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.
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.
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