Since first published in 2007, Andrew Keen's look at Web 2.0 culture, The Cult of the Amateur, has proven prescient in forecasting the state of technology. From its inception, the Internet promised and delivered so many breakthroughs, yet we can't help but wonder: When did it screech to a halt and stop delivering true innovation?
What it has delivered instead, is what Keen calls an avalanche of amateur, user-generated free content. Keen concedes that "not all user-generated amateur content is worthless, talented or without merit ... We need to talk about the consequences of today's user-generated media before it's too late."
I can identify what that observation because I felt great unease when journalism sources, both print and online, began stressing consumer eye-witness accounts of events, with jumpy photos taken by cell phone, and network news programs broadcasting these reports from eye-witnesses with no sense of what the real news story was, no verification. More importantly, these instant eyewitness news stories offered no context, which is what we look to professional journalism to provide.
In his foreword to the January 2008 paperback edition of The Cult of The Amateur, Keen categorizes Web 2.0 innovations such as blogs, MySpace, YouTube, Wikipedia, and their ilk as leading to the anonymous unfettered nature of user-generated media. He argues it contributes to the "misinformation of young people, corroding civic participation, endangers our individual rights to privacy and corrupts our sense of personal responsibility and accountability."
Yes, Keen takes a curmudgeonly view of the state of technology, but he has the research to back up his findings. His thesis about user-generated amateur content has already proven to be true. Today, a year later, amateurs are decimating the ranks of our 'cultural gatekeepers' by replacing professional critics, journalists, and editors.
The book takes a dim view of social networking sites, including MySpace and Facebook, and enlightens parents about what the majority of teens are doing online. It isn't just harmless fun if it provokes contact kids would be afraid to attempt in person. And with staggering statistics of over two million visitors a month to these sites, there is no safety, no control, and no limit to what will be tried and tested.
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