I'm not just a blogger, I'm a journalist

Clay Shirky the author of Here Comes Everybody discusses the effects that the World Wide Web has on our society. The innovations of the Internet can be compared to the invention of the printing press, since both can cause careers to become obsolete and create loss of control from many of the world’s core institutions. (73) Mass Amateurization in the scope of publishing is giving anyone at anytime the ability to become a journalist by publishing their posts on the Internet. Since the content is being posted on web pages and blogs, the message can be accessed by a mass audience on a global level.
Shirky explains that the amateurization of publishing undoes the limitations set on news sources by traditional press outlets. (65) Mass Amateurization poses a threat to the market because it creates competition for professionals. Mass Amateurization not only affects the business of journalists and publishers, but also photographers, singers, models and many other occupations. When an amateur photographer publishes their photos on sites like Flickr, they give the professional photographers a run for their money. (74) Just as aspiring models who market themselves online and singers who upload their songs on YouTube are competition for their respective industries.
There have been instances when people I know would dip their feet into viral self-marketing. A few classmates from my high school put together a funny skit on YouTube a few months ago.

In an effort to gain more views, they posted the video on their facebooks and asked friends to share the video with their friends. I posted the video on my wall, sent it out via Aol Instant Messenger to my AIM buddies, and even shared a link on my tumblr page. Unfortunately, the video was by no means a viral success and didn’t even reach 1000 views. Although the World Wide Web provides the potential for success, not everyone will gain attention from a mass audience.
Many others have expressed their opinions on the Internet’s affect on society. Robert L. Webb explains that the Internet benefits consumers and gives access to information in a way that’s never been utilized before. “For the first time in history, people from all social levels can publish their opinions and there is someone out there to read them. (…) This requirement is leading to a culture revolution.” (2) Due to the rise of popular developments such as search engines, the way people think, translate, find and even transmit data has forever changed.
I feel that the future of the media professional is at risk. The fate of the profession is dwindling, because there are more and more media outlets arising daily. Just as the scribe was replaced by the printing press, professionals are rapidly being replaced by amateurs in their fields. As Shirky mentions: “at the end of the 1400s (…) the scribe’s skills were eminently replaceable.” (67) The movable type had its benefits: events such as the Protestant Reformation wouldn’t be possible without its invention; however, it was at the cost of all the scribes losing their jobs. Today, the wide circulation and easy accessibility of news has its benefits, but at the cost of hurting the professional news market.


[1] Shirky, Clay. “Everyone Is A Media Outlet.” Here Comes Everybody. New York: Penguin Press, 2008. (54-80)

[2] Webb, Robert L. “How the Internet is Changing Society.” 2001. (http://www.motivation-tools.com/changing_society.htm) Web. 11 Aug. 2011.

In the reading “Everyone is a Media Outlet,” Clay Shirky describes “mass amateurization”. Shirky discussed the significance of the internet and the web. Anyone can publish content on the internet. Communication costs are cheap and it is easy to transfer information. With the internet, there is no cost of production, reproduction, and distribution of news. Publishing is now simple and effortless. Anyone who owns a computer can produce and distribute media content. For example, I experienced mass amateurization when Michael Jackson died. I learned about his death from the many publishers of the news on Facebook and not from reading any newspaper or watching television. Mass amateurization came about because publishing is now global, social, ubiquitous, and cheap.

There are many outcomes of mass amateurization. Professionals have lost control over the media. Journalism is no longer reserved for professionals and publishing has been “deprofessionalized”. (p. 63) Publishing is no longer unique because anyone can publish over the Internet. Shirky explains that “you no longer have to be a professional publisher to publish.” (p. 66) Mass amateurization of publishing led to its lack of scarcity. Because of the World Wide Web, newspapers no longer have “a monopoly on the written word” and a “new ecosystem” was created. (p. 60)

The content we are now exposed to is limitless. There is more content published because it is easy and cheap to communicate. There are now many more outlets of publishing and public expression is now easier than ever before. Blogs can now keep stories alive that otherwise would have died out. Mass amateurization made stories “breaking news” that before were “not worth covering”. (p. 64) Anything can now be news and news no longer requires professional judgment. Any news can be distributed to the public without professional consent. The public is now exposed to more content that may otherwise not have been published due to some sort of professional bias. In addition, Shirky states that mass amateurization has made public speech and action more valuable, while the written word has lost its value because it is no longer rare.

