Clay Shirky 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?

It can be a tool for change, social justice and free expression if used correctly.

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

The network doesn’t care what the data means or how it is used. Fraud, scams, rip-offs

and malicious software and the dark web.

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

That to make an open society based around principles of equality of opportunity, social justice and free expression, we need to build it on technologies which are themselves ‘open’. I don't agree with it because I think it will come to be harmful in the future and misused.

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

What could the internet do for you and your friends, and what could you make it do?

So how can the network deliver that?

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

If anything more control because of the people who abuse it. The chaos that Shirky pointed will only get worse.

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?

A profession exists to solve a hard problem one that requires some kind of specialisation. 

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

The idea that someone might build four colour presses that ran around the clock. The idea that the transmission of news via paper might become a bad idea. that printing presses might become steam engines in the age of internal combustion.

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

They wrote bcause of the fact that they did not write about his speech for Thurmond on that Friday and this meant there would be no story on Saturday.

4) What is ‘mass amateurisation’?

The result of the radical spread of expressive capabilities and how non-professionals have applied those capabilities to solve problems that compete with the solutions offered by larger, professional institutions.

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 is because if there is a surplus of fake, made up information then professional outlets lose their credibility because they are not produced as widely. One idea is being reinforced, although fake, through the frequency and audience but the other does not have that affect (the professionals) because they do not have that same reach and because it's a 'one to many' dynamic

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?

That social effects lag behind technological ones by decades. I think so because he's suggesting that people haven't made a significant change rather it's technology which has advanced which has impacted humans.

7) Shirky says that “anyone can be a publisher… [and] anyone can be a journalist”. What does this mean and why is it important?

He's essentially saying that people have the power to become an active audience and because this feel like they have the power to publish whatever. It is the end of 'one to many' and start of 'many to many' because everyone becomes a port of information rather that one central point.

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?   

It broke more things than it fixed, essentially making things worse than they already were.

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

This because phones with high quality cameras have made things easier with technology and is not the same as a traditional camera and dark rooms.

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? 

I agree somewhat. I mean everything becomes messy when everyone becomes a 'publisher' but him preferring a central source of information is just limiting. That will only stunt social effects more.