On Demand
Why the Internet is Bad for Us
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Andrew Keen, former Silicon Valley entrepreneur and author of the new book The Cult of the Amateur: How today's Internet is killing our culture (Currency, 2007), says blogs, wikis and other web 2.0 phenomena do more harm than good.
The Cult of the Amateur is available for purchase at Amazon.com.
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And media consolidation? ie Clear Channel... We see much of the same dumbing down in the commercial media and has become a voice for various government departments, ie Judith Miller or CNN MSNBC and the selling of the war
Taking video out of context.
Isn't that what the MSM did to Howard Dean in the scream, ending his campaign?
Your guest fails to make an unconvincing point. The reasons why blogs, wikis and independent media have rapidly grown are because 1- technology makes this possible, but more importantly 2- people are starved for real news. If traditional media were satisfactory, then there would be less demand for blogs, wikis and independent media.
www.sourban.net
I am sick and tired of all these British people coming to this country telling us how to live. As though Andrew Sullivan, Christopher Hitchens, etc. weren't enough.
Just having a British accent doesn't mean that somone's opinion should be aired.
This fellow doesn't appreciate the American society and what makes it dynamic. He has benefitted from it and now he wants to change it.
Regards,
Neil Fazel
Your guest seems extremely naive. Does he actually believe that most Americans take ANYTHING on the web literally or seriously. The web is a place to buy and sell things, to be entertained, to express oneself. It isn't a place where you get a law or journalism degree. Further, video submitted by the "average person" has helped to catch criminals. If politicians have a problem with being video'd, then they should get out of politics.
I'm not buying anything this guy has to say. he argues for allowing media, which is a capitalist system, to run our media and therefore our culture, but he holds the Guardian up as an example? That makes no sense! everything is run by advertising, from the large media conglomorates down to web 2.0 stuff.
I agree w/ a lot of Mr. Keen's views. Sound bites do not provide substantive information. But to mention the Huffington Post as an example of good media isn't accurate either. While it has some excellent writers, it's also a for-profit venue and it has had its share of poorly written articles, and Paris Hilton and Britney Spears coverage. Reliable news these days comes, yes, from WNYC or PBS or the BBC, and a few other sources. The rest are sound-bites, literally.
Why do older people think they can talk about new media without sounding dumb?
Meanwhile, the music inductry is a really good example of why democritazation WORKS. MSM tells us that Britney Spears is good. She's crap. But the any joe blow who writes a bad song wouldn't survive in the trenches because people wouldn't pay to listen to him nor will they bother to listen to him for free.
Also, "everyone is stealing music" is crap. The music industry is dying because they continue to put out a bad product.
The problematic realtionship between the news media, the internet, and most Americans is that they have access to more than enough current and historical information on the internet to develop a substative relationship with the truth yet when they realize that they were lied to they blame the news media for not informing them.
can we look at the quebec music scene as an example? beause of the artificial barrier of language, market is titled towards diversification there, not conglomeration as in the 20th century professional music model. the result there has certainly not been a reduction in quality. Neither will the "flattening" of the market as described by your guest. I for one, will not lament a resurgence of live music.
Philippe Castagner, tenor.
It sounds to me like this guy is bitter that the web is replacing things but... why? Why does he care? i don't buy this "It's destroying our culture" argument. People in every generation say the culture is going in the toilet, but they're always wrong. Damn, this guy sound like a 60 year old. "All of this used to be orange groves!"
I am from Milwaukee WI where I listen while at work and support WNYC.
When you fall into the vast wave of internet information/entertainment you surf with the forewarning that you take it for what it is worth and consider the source. We can place credibility in news forecast or news papers and magazines because as part of their business ethics they have to be accountable. When you surf the web and pull information/entertainment you decide what you want to do with it. Obviously if you quote it as fact you dig into authority and credentials, if you pull it in internally as use it as entertainment it serves only as that entertainment. I think it is fun. That’s it; it is just fun to do. I believe that a large experience of information/entertainment as I select from the web is as important to the growth of human character as silence and the observation of nature.
THANKS!
Jeffrey
The problem with this guests position on music is the promotion of "forced music". In the past, the major record labels have the ultimate say in what millions of listeners get to experience. The radio is no way to experience music that the major labels dub "unworthy" since the labels often have marketing deals with the major stations. Over the last 4 years, the radio stations seem to play such generic rubish while most of the original material I have heard has come from bands that have marketed themselves. I don't like the idea of the major labels deciding what American culture is made of.
Keen makes some interesting, valid points. But his argument that the anonymity of YouTube, etc. can be deceiving and, hence, destructive (LonelyGirl15, the "1984" Hillary Clinton remake video) fails. It's simply a part of human nature. Isn't it better coming from "ordinary people" on YouTube than the government in the MSM?