Mass amateurization breaks professional categories and has led to the necessity to redefine many media terms. First of all, mass amateurization led to a change in the definition of news. According to Shirky, news can now be defined as “a communications ecosystem, occupied by a mix of formal organizations, informal collectives, and individuals.” (p. 66) Although Shirky tries to differentiate between professional publishers and bloggers, bloggers can be considered the new journalists of today. The definitions of publisher and journalist have also changed. Publishing is no longer expensive and therefore, publishers are no longer rare. Anyone can be a journalist and anyone can be a publisher. The scarcity of journalists and publishers no longer exists. Shirky also discusses the “shield law” for journalists and the need to alter journalistic privilege because of the difficulty in defining who should be considered a journalist.

The future of the media professional has definitely been threatened through mass amateurization. Just like scribes kept working alongside the printing press, I believe that newspapers will continue to be distributed along with news distributed over the internet. There is still value in newspapers and they can be considered a more reliable source than many internet sites. However, the internet definitely poses a major threat to the newspaper business.

Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody. New York: Penguin Press, 2008.

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Amateur Vs. Professional

When newspapers were just becoming popular the owners would obsess over the advancing of competing newspapers, such as printing in color. However, they did not obsess over the invention of the internet. They simply did not view it as any sort of threat. Being that the internet is not a business, and because it is not professionally produced, it didn't even cross the minds of the owners of the professionally produced newspapers. The only threats to them were those that came from other media outlets. This gave way for the development of mass amateurization through the world wide web.

"A profession exists to solve a hard problem, one that requires some sort of specialization, and most professions exist because there is a scarce resource that requires ongoing management." [1] For example there are few channels with many viewers, and so there must be a professional who will choose what to put on those few channels that tons a viewers will ultimately watch. [1] Being that there are such few professionals per career, they are the ones who dictate what product they put out. These people are the ones that set the trends and basically tell people what is important and what's not, based on their opinions and other professionals in the same field; not the public's. If a story was too expensive to print, they would not run it. Which raises the questions, "what happens when the cost of reproduction and distribution goes away? What happens when there's nothing unique about publishing anymore, because users can find it for themselves?" [1]

The answers to the these questions came about as a result of mass amateurization, which is defined by "the process whereby the dichotomy between experts and amateurs is dissolving and creating a new category of professional amateurs." [2] This is shown by the fact that almost anyone can become a publisher of news today with the new technologies we have. The professional is no longer needed for the world to receive news, they could access by means of the internet. People could also decide what news was important and what was not on their own. They didn't have to only listen to what the journalists published in the newspaper because there was no such thing as something being too expensive to publish. The web is essentially free. You no longer need an education or even much of a talent in journalism you simply need access to the web and the ability to use it to publish something today.

Just the other day I was checking my Twitter and saw a tweet about how Team 6- the Navy Seal team who killed Osama Binladin- were in a helicopter and shot down by the Taliban killing the team and all others onboard. This tweet was not by a professional journalist, yet I was reading the same news story that was published by most newspapers that day.

In his book, "Everyone is a Media", Shirky raises the question of who is now considered a journalist? The Oxford English Dictionary defines a journalist as "a person who writes for newspapers or magazines or prepares news to be broadcast on radio or television." [3] This definition was suitable in the world of pre- mass amateurization. Only those who worked for a media outlet were the ones who reported or wrote about the news. Today there are the non professionals who are spreading news sometimes even before the professionals have a chance to, either by blogging, tweeting or posting it on Facebook, because it is just so easy to. Shirky also argues that while competing for news breaks can be harmless to the professional media outlets other effects of mass amateurization are actually harmful to them. With the new easy technology of a digital camera, almost anyone can take a decent photo and upload it to the web to be sold. If someone is looking for a nice picture to buy and there are two pictures on the web of the same thing and same quality, if one is by a professional and expensive and the other is by an amateur and cheap people will buy the cheap one. This therefore is taking sales away from the professionals. All of this just shows how the gap between the professionals and amateurs has shrunk over the years and almost no longer exists. [1]

This all poses a major problem for newspapers today and they want the answer to the question everyone is wondering about; will newspapers ever become obsolete? Will there no longer be a need for media professionals in the future? I think over time their importance has, and will decline, but in some way, shape, or form, they will always remain. Today we have an enormous amount of new media outlets from which we can receive our news, yet most people still look back at the professional news sources to verify or detect more of a story. The new media outlets may be the first places from which we hear breaking news, but it won't necessarily be the last.

