Weapons of Mass Amateurization

When “mass amateurization” comes to mind, “journalism” or “communication” gets linked to it. Why? Because the coined term Clay Shirky brought up in Everyone is a Media Outlet, if broken down, means a massive amount of people joining the media bandwagon. Just as it reflects the title, everyone DOES become a media outlet if the right equipment and resources are used properly. In other words, there’s a great potential rise in citizen journalism. Thanks to handheld devices called smart phones, anyone is able to document incidents and share them to the world in a matter of seconds or minutes.

Twitter and Facebook seems to be the leading contenders into reshaping the media revolution of our time. As brought up in group 1’s presentation, the Arab Spring is a perfect example to how revolution changed. Through cellphones and internet, Arabian communities were able to get in contact with Arabians outside of their countries as well as non-Arabians. Photos and video clips of the daily events that go on, from Tunisia to Egypt, Facebook was utilized at its fullest.

"In the same way you don't have to be a professional driver to drive, you no longer have to be a professional publisher to publish,” Shirky said in his piece (66). The use of citizen journalism is so convenient as these people are “on-the-scene” reporters compared to journalists who actually need to transport themselves over to get the coverage done. They may be amateur in the sense that they do not have the “skills” or the knowledge that a journalist has, but the plus is the fact that the content is first-hand and quick. As mentioned before, the only downfall is the lack of experience.

As for Why Heather Can Write in Jenkins’ book, the use of fan fiction is quite a parallel to citizen journalism but does take on a new kind of twist to “mass amateurization”. Daily Prophet is “a web-based school newspaper operating within the fictional world of the Harry Potter novels" Jenkins (177). As the objective of these fanfiction pieces are to bring out the strong points of literacy between young writers, it also helps the young generation express themselves better with their writing. The difference between this case and that of a journalist would be the fact that a journalist MUST report the facts, or something JUST as near as it is.

“Mass amateurization” has it’s plus and minuses as it tests the ability of the professional journalists. Not to say that it will deplete the whole industry, but it will change how things work. Especially with the blogging community who seems to perfectly exercise their own freedom of speech and maintain an audience of their own. But nothing seems to be the authenticity of the abilities of a real journalist.

Check out this article on the New Republic on "A Guide to Syria's Best Citizen Journalism" right HERE.

Bibliography/Sources:

• A Guide to Syria's Best Citizen Journalism by Nora Caplan-Bricker, New Republic
  (http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114532/guide-citizen-journalists-feeding-us-news-syria)
• Clay Shirky, "Everyone as a Media Outlet"
  (http://www.nyu.edu/projects/sanger/CDH/shirky-3.pdf)
• Jenkins, Introduction to Convergence Culture.