Mass Amateurization

“Mass Amateurization”, as described in the reading "Everyone is a Media Outlet” by Clay Shirky, refers to the global effect of the internet on our society and culture, specifically, the means to produce media content and distribute it to the public. It is “a result of the radical spread of expressive capabilities”, such as the capabilities that the internet provides in distributing media content. The rise of the internet as a new form of media opened the door to a new communications ecosystem, one which is no longer controlled by a relative small group of professionals, a “professional class”, as Shirky refers to them, but instead, every member of society can now effortlessly produce and distribute content which can reach a very wide audience.

While media professionals, such as journalists, photographers, writers, graphic-designers, editors, etc., are considered ones who obtain specialized skills for producing media content and publish it, a change can be identified, as the ability to produce and distribute media content is now very simple and available to everyone. This kind of change can be seen as part of what Shirky describes as “radical changes in the overall ecosystem of information”. Although we are still bound to traditional definitions of professionalism, and we don’t consider everyone who has access to produce media over the internet as a media professional in the same way as we look at formally titled media professionals categories, the information ecosystem includes now not only media professionals but the reality of “Mass Amateurization”.

The outcome of this concept according to Shirky is that the distinction between professionalism and amateurism is now being challenged and is weakening, or as Shirky puts it “Mass Amateurization Breaks Professional Categories”, an event in our history that according to Shirky cannot be undone. As a result, media professionals and the firms who have their business plans and profits based on the demand of professional services now need to work harder, adapt, and find new ways to make more money, as technology has made traditional tasks more simple to everyone now.

While thinking about “Mass Amateurization”, what pops into my mind immediately is how the website youtube, for example, enables a platform to anyone to publish media content of any kind and especially, when such content reaches an extreme popularity, it becomes so important that it even reaches the news broadcasts. Such content, therefore, is not presented to the public as part of selective information controlled by media professionals, but instead it is triggered by us, the general public. For example, Chris Croker’s “Leave Britney Alone!” youtube video, which at the time of writing this post has reached 39,920,613 views, was a huge youtube hit which made it to the news and gained the author of the video great popularity.

The future of media professionals, as I see it, will entail new possibilities. While the demand of traditional professional categories will be reduced substantially, new categories will emerge. For example, we can already observe now the various social media experts who specialize in utilizing the web for advertising and massive communications. Also, I believe that there will always be some gap, either intellectual or artistic, between those who we will consider as professionals and the rest.

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