[1] Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody: the Power of Organizing without Organizations. New York: Penguin, 2009. Print.

[2] "Mass Amateurization - P2P Foundation." The Foundation for P2P Alternatives - P2P Foundation. Web. 11 Aug. 2011. .

[3] Oxforddictionary.com. Web. .

[4] picture- http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/WindowsLiveWriter/volunteer.gif

http://www.quotesby.co.uk/celeb_images/thumb/C/clay_shirky.jpg

Mass amateurization refers to the process where the difference between the experts and amateurs is dissolving and creating a new category of professional amateurs. [1]In the publishing world, because of the web, professional publishers are not being recognized like they used to be. “A professional learns things in a way that differentiates her from most of the populace”[2]. When publishing was an expensive and rare thing to do, a professional publisher would decide what is important to publish in the newspaper and what isn’t. What the web is doing is that it is giving any one the ability to publish a story whether it is important or not. It is inexpensive and easy to publish a story on the web. When a professional publisher publishes a story in a newspaper it is because he or she thinks it is something worth publishing but because it is so easy to publish on the web an amateur can and will publish that same story along with many other stories. The professional publisher doesn’t seem so professional anymore.

Clay explains that one doesn’t need to become a publisher to publish. “For a generation that is growing up without the scarcity that made publishing such a serious-minded pursuit, the written word has no special value in and of itself.”[3] The scarcity of a publisher is what makes him or her special. He is one of a kind. There isn’t much scarcity anymore because anyone can have the ability to publish an event. The outcome of mass amateurization is the loss of professionalism. The Internet is easy to access and free so people don’t mind getting their news from there instead of the newspaper. Blogs and social networks for some people are a replacement to the newspaper and professional journalism.

A personal example of mass amateurization actually happened in my very own high school. The school talent show was always very limited, only the best of the best made the cut but this year things were different. The school principal wanted t to give everyone an opportunity to be in the talent show so everyone who tried out was able to be in it. The best singers and musicians got lost in the crowd because they were surrounded by amateurs. There was no longer a scarcity of professionals. This is an example of what Clay describes as “mass amateurization”.

“News for news sake will continue to be commoditized, but news that is specific to the end user and filled with real-time education will be hard to come by and highly valued.”[4] Although it seems like the amateurs of the web are taking over, people do value breaking news written by a professional rather than an amateur. The expression of different ideas on the web is important however when one is looking for facts they will always turn to the professionals. I believe the future for professional journalism is not going anywhere. Their word will always be valued and respected.

Clay discusses how mass amateurization affects professional journalists as well as photographers many other professions. I still however do believe that professionals will always be valued over amateurs. When people are looking for the best they will turn to the professionals. The best photographers and journalist are still highly respected and they always will be.

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[1] "Mass Amateurization - P2P Foundation." The Foundation for P2P Alternatives - P2P Foundation. Web. 10 Aug. 2011. .

[2] Clay Shirky “mass amateurizaion”

[3] Clay Shirky “mass amateurization”

[4] Spanfeller, Jim. "What The Future Will Look Like For Journalists | PaidContent." The Economics of Digital Content | PaidContent. Web. 10 Aug. 2011.

Professionals are Being Replaced with Amateurs...

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It used to be, only the professionals published. Only the professionals called the shots. They decided what was going to be breaking news, and what was simply, insignificant. But as time progressed, and new technologies kicked in, amateurs, regular people like you and I, decided that they want in.

In his article “Everyone is a Media Outlet”, Clay Shirky elaborates on how the spread of literacy was a process of mass amateurization, instead of mass professionalization. Shirky explains how in the past, it was difficult to “move words, images and sounds from creator to consumer "[i]. Then media businesses, the professionals, stepped in with a solution, and in return, they got to control the media. However, nowadays, production, reproduction and distribution, are no longer major problems. As a result, the professionals are no longer in complete control, everyone is; well sort of.

