In Clay
Shirky’s “Everyone is a Media Outlet,”
he argues that amateurs have now utilized the tools that professional
journalist have acquired to spread media. Non-professionals now have the tools
to create and distribute content that professionals were usually responsible
for doing. Shirky considers this to be mass amatuerization The amateurs have
unlimited access to the necessary tools to produce content and it spreads
incredibly fast. Examples of mass amatuerization are all around us from blogs
to social media websites such as twitter and instagram. Now with hashtags it
makes it even easier for news to spread even faster. Shirky also explains the
pros and cons of mass amatuerization.
The
pros that he highlights is that with mass amatuerization you can produce
information at a faster rate, you can get breaking headlines out before it
breaks news. Amateurs’ face less scrutiny and have fewer rules to follow.
However with such freedom there is more at risk and less professionalism. “But
the Internet has changed the way some professions are viewed. With
professionalism come standards. Standards become important within a
profession as certain behavior is enforced by members of the same profession
and is expected by the consumer. The Internet allows easier production,
reproduction and distribution of information and media. Much of this is
accomplished without the use of professionals, which, in turn, is lowering
standards. The loss of professional control will be damaging for many of
societies core institutions (Everyone is a media outlet” 73). In this quote
Shirky explains the outcome of mass amatuerization. He goes on to explain that
because of the availability to mass-produce, to anyone, it has affected the
importance of professionals in the media realm.
In my experience mass amatuerization is all around us. When I log into social websites such as twitter and
instagram, there are people who are always posting stories about their lives or
story headlines, or celebrity gossip. Although it is not professional
journalism, it is still considered a form of journalism because it is relevant
or current news that is being reported on in context to the real world. Posts that report on news that break before
the news is a form of journalism, the problem that I often see is that when non
professionals report things they often time forget important details, or leave
out important facts, they take a bias view, put a lot of their own opinions.
They don’t leave room for the public to form their own opinion.
With “Why Heather Can Write” she enters
a new type of mass amatuerization while she may not be reporting on news she is
still taking a popular medium such as Harry Potter and using it to get to a mass
audience. Her work is attracting others and getting them involved which now
makes it a form of mass amatuerization. In no way is she a professional but she
has the tools to produce the same contents as a professional.
The future of media professionals
lies in the hands of the public. It will be the public to decide how they want
their information and from whom. Do they want professionals who will oblige by
the rules and take full responsibility if something were to go wrong or amateurs
who can report whatever with no guidelines or rules to follow? The readings suggest that the public will rely
largely on news in the form of amateurs such as citizen journalism and blogs.
The readings also suggest the ways of mass amatuerization is easier because the
news travel faster. I think it’s important that professional journalist holds
on to some aspects of mass amatuerization such as social networks. This way
news can continue to travel just as fast; we would still have a interactive
community and be able to be in the loop constantly of what is going on.
Future of Social Media Future
No comments:
Post a Comment