I just finished a book that boggled my mind. The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture by Andrew Keen. I came across the book while browsing in the bookstore and decided to make it my first purchase for my new Kindle. Written in 2007, the main points of the book are even more relevant today then they were at the time of the writing. It was a fascinating... I soaked it up in about three days.
If you read the reviews on Amazon, it has a lot more bad reviews than good, but I still enjoyed it. I scanned through the criticisms, and it seems that most people agree that Keen's content is worth discussing, but they don't agree with his conclusions. At any rate, it was thought-provoking, and that's mostly what I'm looking for in a book (either that or pure entertainment!). So here's a horribly simplified list of some points that he made in the book:
- Too many people equate the credibility of blogs with broadcast, vetted, and expert news, and that is muddling "truth" in our culture.
- There is absolutely no accountability in the internet world. You can say whatever the hell you want to and there are no consequences, as opposed to professional news sources who MUST be credible, otherwise they get sued.
- Blogs and amateur news sources on the internet are killing the industry of professional journalism.
- Social networking sites are incredibly narcissistic. America is obsessed with "broadcasting self".
- YouTube has become a sort of covert advertising industry, since many viral videos are actually "plants" from political groups or corporations that are selling something. Most people cannot tell the difference between what is credible and what isn't.
- Wikipedia is basically garbage, since a 19-year-old high school drop out holds as much authority as a Ph.D. in their editing process.
- Pirating is killing the professional music and movie industry.
- Our culture (wrongly) lends more credibly to something that is "amateur" than trusted professional sources, largely due to the "amateur" culture of the internet.
- The "cult of the amateur" is actually sucking money and jobs out of our economy.
- The internet is sucking up every detail of our lives and simply feeds us what we want to hear, therefore it further narrows our world view.
- There is very little (if any) regulation of what personal information can be stored by internet sites, how it is to be protected, the length of time it can be held, and disclosure of the information.
- It's too easy to be duped by the internet.
Here are MY conclusions:
- I should buy actual CDs from independent music stores, even though it is more expensive.
- I should spend less time talking about myself on Facebook, because in essence, it IS narcissistic.
- I'm going to pay closer attention to the SOURCES of information that I read on the internet.
- I'm going to check out Citizendium.com, which was created by the same guy who actually invented Wikipedia. It's similar to Wikipedia, but has some things in place to recognize actual experts instead of letting ANYONE be "the" authority.
- I just might subscribe to a newspaper.
- I would like to intentionally read a bit more from sources that are opposed to my personal stand on issues.
Whenever I write about books, I really wish that you guys were reading it too. I've realized that it's really hard to summarize a book! Here's an attempt to practically show you an example of one of the things the author laments about the internet:
Take a look at the FIRST review of the book on Amazon. It happens to be a very negative review and is written by someone at Publishers Weekly. You can also see that Publishers Weekly is copyrighted by Reed Business Information. Just out of curiosity, I did a little research on Reed Business Information, and became immediately aware of how much Reed Business Information is invested in internet publishing and advertising. They have a "Chief Strategy and Internet Officer" and "Director of Internet Business". Included in his job description is the following: "... drives e-revenue growth by leveraging best practices and e-competency across Reed Business, with responsibility for company strategy worldwide." Part of their stated strategy is to "provide a range of communication and information channels - magazines, exhibition, directories, online media, marketing services - across five continents."
Okay, here's my point: doesn't it make sense that Publishers Weekly, that is owned by Reed Business Information, would give a negative review to a book that heavily criticizes everything that they do to make money? As a matter of fact, two of Reed Business Information's proprietary websites were mentioned BY NAME (in a negative sense) in Keen's book. So, how many people read that review on Amazon and think, "Oh, this is some random book reviewer who didn't like the book. I'm not going to read it." When actually, the book review could have been written intentionally as a negative review by Reed Business Information because of the content of the book and the threat it poses to their industry. Then they could have employed a clickbot to get that review placed at the top of Amazon's editorial review list, so it becomes the first one that you see.
The good news about our blog is that I don't think our readership of two is terribly concerned with our journalistic integrity or fact-checking. Rants wouldn't be nearly as much fun that way.
Read the book!
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