Tuesday, October 12: Andrew Keen

How does Keen's does Keen define Democratized media, and what are his main issues with this trend? use examples from the web in the form of links.

Before reading the excerpt from Keen's book, I watched his spot on the Colbert Report first.  I'm glad I did the assignment in that order, because his interview with Colbert provided a great introduction to Andrew Keen's thoughts on Web 2.0.  Simply put, he hates it.  Or to be more specific, in Keen's own words, he loathes it.

Democratized media is basically the same idea we have been covering throughout the duration of this semester.  It is the idea that anybody, no matter who you are or what you do, has the ability to view and create any kind of media they'd like, from blogs to YouTube videos to video games to essays featuring political commentary.  Some people praise democratized media as a grand societal revolution, arguing that it's great that anybody with a computer has a chance to share his or her ideas with the masses.  Not Andrew Keen.

Keen, in these exact words, claims that the Internet is "destroying culture as we know it."  Throughout the first chapter of his book, he describes Web 2.0 with so much disdain you'd think the founders of Wikipedia and Google were terrorists plotting to blow up all of the world's museums and art galleries.  I do exaggerate, but Keen is absolutely not shy about his opinions, and he brings up some great points to support them.

Personally, I think one of his strongest arguments was that democratized media is coming dangerously close to eliminating trustworthy sources.  He cited examples of misinformation from Wikipedia, he told stories about Public Relations firms hiring "regular people" to create YouTube advertisements with subliminal messages, and he even provided evidence that political campaigns were behind satirical YouTube videos that belittled their competitors.  His reference to Big Brother from the novel 1984, where he claimed that new media could literally change societal perception of fact, was chillingly conceivable.  If people believe everything they read on the Web, we might start losing our inherent sense  of what is true and what is not.

One link I could think of that shows this is Here.  It's a website warning people of the dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide, the scientific name for water.  The website is supposed to be a clever joke, and many research professors use it to teach their students not to trust everything, but the fact that it tricks people every day helps Keen's argument.

Compare and Contrast Keens take on Social Media with Douglas Rushkoff's. Which one speaks to you and your own experiences and why?

If I had to choose one these two points of view on Web 2.0, I suppose I would go with Douglas Rushkoff's.  I agree with a lot of what Andrew Keen argued; however, from reading the first chapter of his book, it seems as though he is only focusing on the negatives.  Yes, there is a lot of irrelevant, stupid material on the Web, and yes, too many people speak just to hear themselves speak.  But what about the legitimate websites, the websites that do have editors and do fact check and do present valid, influential information?  I live in Washington, DC, but the Internet gives me the opportunity to read a legitimate newspaper article published in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, or The London Times.  Anybody in the world can learn about and appreciate anything they want, no matter where it is taking place.  I don't see how that could be considered a bad thing.

Rushkoff, however, just thinks that the Web 2.0 is about to take over, and our lives are going to change.  I agree with that, although I might be resistent to the change.  I know that the world is speeding up.  People multitask more now than ever before, and we do this because we can.  We have the tools to make this possible.  

But sometimes, I wish Keen and Rushkoff were both wrong.  That way, we could just slow down for a bit.

The Mob

What are the, perhaps, unintended effects unleashed by our connectedness? Does anonymity plus connectivity always equal misbehavior and cruelty? How are we to explain some of the collective anger that seems to be unleashed online - and is it a result of the same anger characterizing much of our society's discourse, or is it the cause?

 

Collective anger is not unique to our current society.  Human beings are always upset about something; it is impossible to even consider living in a society where everyone was completely content with everything in their lives.  Utopia, unfortunately, is not real.  This is not news to us.

 

What is unique to our society, however, is the almost astonishing level of online connectedness we have with each other.  The world we live in today makes it possible to voice an opinion as soon as it comes to our heads.  You don't like something?  Take out your anger by punching some keys on your keyboard and just click submit.  

 

On the surface, the connectedness of our society seems positive.  It can be.  It gives everybody, regardless of status, an opportunity to be heard.  The internet does not sensor, discriminate, or exclude.  As long as you're connected, you can say what we want to say.  

 

With all of that being said, should every thought of every person be circulated on the web?  Of course not.  Before blogs, forums, Facebook, and Twitter, there was a certain social status quo for what was appropriate to say publicly.  But since the emergence of online anonymity, that sensor button has disappeared.  This is not good.  We need that sensor button.  Badly.

 

It is said that the best way to handle sending angry emails is to type it, read it, and then delete it.  That process gives you the chance to release some frustration, calm down, and then protect your reputation by not doing something stupid.  Your name would have been attached to that angry, unprofessional, immature note (just look at Cleveland Cavaliers' owner, Dan Gilbert, for an example of that).

 

Now, people don't need to worry about their names being attached to anything they say, resulting in the gradual degradation of personal responsibility.  It seems that societal morals and sense of appropriateness are being forgotten rapidly.  We all have personal stories about cyber-bullying.  When I was in high school, a large amount of people would frequent a website called www.DCSportsFan.com, a venue that reported  about high school sports in the DC area.  Students would post on forums about high school athletes personal lives, academics, and life decisions.    It got to a point that people stopped seeing football and basketball players as their friends or classmates.  They became celebrities, and that's how they were talked about.

 

If we were still required to take responsibility for the words we say, websites such as JuicyCampus never would have taken off.  Of course, rumors would remain prevalent, but I don't know a lot of people who would sign their name on a public internet posting after calling their classmate a "stupid whore" or "dumb bitch."

Connectedness is great.  It makes our society more efficient and more convenient.  Social networking is an outstanding tool to either develop new relationships or maintain old ones.  However, the idea of anonymity makes me horrified about the future. Kids need to learn from an early age the importance of taking personal responsibility for their actions.  If this generation of children continues growing up in this age of anonymity, how can they mature?  We need our societal sensor button back, but I'm afraid it may be disappearing.