When the web came along, and sites like Twitter, Facebook and Blogspot hit the market, professionals knew they were in for a rude awakening.“The Web didn’t introduce a new competitor into the old ecosystem… the Web created a new ecosystem.”[ii] The difference between the newspaper and the Web is that, newspaper journalists are, well, cheap. If it’s not in the newspaper, it was too expensive to print. On the other hand however, when it comes to the Web, as Shirky clearly put it, amateurs don’t have to ask “Why publish this?” rather, “Why not?”.

The day the computer was invented and the internet was provided, was the day amateurs became journalists. Shirky, in his article, quotes the Oxford Dictionary who defines a journalist as a “person who writes for newspapers or magazines, or prepares news to be broadcast on radio or television.”[iii] It use to be, not everyone can be a journalist, and hence, not everyone had the journalistic privileges. However, it is no longer like that. Today, anyone in the world can publish something at any time, making them a journalist. But the big question is, “how should we alter journalistic privilege to fit that new reality?”, or the even bigger question, “who is a journalist?” . [iv]

When I heard about the young Jewish boy who went missing, I immediately put my Facebook status as “PLEASE LOOK FOR LIEBY!”, and I placed a picture of him right beside it. Did that make me a journalist? I was probably speaking out to just as many people as a professional would.

I believe, in the future, amateurs will only gain more control, while professionals quickly lose their power. I think we will have to redefine a journalist, a photographer as well as many other professions. As Shirky stated, “It has already happened. In many ways, the rise of group-forming networks is best viewed not as an invention but as an event, a thing that has happened in the world and can’t be undone.” [v] There will probably be chaos and tension up ahead, just like the printing press brought along, but eventually, like everything else, it’ll come to an end.

[i] Shirky, Clay; Everyone is a Media Outlet

[ii] Shirky, Clay; Everyone is a Media Outlet

[iii] Oxford Dictionary

[iv] Shirky, Clay; Everyone is a Media Outlet

[v] Shirky, Clay; Everyone is a Media Outlet

Operation Delego

(Image featured on "Massive Child Pornography Ring Busted" on RT originally from ttp://lifeglobe.net) When people hear the word "Dream" they often think of clouds, happiness, a place where fantasies come to true. "Dreamboard" an online bulletin board was the opposite of what one would think of a dream. I would personally describe it as the most disgusting, horrendous, evil, and sickening think I have ever heard of. The online bulletin board, again in my opinion, should have been named "Hellboard" because that is what it was for young children and infants under the age of 12, the men that ran the site made their lives hell.

"Dreamboard" (created in 2008 and shut down in 2011) was an online bulletin board which shared violent child and infant pornography to its approximately 600 members. Charlie Savage of the New York Times described the members as "a sophisticated global network of pedophiles who traded pornographic videos and images of children as young as infants over the Internet, using encryption and proxy servers to evade detection". Members were found in 13 countries over 5 continents. The website had four levels of membership "the highest level — "Super VIP" — was reserved for those who produced their own material" according to USA Today. Seventy-two people were arrested, 13 have already pleaded guilty and will be spending 30 years to life in prison.

I read the story on 5 different news sources, the first 3 being the New York Times, BBC, USA Today and the last two being RT (Russia Today) and die Welt. The New York Times is the most respected metropolitan newspaper in the country. BBC is Britain's public service broadcaster, having a long history of being a reliable news source in Europe. USA Today is the most read national paper in the US. RT or Russia Today is state funded Russian based news source that broadcasts in four different languages, it presents news from the Russian perspective. Die Welt (the World) is a German liberal paper. I chose the last two sources because I wanted an international perspective on the story.

Each one of these news sources described "Dreamboard's" history and how it functioned. USA Today and the NY Times did the best in describing how the website functioned. BBC and the NY Times were the only two to name all of the 13 countries where arrests were made, die Welt only listed the Western European countries closest to Germany, including Germany itself. BBC, RT and die Welt were the only ones to call the investigation by its name "Operation Delego". Die Welt used USA Today as a source, therefore it is very similar to the USA Today article.

