What is this amateur hour?

There is currently a conflict between so called user generated conduct, individuals who create and produce blogs, videos and audio for consumption and the record labels, journalists, studios and the big corporations that back them. The likely outcome is a hybrid approach built around a new business model.Generated content encompasses blogs, forums, discussion boards and social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter. Increasingly professional institutions are betting on the longetivity of these platforms by purchasing them. Google has owned YouTube since late 2006.Amateur content may not always be favourably compared to its professionally produced counterpart, but it still has played a central role in public discourse. The Arab spring was supposed to have been aided by a citizen journalism that was reported using and disseminated by Facebook and Twitter.

The process of separating high-quality information from inferior content is a complicated process. User generated content is exceptionally broad and can cover a wide range of topics. What has a high level of reliability; a blog or a forum post, a sub-reddit or a tweet?. How do you define something as professional or amateur? Who are the individuals who make this decision? As Clay Shirky States “The question that mass amateurization poses to traditional media is ‘What happens when the costs of reproduction and distribution go away? What happens when there is nothing unique about publishing anymore because users can do it for themselves?’ We are now starting to see that question being answered.” (Shirky 2008)

Professional media itself struggles to establish a definition. Ironically the article ‘Revenge of the experts’ which discusses this paradigm references two amateur sites About.com and Maholo. (Dean 2011). It would appear that even established media is moving towards knowledgeable enthusiasts rather than professionals with traditional credentials. The central difference between these knowledgeable human filters and traditional media, is these consistent editorial guidelines that have categorized the hallmarks of good journalism.“As career journalists and managers we have entered a new era where what we know and what we traditionally do has finally found its value in the marketplace, and that value is about zero.”—(John Paton 2011)

Navigating this explosion of content is not straightforward. Often the line is blurred between what is amateur and what has the appearance of an expert authority. Before cyberspace user-generated content simply could not match the aggregation and distribution levels of global corporations. Now consumers must adapt to this changing environment with a greater filter for accuracy and authenticity.When everyone can contribute, it becomes an environment without filters, populated by amateurs. “Travelocity, doesn’t make everyone a travel agent, it undermines the value of being a travel agent. (Shirky)

This is reflected with the rise of Internet blogging. Weblogs by nature remove many of the barriers that have previously plagued traditional publishing. Everyone is suddenly able to communicate; everyone is suddenly able to produce. No longer are well seasoned editors critiquing  the work of other equally talented professionals. Not everyone is Ernest Hemingway or Jonathan Safran Foer.Unfortunately there exists no Internet equivalent of an experienced publisher.There is no automated Gertrude Stein who can inform the overzealous blogger; that they are not in fact the next Frank Moody and that maybe their skills lie elsewhere. This liquefied and electric communication between reader and writer has not resulted in greater direct opportunity for financial reward. Advertising and indirect forms of financial reward are the main meal ticket for the successful Internet blogger. It struck me how simultaneously whilst we all have an opportunity to participate, we devalue each other’s contributions.

Ted Mitew discusses in his lecture “The attention economy and the long tail effect”, how previously within legacy media channels there was a very high cost of entry. There were checks on quality of content and there was a substantial cost associated with the distribution and creation of content. (Mitew 2014) . HBO realizes Game of thrones at different times in different regions. There entire business model is built around distribution. However the current environment may be moving towards professionalism that is contrary to much of Shirky’s rhetoric. No doubt this is a reflection of a wish for a more reliable and authentic web.

No longer are consumers merely a passive audience subject to the usual limitations of distribution. We now exist within an environment where everyone can produce and create. Mass participation has changed and rearranged the paradigm of being a user, distributor and creator of content. Mass aggregation of content has seen “the value of software become proportional to the scale and dynamism of the data it helps to manage” – (Orielly 2005). Essentially meaning that the more people who use a service platform, the more valuable the platform and the content it manages becomes. Niche markets have begun to rise creating a long tail effect. With such large distribution of goods and content, previously unpopular markets has seen a gradual incline.

References

Anderson, C, 2004, The Long Tail. Wired, 12.10.viewed 29 August 2014,<http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html&gt;.

Dean, S, 2011, Confidence Game, Columbian Journalism Review, viewed 30 August 2014, <http://www.cjr.org/essay/confidence_game.php?page=all&gt;.

Kelly, K, 2008, Better Than Free,Edge, viewed 30 August 2014, <http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kelly08/kelly08_index.html&gt;.

