posting them all over in different places kind of acting as amateurism in itself.


The media professional will always be largely based on social media tools. As long as people are becoming more empowered by citizen journalism as discussed by Ralph E. Hanson in Chapter 10 of his book, Mass Communication: Living in a Media World, amateurism will be long lasting. The reason why citizen journalism is becoming such a powerful thing is because it is allowing people who are denied a voice to express themselves via another medium. The best example of this is discussed in Hanson’s chapter with the story of Neda Agha-Soltan whose death became known as “probably the most widely witnessed death in human history” (The Top 10 of Everything 2009, Time). Had the story not been filmed on the spot by people with camera phones, the world may never have known about the “unintentional hero” who was shot in the heart.


I end my post as what I think to be unfinished. As I learn more about amateurism and citizen journalism, I hope to become better at understanding what this could possibly mean for myself and my future. As of right now, LONG LIVE AMATEURISM and CITIZEN JOURNALISM!


References:


Shirky, Clay. "Everyone Is a Media Outlet." Here Comes Everybody: the Power of Organizing without Organizations. New York: Penguin, 2008. 55-80. Print.


Hanson, Ralph E. "Chapter 10." Mass Communication: Living in a Media World. Washington, D.C.: CQ, 2008. Print.


Time Magazine http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1945379_1944701_1944705,00.html

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