At least on YouTube, people understand that things may not appear as they seem. (And smart people understand that more and more with the MSM.)
please please please don't compare this guy to me.
cheers,
chris
As for the musicians not making any money on youtube-- there have been musicians making music as a "hobby" whilst making their money at a "day job" for quite a long time. They never had an audience. Now with youtube they still don't make money but they finally have an audience.
Mr Keen ignores the fact that with a greater audience the probability of making money increases, not decreases.
Great discussion though.
I agree with his notion that too much talking kills listening. With all the availability of information we are less and less informed. More is not always better. I love the internet, but I'm not snookered into believing that everything we see on it is of equal value. And as far as everyone being "Man of the Year", that's a lot like nobody is. When Hilton Paris becomes as important as the war in Iraq, we are all lessened. The film "Network" is more and more prophetic as time goes on.
I really doubt that there are that many anonymous people on the Inernet. It's not a scourge.
When you fall into the vast wave of internet information/entertainment you surf with the forewarning that you take it for what it is worth and consider the source. We can place credibility in news forecast or news papers and magazines because as part of their business ethics they have to be accountable. When you surf the web and pull information/entertainment you decide what you want to do with it. Obviously if you quote it as fact you dig into authority and credentials, if you pull it in internally as use it as entertainment it serves only as that entertainment. I think it is fun. That’s it; it is just fun to do. I believe that a large experience of information/entertainment as I select from the web is as important to the growth of human character as silence and the observation of nature.
THANKS!
Jeffrey
I am currently involved with Assignment Zero, which is a new journalism project. It uses a balance of citizens journalists (I am one.) to do the research, interviewing, and drafting, and professional editors to supervise the process. What does your guest think of this model?
Isn't it only because the corporate media, including record companies etc. have so miserably failed us that the internet has proliferated so widely?
The internet is just the new street.
Hi,
If your guest wants to talk about "professionals" choosing what music we listen to, what news we get, what books we read, what about all those talented artists (and I speak as one of them) who had their hearts broken and stepped on by the pros who decided tin their infinite wisdom that we just weren't good enough. If we choose to go ahead and create our stuff and put it out there on the web with little or no realistic expectation of making any money out of it, what could possibly be wrong with that?
An important point: it wasn't democratization that killed the music industry, but elitism. New, up and coming acts were, for the longest time, completely shut out from the music industry because said industry stopped hitting the trenches to find them, stopped listening to the unsolicited demos, stopped actively getting "out there". What came of it was a bland center, a star culture formed by a committee more involved with demographics than music.
If anything, democratization only amplifies (pardon the pun) the disparity. There are no middle-of-the-road musicians out there in indie-land. They very much mine avant-niche while the industry strives to please all the people all the time. There's no room for pop stars to truly invent and grow. Conversely, indie-music fears sounding more musical and less "wild & raw" because it somehow smacks of pandering.
Reliability of information on the Net:
The Net opens up opportunities to present untruths in the guise of fact, which can be a bad thing, obviously. But on the flip-side it can be used in this way to force us to think about the world "as if" the fiction were true, providing it's not too far-fetched.
I'm thinking about a site that makes these seemingly 'ahead of the current technology' claims in biotechnology (happinessTM.com). It has made me think about the real affect of these claims when/if they become truth. I still don't know if they are for real or not. But, it has made me become interested in being politically involved in determining the policies that may protect our human-biology in the future.
déjà vu - he sounds like a playwright in the early days of talkies
get over it. people of time will find good sources on the net that suit their needs
wikipedia is a great source for information quick, children's Britannica is out of date 6 months before it his the shelves. and you can't always believe the new York times
why is the point money not art????
does every musicians NEED to make money, most of the money a musician makes goes to corporate executives.
just let the old corporate system die, I hate everything this guy said
Anyone who's been listening to Brian's show for some time knows that Christopher Hitchens would -never- refer to himself as "Chris."
Signed,
Chris
Andrew Keane seems to be suggesting a politburo who approves what is important, what is relevant? This is nonsense.
Anonymity is blown-out of proportion. I don't want a group of people telling me what I should be interested in.
No Upside for anonymity? What about whistle-blowers?
Given the normal representation on your show the dismissal of someone because that person is outside of it is, somehow, not unexpected.
In British schools they teach students to take ridiculous positions. Thanks, Andrew Keen, for entertaining us with your education.
In his Weekly Standard essay, he actually called the Web 2.0 people Communists. He's a real-life Stephen Colbert.
Conservatives believe in ignoring the facts. But, Comrades, let's look at the facts.