Mitew, T 2014, The attention economy and the long tail effect, lecture, DIGC202, Global Networks, University of Wollongong, viewed 30 August. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCnVnLYPoi0&list=PLiPp71qLKusXOU1bKxHVappCbRNN3-J-j&index=14&gt;.

O’Reilly, T, 2005,  ‘What is Web 2.0′ O’Reilly Media, viewed 30 August 2014,  <http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html&gt;.

Shirky, C, 2002, Weblogs and the Mass Amateurization of Publishing, viewed 28 August 2014,<http://shirky.com/writings/weblogs_publishing.html&gt;.

Image credit 

We know memes, What is this Amateur hour?, viewed 28 August 2014. <http://weknowmemes.com/2013/09/what-is-this-amateur-hour-gif/&gt;.

Working More and Getting Paid less – liquid labour and why we should all still be scared of sharks.

As opposed to previous periods where one’s vocation rarely if ever changed, contemporary capitalism has manifested itself according to Mark Deuze in a “portfolio lifestyle”. Life has become analogous with work a “liquid life” as Bauman states. With an increased decline in life long vocations and the idea of the managing multiple professions.

Interestingly it is this increased flexibility which has allowed a blurring between what constitutes non-work and work. The conventional nine to five lifestyle is dying and the loss of bureaucratic hours has created greater constraints upon our freedom. We essentially are working more hours at less conventional times and receiving less benefits. Work has become interconnected with other non-work related relationships.With greater variety comes greater convolution and adaption to changing technologies.Work is now replicated in many different forms, internships, casual or non casual, paid, voluntary. We must stay aware of this  whilst also adapting to a digital world that is constantly shifting and expanding.

The increased presence of women within the workforce and the “precariousness of labor” has had a substantial impact on other institutions which directly correlate to modernity. Not only has the concept  of “work” and “life” shifted but also the fundamental unit of society the “family”with the shift from home centered lifestyles to those based primarily on work. Catherine Hakim (2003) 

Increasingly knowledge and information has become the primary source of capital and we have become migratory beings. We can now change location, moving countries within days or weeks, deconstructing relationships with the ease of a simple click, moving from rented places to living spaces,sharing intimate moments and information within seconds with strangers. The only real constant in this constant flux, is that our world is permanently impermanent.

Although this new world may seem overwhelmingly incorporeal we have seen a rather tangible wake-up call in response to this impalpable world. This in the form of an ancient predator which once gave us increased fear within a different context. Google announced recently that the company will coat its trans-Pacific fiber-optic cables in a Kevlar-like material, usually reserved for making bulletproof vests. Sharks have been attacking underwater fiber-optic cabling. In 1987 sharks were blamed for at least four cable failures. In this “Liquid labor” impalpable world we view the internet as a constant and yet it is still susceptible to a predator that we have feared for centuries.

In today’s society life and work have become interconnected. Contrary to a developing a way of life based on our everyday efforts and energy, we are moving further towards a way of working and a way of being work. As work is becoming a lifestyle  our lifestyle is beginning to increasingly reflect characteristics of contemporary work. 

References 

Great white sharks are secretly plotting to take down the internet, says Google

The Third Wave

We are in the midst of the growth of a new age. Whether you are aware of it or not, history is being forged every time you reblog a Nicholas Cage meme.

“The global network, is a virtual community where race, age and gender transcends a border-less web of data and information.” Barlow

All one needs is a key, a computer to travel to another dimension.  The founding fathers of the internet created a Utopian cyberspace in which the cornerstones of our capitalist democracy shine bright. A virtual platform for our individualism.

In “Cyberspace and the American Dream” Dyson and colleagues discuss how our economy has evolved from farm then to massified labor and finally to a economy where the central resource is actionable knowledge. They state that with this shift comes a responsibility to use this shared knowledge for a common good. Difficulty arises however within this virtual community in defining personal freedom, privacy, a sense of community and the definition of property among a plethora of philosophical dilemmas.

State regulation within the global network has been a contentious area of discussion, with global surveillance becoming a widely canvassed issue especially following the NSA Leaks. The balance between information privacy and national security seems to be breaking down as intelligent agencies continue to record information domestically under the guise of espionage.

Although we perceive much of the data that we transmit on this global network as temporary i.e facebook messages, viewed pages, twitter updates. There in reality exists”cyber spacial” data warehouses that collect knowledge, images, information and misinformation in a digital form. With knowledge comes power and the potential for serious and widespread privacy abuses.

