When Clay Shirky says “mass amateurization,” (in terms of journalism) he is referring to a large flood of amateurs that “act” as professionals because they now more than ever have the means to publish and create news. People nowadays don’t have to wait on professional news outlets to deliver news. Why? Because social media “journalists” (they aren’t really) and web bloggers can write and publish “news.” When print media, newspapers in particular, became popular, newspapers were competing with each other. They still do. However, in this age of the internet, where almost anything and everything lives online, newspapers should be less concerned with each other and more concerned (if they’re not already) with mass amateurization.
“The principal threat to all newspapers big and small [is] not competition from other newspapers but radical changes in the overall ecosystem of information,” wrote Shirky in Everyone is a Media Outlet. “Now, though, the problems of production, reproduction, and distribution are much less serious. As a consequence, control over the media is less completely in the hands of the professionals.”
It’s as if the professionals were sidetracked by the power of the internet, and mass amateurization comes with its negative side effects. The amateurs are now making and spreading news (which can either one of two things: beneficial or catastrophic), and republishing old news that most of the time has no business reappearing. Mass amateurization is also making professional journalism less relevant.
The New York Times can say one thing, and a blogger from Minnesota can say another, and millions will believe either/or, but never both. This also contributes to the lack faith many people have in journalism, especially in western media (which deserves an entirely separate and lengthy discussion). Although, we can blame the internet to this slight shift in power (where amateurs now have louder voices than they did before), we have to put some of this blame on the profession and its professionals.
“Many people in the newspaper business...missed the significance of the internet,” said Shirky. “For people with a professional outlook, it’s hard to understand how something that isn’t professionally produced could affect them...There was a kind of a narcissistic bias in the profession; the only threats they tended to take seriously were from other professional media outlets…”
However, professional journalists are usually concerned with what other professional journalists think of them or what they are also doing, which is when this reality of mass amateurization may actually be beneficial. For example, if professionals are looking to the left, and one amateur is looking to the right… that one blogger can ultimately have the power to make everyone look their way, including the professionals. This gives professionals the chance to be unbiased.
Mass Amateurization has definitely factored into the majority of media shifting from print to online, where professional media outlets look to specifically hire specialized bloggers to work for them because audiences like it when journalists talk to them and not at them. Mass amateurization can be beneficial to professional journalists. I many ways, they can keep us on our toes. Did you fact check? Were you there? What are your sources? Etc. However, amateurs should be there to challenge professionals for the truth, not for their jobs.
With that said, what personally does not make sense to me is how many media outlets exist that are not as reliable as others, and are still in business. How professional are these “professionals?”
“Mass amateurization is a result of the radical spread of expressive capabilities,” Shirky said.
This goes beyond freedom of speech (verbal). Generally speaking, anyone can go online and write anything they want. Anyone can make a blog, make a social media account and pose as a journalist, which brings into my next concern... Facebook news (disclaimer: I am more familiar with Facebook than Twitter). EVERYONE becomes a journalist during war times, presidential elections, shootings, fires, etc. Reality and Falsehood mix together, readers begin to notice, and guess who gets blamed? Journalists. Mass amateurization is a reality. I am not denying, nor do I want it to cease to exist. I do, however, wish that there was some type of internet filter that separates the true from the false, and past occurrences from present ones.
Another disclaimer: Pros vs. Joes is a show I used to watch when I was younger. Professional athletes would compete against amateur athletes in a series of obstacles... It was fascinating, and this topic reminded me of it. Pros would not always prevail, hence the title.
Shirky, Clay. "Everyone Is a Media Outlet." Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations. New York: Penguin, 2008. Print.
No comments:
Post a Comment