We've had copyright and mass-marketed corporate music for less than 150 years. We've had music before that for at least 6000 years, and some of it was pretty good. Some of it was folk music created by the Communists and ordinary people that Keen hates.
And they succeeded in the free market. Everybody played their music. Keen just doesn't like the free market.
This guy is what we on the internet call a troll. What a waste of an hour. "I'm gonna get my kids an Encyclopedia Brittanica" because this Wikipedia thing isn't up to snuff. And another thing, all you musicians, don't play any music until you have a multi-record contract with a major label. Also, Youtube sells advertisements! Imagine! The hypocrisy! Everybody on the internet is rude, and they might be terrorists! Did I mention I wrote a book?
Does anyone aside from me find it ironic that Mr. Keen has a blog made with free (Typepad) software that he found on the internet? As another comment mentions above, Mr. Keen is indeed a real live Stephen Colbert.
Sure, the Web is full of "user-generated nonsense," but so, apparently, is Andrew Keen. And that’s the glory & curse of democracy.
Information sharing has always been important. In 18th century Europe letter writing became an significant cultural activity. In the second half of the 19th century we experienced an explosion of printed media due to technological advances in printing & paper production. The result: Quality & colorful newspapers & magazines, more books, and a glut of advertising. In the 1960s we saw the growth of niche magazines. My point being that world culture evolves continuously as does technology.
The jury is still out on the cultural value of blogs, social networking software, etc. Sure there’s a lot of self-serving amateur content out there, but there’s also a lot of positive stuff being posted. But there is little doubt that the new technology is here to stay.
http://madsilence.wordpress.com
This guy's arguments about "killing culture" were absurd. What he means is that corporate-regulated culture is being destroyed, and hooray for that! He keeps using the fact that a lot of people who share their art on the web (music, writing, etc.) don't get paid for it, therefore this model is bad. Huh? In that case Van Gogh sucked, according to this fellow, because nobody paid for his paintings.
I've discovered several performers via the internet (Jonathan Coulton anyone?) and yes, I've bought their CDs through CDBaby and gone to see their shows. The fact that the cost-of-entry is so low for the internet means that yes, a lot of crap will get posted, but it also means that people with talent who don't necesserily fit whatever pap the giant conglomerates are pushing can also get a listen.
And the notion that it destroys democracy? LOL! Anybody can get a camera or camera phone and catch a politician during an off moment. Good! Democracy is destroyed by the big money that is spent by candidates carefully constructing their image, paying PR firms, Ad firms, etc. to craft a mask to trick us into trusting them. Anything that can tear that facade down is a benefit to democracy. The Macaca moment revealed a horrible racist. John Edwards grooming his hair showed a person getting ready for a broadcast. I get to choose which one reveals the worse character, but at least I can make that choice based on greater evidence.
Just heard podcast -- I thought it was a quite well done segment on
"How a wine-addled Australian can manage write a book."
I heard half of the podcast, and I agree with Jake. Time to do my laundry.
At the start, Keen implies that Bob Dylan sprung whole from the forehead of Columbia Records, and by the end, Keen was just moaning "Nobody's making any money!" as though kids playing Fur Elise should be cashing in.
Anyone who knows the simple Albini math of major labels can tell you that artists aren't making money off of CDs, and the whole system of agents, producers, marketers, and executives have done nothing but suck them dry.
The worst thing about listening to podcasts is not being able to call in and pwnz0r a troll like Keen.
BL shouldn't be wasting airtime on him or the likes of Newt Gingrich. We need more local, community voices and fewer national pundits and wannabes.
The comments here are overwhelmingly against Keen's point of view. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean much because blogs tend to be a place where people find each other and cast their vote in agreement in order to confirm what they already believe. It's not really a place to explore ideas or carry on an interesting discussion. I can't say I learned anything from the thirty plus comments above...
Everything is subject to opinion, some opinions more experienced, some less. The only difference with the internet medium is that we have an opportunity to hear as many opinions as there are people with time to express them.
To say that the internet is detroying our culture is totally alarmist. People didn't stop thinking and forming their own opinions when civilization was invented, didn't stop when religion was invented, didn't stop when art was invented, didn't stop when print media was invented, didn't stop when radio and TV were invented, and won't stop just because of the internet. In fact, most of those things got people to think more, and become more involved with each other.
I'm not saying that the internet is some sort of wonderful culture broadening advancement, but seriously:
"they all sound fun, engaging, amusing, but no one's making any money off of it. So, they all become amateurs, by definition."
Who cares that people aren't necessarily paying the bills with their time spent online??????? Money is not always the beginning and the ending of acitivity.
I would strongly recommend books by Herb Schiller on the topic of media consolidation.
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