Orwell s 1984 depicts a dystopic society, in which one is monitored consistently by a big-brother state system. In this novel surveillance controls the citizenry.  Interestingly after it was publicized that the NSA has been secretly monitoring and storing global internet traffic, including the bulk data collection of email and phone call data. Sales of Nineteen Eighty-Four increased by up to 7 times within the first week of the 2013 mass surveillance links. The novel also discusses how mass media was a catalyst for the intensification of destructive emotions and violence. Since the 20th century news and other forms of media has been publicizing violence more.

These new technologies, have also decayed our logical sequences of time. With new biological reproductive technologies blurring life cycle patterns in conditions of parenting by slowing or speeding up the life cycle.

Flow of space implies that distances that are physical are proximate and close among organizations within society.  contrary to our logical concept of space. A hyperlink from a webpage brings a user from one location to another in a moment, collapsing a succession of knowledge. Castells  stated: “Space and Time, the material foundations of human experience, have been transformed, as the space of flows dominates the space of places, and timeless time supersedes clock time of the industrial era”.

 

Social Media and Nuclear war

During the 1950’s television became widely available. This new invention was met with fear and trepidation that it would sap our attention and injure our intelligence. The 20th century brought personal computers into the homes of the average individual and with it further fears about the damage that this new global phenomenon could have on the mind and brain. Social media as it was coined was painted as a potential threat to human development with pieces such as Nicolas Carr’s influential article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” and the Daily Mails piece on “How using Facebook could raise your risk of cancer.”

The internet even before it became widely available appears to have been linked with social media. 30 years ago America in the grips of the cold war, came up with the idea of decentralised, infallible means of communication that would function if the world was plunged into a nuclear war. Researchers began working on this blast proof network and developed a basic form of  what we now classify as the “Internet”

Ironically this form of long-distance communication, used by researchers to communicate developed into a federally funded personal messaging system. Researchers began to discuss projects and collaborations and eventually digressed into full blown gossip and shmoozing. Although this did not quite resemble a Facebook status or twitter update. It appears that the creation of the internet also coincided with the creation of of social media, in one form or another.

It would appear that using the internet in a social and interactive way comes as a natural instinct to human beings. Why does there then exist so much fear about its potential effect on human behaviour?.

There are a number of studies which seek to establish the possible negative effects. Interestingly data has shown that people who actually use social media frequently appear to have greater social interaction offline than those who do not. Conversely studies have shown that increased television watching actually results in a greater loss of retention, health and the ability to concentrate. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17766526

Although this research would appear as a positive to the social media savvy. Their still exists a very persuasive line of reasoning from those who state that social media is destroying real communication.  Dr Himanshu Tyagi, a psychiatrist at West London Mental Health Trust has stated that he believes that social media is hindering rather than helping teenagers and young people to communicate effectively with their peers. He argues that the various social signals involved with body language such as  subtle changes in voice and personal expression, cues that humans have developed over the centuries, may be lost with the rise of digital realties.

He claims that social media sites such as Facebook which allows people to change their status and delete their profile has fostered the idea that relationships are weak, interchangeable and can be easily destroyed. In addition to this he also claims that the use of social media can also create a boredom, with the online world being of greater stimulation than the reality of the day to day.  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/3357741/Facebook-and-MySpace-generation-cannot-form-relationships.html

Ultimately whether you perceive the internet as the beginning of the end of healthy social interaction. Or as a  tool that helps establish an easier and more effective way to communicate. It is a concept and an institution that at its core is an experiment, involving an entire generation. A generation acting as  guinea pigs for an experiment which may have serious implications on humanity.

Introductions

Hey Hey, 

How are you world wide web? I am pretty radical. This is my first time blogging on WordPress. So i thought I might include a short introduction about myself. My name is Lauren Brain, I am 20 years old and am studying law and international studies at Wollongong university. My interests include, music specifically “beats”.I like literature and meeting strangers outside of clubs and having philosophical discussions with them. I suppose you could say I am a amalgam of intellectual and risktaker. I also enjoy film, and tv. Basketball is my favourite sport to play and hockey is my favourite sport to watch. I live in the Sutherland shire and work in Surry hills. When I grow up I really want to be happy, but I will probably settle for being a lawyer. Anyway that’s me, I hope you enjoy my various ramblings. Take it sleazy

Love 
LB xo