The Cult of the Amateur
31 Mar 2008
Like me you might have enjoyed the benefits of the web 2.0 revolution, but also be wary of the harm it is doing.
I found a book by Andrew Keen, he’s a silicon valley insider, who reveals the dark side of the current technology utopia.
He describes how egotism, meets bad taste, and leads to mob rule, and the result of things being interacted with by what is most ‘popular’, rather than what is most useful, helpful, accurate etc.
Keep that in mind next time you are ‘googling’ something, and the results are what is most ‘popular’.
He talks about how we are losing the ability to think, as a generation is raised that think cutting and pasting some-else’s material on a blog is an original and creative act.
There is a great example in the book, from the one of the creators of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger, who found that letting anyone write about anything led to a realization that ‘fully democratic open-source networks inevitably get corrupted by loonies’ (page 186).
Sanger has gone on to implement ‘Citizendium’, that combines public participation with ‘gentle expert guidance’. There are ‘constables’ who police the nutters, and rule breakers.
There is a serious tone in the book, that the industry that gives us everything free with it’s click throughs from advertising, is costing us dearly in in terms of lost potential good content.
‘By stealing away our eyeballs, the blogs and wikis are decimating the publishing, music and news-gathering industries that created the original content those Web sites ‘aggregate.’ Our culture is essentially cannibalizing its young, destroying the very sources of the content they crave.”’***
So web 2.0 does enable us all to have a voice, but is it time to edit some of those voices? And when it comes to church, how much are we doing that is ‘popular’, pandering to the new web 2.0 metaphors, instead of what is most helpful, and useful etc?
Tagged: Web 2.0
11 comments
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Comment by Scott A.
11.33 am on 31 Mar 2008
I’ve read Keen’s book, and whilst I am more than suspicious of the “social revolution” and a full-blown wikiality, I find his argument unpersuasive and poorly presented. Keen comes off as a Matthew Arnold for the new millennium (which for many is enough of a crime), but most of his 200-some page book is not rigorous scholarship, but page upon page of anecdotes and haughty op/ed – the very sort he decries.
Hehe. I’m sorry – and I too have fallen into this trap.
- Scott
Comment by Jason Clark
8.12 pm on 31 Mar 2008
Hi Scott, I know you know a great deal about this from your studies. So two questions for you:
1. What do you think is really happening?
2. How should he have written if not using op/ed?
Cheers, Jase
Comment by fernando
1.23 pm on 31 Mar 2008
I’m also a social-networking-sceptic who was not impressed by Keen’s book. There’s a very good interview and discussion on KCRW’s to the point (http://www.kcrw.com/news/programs/tp/tp070706is_todays_internet_k) that addresses this directly.
I’m not sure the issue is “editing out” as much as teaching and equipping in media literacy. I certainly never want to see us go back to the knowledge is scarce depend on the church model. What we need is to admit we haven’t done that great a job of learning to filter, evaluate and influence the media landscape, especially the online landscape.
Comment by Jason Clark
8.18 pm on 31 Mar 2008
Fernando: tnx for the link, and suggestions.
Just wondering if you thought my question about the need to filter was a suggestion to go back to church control model? That wasn’t what I was suggesting, but we do need some filtering don’t we?
How do you see that working in church with social media as it is? Or how do you see the suggestion for media literacy being part of the catechism of the church?
Cheers, Jase
Comment by fernando
1.30 pm on 3 Apr 2008
Sure we need to learn to filter. I don’t think you are advocating a return to command and control ecclesiology, but some I know who do espouse arguments like Keen’s (and do it with the same shallowness of research and anecdotal form of argument).
I finished theological college a little over a decade ago and back when I was a student most pastor’s studies (certainly the ones I respected) didn’t even have a computer in them! They were caverns of books and papers. For pastors today books are (sometimes) still commonplace, but nowhere near as central and the computer typically commands the room.
The history of catechism mirrors the history of literacy in a lot of ways. In fact, I would suggest that the meta-discourse behind or catechism really should reflect our sense of what literacy is. So, in the ways that new media are changing literacy, then our approach to catechism should reflect that.
Comment by Jason
1.31 pm on 3 Apr 2008
Couldn’t agree with you more
Comment by Josh Heilman
6.50 pm on 31 Mar 2008
I haven’t read the book, so I’ll comment ignorantly. Based on your post, Jason, Sanger posits that “we are losing the ability to think, as a generation is raised that think cutting and pasting some-else’s material on a blog is an original and creative act.” I must agree from the outside of that statement; however, if that “cutting and pasting” results in interaction with the original material, is that not good for culture, for people, for the Church? He, more than likely, has done enough research to support his position; but what of the myriad of bloggers who blog for understanding? I’m certain you’re not castigating them, but, having not read the book, does this come into play?
Comment by Jason Clark
8.21 pm on 31 Mar 2008
Josh, good suggestion and question. Interesting that we seem to want to hold him to a standard of research that bloggers don’t use :-)
And is it invalid for someone so involved in web 2.0 to offer prose in the style of the social media he is critiquing?
I’m sure that’s why he has done it, most people wouldn’t read a serious academic critique. And I’m sure he’s provocative deliberately, and that boosts sales :-)
Comment by josh heilman
4.26 pm on 2 Apr 2008
A good point, however, that he probably makes (still haven’t read the book) is, even if all the bloggers/self-publishers out there decide to weigh in on every subject imaginable, how is authority determined? That’s certainly a good question, especially as it relates to the Church. Who is an authority (and not THE authority) is a valid discussion, but one that would receive vastly different answers and suggestions depending on which camp of Christianity with whom one converses.
Comment by paul
12.46 pm on 1 Apr 2008
hello i found this blog via google on my new phone searching for jason clark! It is clearly a church conspiracy that the first name that comes up is some Emerging church guru who is tellin us all what to think :) rather than that deservin darts player who was the second pick! I think we can all discern the moral of this tale ;)
Comment by Bryan Riley
8.09 am on 2 Apr 2008
Perhaps the problem he claims is not the issue and, instead, we ARE teaching people how to think critically by filling their lives full of information and they have to sort what is junk and not junk for themselves????
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