Yes, everyone IS a media outlet!

Image source.

In Clay Shirky’s reading, entitled Everyone is a Media Outlet, he describes the “mass amateurization” of the dispersion of media that has taken place because of the widespread use and accessibility of the Internet and World Wide Web. In it, Shirky explains that traditionally, the means and production of media were expensive and therefore necessarily limited to “professionals.” He also explains that most professionals (whether they are doctors, lawyers, journalists, musicians, etc.) are created from a scarcity of resources that require ongoing management by specially trained people, who are the professionals (Shirky 57). These “professionals” earn this distinction by learning things differently (and sometimes to a greater extent) than the general population (Shirky 58). ”Mass amateurization,” he explains, therefore refers to the ability of the average person to produce, organize and distribute the media that was previously left in the hands of professionals, such as music, literature, or news. For example, before the advent of the Internet and the Web, the means of production of printed news lay solely in the hands of certain publishers of newspapers because the cost was so expensive that the average person could not afford to do it. The scarcity of the means of production of newspapers distinguished those who had that capability as professional publishers. That meant that the only people that could really report the news (in printed form) were “professionals” – a distinction reserved exclusively for journalists, the people who worked for the newspaper publishers (Shirky 71). In the general sense, this meant that only a few people could be "senders" of mass communication or producers of mass media, while the audience would receive without being able to send or produce in return.


However, the Web has changed the idea of who can be a journalist or a publisher specifically, and more broadly, who can be a producer of mass media, because anyone with access to the Internet can now publish their own work directly to the Web both easily and inexpensively. This shift in who is producing and dispersing our media is most evident (in my opinion) on the video hosting site Youtube.com. Traditionally, entertainment programming could only be produced by television studios, movie studios, or record labels because of the high cost of both producing programming/content and distributing it to the masses. However, YouTube has allowed the average person to use whatever video recording devices they own (cell phone cameras, webcams, digital cameras, etc.) to record their own programming and publish it to YouTube for free. YouTube's own motto, "Broadcast yourself," illustrates that mass amateurization has changed the way mass media is produced and distributed by allowing those who were once just the "receivers" or the "audience" to create content that the world can see, and thus become "senders" or "producers" themselves.


My favorite example is the YouTube channel illdoc1. Using just his Macbook webcam, illdoctrine (as he is called) is primarily a Hip-Hop vlogger, but he creates interesting videos giving commentary on a wide range of topics such as Hip-Hop music and performers, politics, economics and social issues. YouTube gives him the capability to produce his own programming and have it reach wide audiences for free, so essentially, illdoc1 is a producer of mass media. This is an important change to highlight because it also shows how mass amateurization of production allows people like illdoctrine, who is a Hip-Hop enthusiast of mixed race, who might be underrepresented in traditional or "old" media to have a voice to reach their unique audiences. Additionally, because he broadcasts himself using YouTube rather than traditional media outlets, illdoctrine's "audience" (YouTube users) can then become senders as well and create video responses to his vlogs or leave text comments on his videos that he can read and respond to. This makes the equation of senders and receivers much more inclusive by giving everyone, not just professionals or media executives, a voice.

Illdoctrine broadcasting himself on Youtube. Image courtesy of FindHype.

An important distinction that Shirky makes is that “mass amateurization” does not mean that just anyone can become a professional. If that were true then, by definition, professionals would cease to exist because the “specialization” that distinguishes them from the general population has disappeared (Shirky 71-72). An example of this is that not every blogger is a journalist. However, because the Internet and the Web have changed the way that media is produced and distributed, the definition of who is a journalist has to change and expand with the change in media production and dispersion, which means that some “amateur journalists” (bloggers) would necessarily be included in our definition of a journalist, despite the tendency to dismiss all bloggers as unprofessional. However, although some bloggers would still not fall under the expanded definition of who is a journalist, this does not undermine the important role that they play as alternative sources of news and news commentary. Therefore, when someone like illdoctrine uses a YouTube channel to broadcast ideas about things such as the United States' response to the earthquake in Haiti, his/her contribution may not be considered journalism, but it is important nonetheless. This is a significant fact for the way that mass amateurization has changed, not just media, but our conception of who and what constitutes mass media.

Finally, Shirky’s conclusion in Everyone is a Media Outlet is that the mass amateurization of media highlights the fact that, unlike USA Today’s threat to traditional printed media, the Internet has not changed the old ecosystem, but created an alternative one (Shirky 60). To me, this alternative means that media professionals of the future will have to deal with the threat of obsolescence by becoming media literate and adapting to the new system set in place by the Web. Therefore, media professionals of the future should seek to capitalize on the opportunities given by the Web instead of trying to suppress or restrict it to preserve the “old media's” role in mass media.

Source:

Shirky, Clay. "Everyone Is a Media Outlet." Here Comes Everybody: the Power of Organizing without Organizations. New York: Penguin, 2008. 55-80.