It is hard for me to describe which source presented the story the best, or the most densely. Each article used terms such as "authorities", and included quotes from these "authorities" (the Attorney General Eric Holder, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to name a few), these quotes described the website to be "horrific" and as a "nightmare" for the young children who were abused and again each article described how the website functioned. The NY Times, USA Today and RT all ended their articles with a quote threatening to find anyone who is still running similar websites.

I would recommend reading all 5 (or four since one is in German) articles in order to receive the full story and the most information. Each article did touch on different aspects of the case but no two articles included the same information and not one article included all of the facts.

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/us/04porn.html?scp=2&sq=child%20pornography&st=cse

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-14396194

http://rt.com/usa/news/child-pornography-ring-holder/

http://www.welt.de/newsticker/dpa_nt/infoline_nt/brennpunkte_nt/article13525470/Globaler-Kinderporno-Ring-zerschlagen-Sex-mit-Babys.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-08-03-child-sex-abuse_n.htm

The Dreamboard Scandal

(Pictured, Eric Holder and Janet Napolitano, image courtesy of theatlanticwire.com)

The advent and proliferation of the internet facilitates the spread of ideas, from harmless cooking recipes to bootleg mp3s to the most horrific forms of child pornography exposed, to date. When purveyors of the latter are thwarted it seems a simultaneous victory and defeat for mankind: on one hand, child pornographers have been stopped, but on the other hand, the fact that such people and their perversions exist is terrifying. So, it is a bittersweet moment when US government officials can say that they've successfully dismantled and apprehended the members of a child pornography ring like that facilitated by "Dreamboard," an incentive-based forum in which users were encouraged to upload child pornography with a high bounty placed on "super-hardcore" content and content created by the users themselves. (1) In exchange for making their private collections available to the rest of the Dreamboard community, members were rewarded with higher ranks and increased access to the site's content. To view content members were required to post content. In fact, according to CNN, if members did not upload content at least once every 50 days, they risked termination of their membership to the board.(2) This past Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano publicized the case and that 72 members of Dreamboard have been charged with child pornography crimes. (3 Vancouver Sun)

I reviewed BBC, USA Today, The New York Times, CNN, Christian Science Monitor, and The Vancouver Sun's online coverage of the breaking news and, overall, I didn't see much variation in slant, possibly due to an almost universal public opinion on the horrors of child pornography. No political bias could cause any news outlet in it's right mind to portray Dreamboard as anything but an abhorrence and Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) "Operation Delego" team, which lead the investigation, as anything but a savior. The biggest difference I found was that, among the articles I reviewed, The Vancouver Sun and Christian Science Monitor articles were the only ones to include the names of some of the perpetrators. In the case of The Vancouver Sun, the two names listed were Canadian men. I also found that CNN was the only source to claim that all 600 purported users of Dreamboard were men, a claim that is hard for me to believe.

In terms of sources, all of the papers must have obtain much of their information from Wednesday's announcement. Furthermore, all of the articles, save for The New York Times quoted Eric Holder saying: "The members of this criminal network shared a demented dream to create the pre-eminent online community for the promotion of child sexual exploitation but for the children they victimized this was nothing short of a nightmare." CNN, Christian Science Monitor, The Vancouver Sun, and The New York Times all quoted and referred to ICE director John Morton and CNN, USA Today, and The New York Times all quoted and referred to Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer. Interestingly, only CNN and BBC quoted Janet Napolitano. The Vancouver Sun reached out to the RCMP, the national police force of Canada for a statement and USA Today quoted Michelle Collins, a VP of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

I would say the article with the most content was the one from CNN. It gave the most comprehensive coverage and in-depth information. In contrast, the New York Times article was very brief and more like an overview than a full news story. The Vancouver Sun's article was more focused in Canada while the rest of the articles were USA-centric, possibly due to the facts that they are, save for BBC, American publications and that the story broke in the US.

1. Kevin Johnson, "Feds Charge 72 people in international online child sex ring," USA Today, August 3rd, 2011, http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-08-03-child-sex-abuse_n.htm.

2. Terry Frieden, "72 charged in online global child porn ring," CNN, August 3rd, 2011, http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/08/03/us.child.porn.ring/index.html?iref=allsearch.

3. Amy Minsky, "Two canadians named in massive international child porn bust," The Vancouver Sun, August 3rd, 2011, http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Canadians+named+massive+international+child+porn+bust/5201671/story.ht.ml