2 posts tagged “shirky”
Is the internet becoming a red/blue quagmire? Will we polarize ourselves into group-think silos, feeding off of an ever narrowing intellectual gene pool? Will the wisdom of the crowds instead become little fortresses of thought, ignorant of other ideas swirling outside the walled world? In “The Psychology of the Internet” I was struck by the Shirky quote about the loss of moderate voices on the net. I can’t help but transpose Wallace’s views on the “risky shift” to the polarization of America’s politics. As likeminded groups gather in their respective camps, it seems the perspectives and beliefs of the body politic swings towards the edges, not the center of an argument. As communication in America of all forms fragments (narrow casting on broadcast television, hundreds of specific cable channels, not to mention niche content on the internet) are we also fragmenting the structure of America as a whole? When Fox News creates a conservative version of the Daily Show, a show described variously as edgy and a bomb, a show that swipes at any and all targets in the crosshairs, how do we advance moderation and consensus? “The ½ Hour News Hour” does not appear to advance criticism with searing commentary, but instead is a video flame mail, serving to coalesce viewers towards one extreme or another. Is this a bad thing? Frankly, I think so. I am deeply troubled by the lack of moderation, and the apparent irrelevance of accountability in the public dialog.
The irony, to me, is that in the commercial sector of the web, reputation and accountability is everything. I am dependent on the “shadow of the future” as I spend literally thousands of dollars on the internet every year. Reputations on the web drive many of the choices I make on line. What I buy, what I read, who I touch is all driven in large part by others’ reputation. I do tend to patronize vendors and service providers who have “paid their dues” on line. Credibility is such an elusive thing, and without an opportunity to visit their brick and mortar store, I have to rely on the words of past customers. So far they have not let me down.
Overall, this week’s readings were really excellent.
Finally, any scholarly book that references Allen Funt gets my vote. Patricia Wallace’s work gets better with every reading.
What is a blog? Really, who cares? While I can understand from an academic standpoint the need to quantify particular genres for accurate apples-to-apples comparisons, really, what is a blog? Part of what I love about the internet is the cornucopia of crap called a blog. Blogging has become a catchall for the personal flotsam of our lives. But I think there is a difference between how we use the web as content providers and content consumers.
From the beginning of my experience as a content provider on the web I have journaled predominantly using photos. From my initial crude homepage, to my various current personas on the web, photo sharing has been an integral part of the dialogue. Perhaps because of ease, perhaps because of the way I see the world, writing about the nuts and bolts of the day is less compelling for me than capturing the moment with a camera. And while I have used this presentational format for sharing my point of view with a personal webpage, I also enjoy sharing with a community at large with a site like Flickr. But the tone of the community dialogue is important to me. When sharing media on a site like Youtube I am put off by the clutter and chaos of the community. I have become a recent convert to Vimeo and I find that the supportive nature of members is not only inclusive, but is an interesting environment for developing thoughtful discourse on personal media. This is knowledge I can then fold back here, in my more traditional blog space. The lines are blurring, and with the ability to marry my written, photographic and video efforts into one central site, I am finding that my need for a personal media portal is fading away. Blogs have become the tool I was trying to create on my own for the past 10 years.
Personal blogging always strikes me as a record of the exceptional rather than the mundane. For a large percentage of authors creating personal blogs, you write because of an exceptional event or feeling, and once it is past your posting frequency diminishes. How does this skew the content of a blog, and is that part of the reason so much of the content is ignored? Are we oversaturated with the angst and disappointment of everyday life?
As a content consumer I read the news… blogs are a part of that flow. I use links to news stories from sources I admire and respect. I love it when someone “pre-surfs” the web and directs me to a discovery on the web. I certainly maintained my own personal “hot links” page in the mid 90s, long since abandoned before the change of millennium. Having constant RSS feeds push content to me is invaluable, and really these authors become my “friends”, even though we have never met.
To quote Clay Shirky, blogging removes all barriers to publishing, so “you have high quality competition that costs nothing.” Then there is this blog. Low quality competition that costs minutes out of your life. Minutes that you will never recover. You do the math. I can’t believe this blog will ever be considered the farm team of any publisher. Shirky’s main point is on target, this is for my circle of friends, my virtual cocktail party. And it is for me. I can’t imagine who else would care.
