The audience gets all their sources and information through the news whether it is regarding accidents, crimes, politics, fashion, weather, etc. The ability to write the news belongs to “professionals” and people who have the authority to do so. However, in this day and time, 21st Century, technology has proven that anything is possible as long as it is available. This being so, the audience is now able to become unprofessional journalists as long as he or she has the sources and resources. I myself can write a whole story about something I have witnessed personally and put it onto a blog or even use other media sources to support my information. It is not hard to do so as long as you have internet, a blog to write on, and an audience to read your blogs.
Bloggers now have the opportunity to post on the web for free without having to go through a media company. The reason for this “mass amateurization”, termed by Clay Shirky in the chapter “Everyone is a Media Outlet”, is due to the “scarcity of institutions” which has the authority to publish information. This reason coincides with other reasons such as the institutions only report what they believe is necessary and important. The news they deem unnecessary and useless would be covered by these unprofessional bloggers. Since these institutions do not report un-newsworthy information, it is up to the public to report about something based on their own personal opinions: “Ina world where a dozen editors, all belonging to the same professional class, can decide whether to run or kill a national story, information that might be of interest to the general public may not be published, not because of a conspiracy but because the editors have a professional bias that is aligned by the similar challenged they face and by the similar tools they use to approach those challenges” (65). There is an indefinite amount of bloggers out there that has the ability to submit amateur publishing.
I remember witnessing a building fire in Chinatown in early April 2010. It started out as a small building fire but resulted into something bigger. It was not just one building but three that was affected by the fire. This fire was known to some media institutions such as New York Times.There are also some other sources like blogs that posted the event. However, there are many people on the streets that have witnessed this building fire and instantly people started to take out their cameras, cell phone cameras, and any technology that can record and capture that moment in time. I was not there physically but this fire was so strong that I was able to see it from my bedroom window. I lived 10 minutes walking distance from the building and could smell the smoke coming from all the way over there. I instantly took out my camera and started to snap away as soon as I saw the fire and posted it on facebook and sent the pictures to all my friends. Facebook was easy access and very convenient and gets the word out instantly.
Clay Shirky argues that “mass amateurization” will be another result similar to the invention of the movable type. Scribes no longer exists because there is no use for them. This is similar to amateur publishing due to indefinite amount of bloggers and unlimited access to the internet: “globally free publishing is making public speech and action more valuable” (79). It is valuable because people are able to express their own opinions for the rest of the audience to evaluate. A “profession” is termed that way due to the limited amount of people who are able to do the job. However, this is starting to change because now anyone can post something on the internet for a mass audience to review.
The media professional will still preside at the time being no matter how many amateur publishers there are. These media institutions are reliable sources even if what the bloggers posted was true or not. We can never be sure if what the bloggers posted were real facts. It may merely be their own opinions and guesses. The only thing bloggers will do to the audiences is to give the audiences another perspective. This gives them another point of view rather than one source factor. Therefore, in my personal opinion media professionals will last for quite a while. The institutions are too big to break. Who knows, maybe in the future amateur publishers would be our source of what is going on in the world.
I think the fact that you immediately began taking and sending pictures of the fire is really interesting when it comes to discussing the future of professional media since your actions really demonstrate how much power amateurs have. Your sharing of photos potentially hit the web faster than the professionals' capability of breaking the news. There is a real sense of immediacy and lack of restrictions that allow ordinary citizens to disseminate information quicker, and perhaps even more efficiently than traditional media outlets.
ReplyDeleteI strongly agree with your opinion on what will happen to the media professionals in the future but in the other hand I will add that knowing that they hold media sources that might not easily break in the near future, they are likely to base most of their critics on what they obtain from amateur publishings whether it be in blogs or facebook postings but again this makes a lot of sense as amateur media tends to reach more audience than the typical professional media.
ReplyDeleteThere are many incidents where something small happens in a community that does not make major news networks because it was not as important as other news that affected major areas. I saw buildings on fire twice in my neighborhood but when I went to watch the news, there was no mention of them. Bloggers are now able to expand what the audience is able to recieve. Like the picture you took of the fire, you could have uploaded it to a blog in seconds, faster than it would take for newscasters to arrive. This provides a great advantage to amateurs for they are able to provide news major networks can't because there are more amateurs than professional journalists in areas witnessing situations.
ReplyDeleteI think the distinguish between truth and lies in the media today is something to be aware of. In my Post I also mention that since there are SO many media outlets on the internet, how do you know which one is true or false? Or how do you figure out if it is someones opinion rather than fact. I think that professionals will remain professionals, but it is MUCH harder to become a "professional" or reach the top of your specific industry, because there are so many amateurs out there. However, because of the amateur news, we find out events faster than we would with the old media. Without videos on cell phones, or someone posting some sort of news on youtube, we wouldn't know specific things or we wouldn't be able to capture the feeling of actually being there. For example, Neda is a perfect example of how an amateur made a woman's murder into an international symbol of hope and the voice of every Iranian.
ReplyDeleteI like the first image you post in your blogger. It shows the real relationship between men and the internet. Today, there are too much things that we do not know what is truth and what is lie. We have to protect ourselves from the internet and be aware of any accidents. For example, there are always messages sending from other people are with virus. The world is changing, we all catching up steps with the world. So do the internet and the media. No one knows what does the media like after 10 years. Maybe it will be a huge change from now or maybe it is about the same as now. We never know.
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