When discussing the primary fundamentals of the Internet I couldn’t help but hear a prelude to the ultimate liberal hippie arts collective. The modern day Mary Pranksters exist in a collaborative network of shared information and concepts through the web. Just as in our traditional artistic history newer generations grew to break the mold of their predecessors, Clay Shirky tells us the new generations of amateur journalists are bringing us new types of news.
The world appreciated the Greek Kouroi for their complexities and insights as much as ever when Jackson Pollock broke the mold of traditional painting and brought about the birth of the art-world we live in today. The Internet has exploded the potential effects of the worlds' Pollock’s. Shirky put a negative spin on the democratization of publishing online, highlighting the issues of legitimacy and copyright. But when I think about the infinite web of communication all I see is an empowering and liberalizing force.
I’m no artist. I have no formal training and not a whole lot of talent. But if I were the idea that I could use the Internet to put my work out there, find other like-minded people to collaborate with is wildly empowering, opening up all sorts of doors of opportunity. Shirky brings up legitimate points- I’m no professional, and anybody who would be looking at my work would have the freedom to make their own opinions about this. This is why its important that the coming generations are taught media literacy so they have the skills and careful eye to tell the difference. Meanwhile, myself along with millions of others are offered a tool to learn to create, share, distribute art in a community made possible by the same tool: invaluable.
The artistic world is not quite as restricting as the journalistic. As far as modern art is concerned a complete amateur could create a piece of work and be deemed a genius by the “professional” artistic community. Writing is a widely used and taught skill across America. Anyone posting a written article online could be a brilliant person and writer reciting founded and factual information with intelligent commentary worthy of the title “Professional”; they could also be an absolute fool spouting nonsense with no direction. Unfortunately, anyone choosing to spread nonfactual news or propaganda who can write well can deceive even an educated reader.
There are absolutely a slew of problems we will have to define and answer for the coming generations because of this Internet ‘thing.’ However, the Internet has opened doors for self-expression and the sharing of ideas and information in ways that so far outbalance the potential problems its has also created.
I like that you brought up the example of art, which people often forget about being so involved in the world of technologies and internet. I agree with you that internet gives anybody possibility to share their work, which Clay Shirky calls as mass amateurization (Shirky). I also agree that some problems can occur because of that, which are that trustworthiness of everything posted on the internet is lower and needs to be verified (Shirky). This happens because internet is easier, cheaper, more flexible and allows effortless self-publishing (Shirky). Everything comes with its price. Now we have more possibilities to express ourselves, but we have to also be more aware of what we access, see and read.
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