A very interesting discussion of Andrew Keen’s web 2.0 polemic “The Cult of the Amateur” was held at the RSA this week. The debate is an essential one because his viewpoint represents the large portion of society whose livlihoods have always relied on traditional forms of hierarchy and qualification and who are keen to protect these systems. Web 2.0, as Keen acknowledges, is a threat to traditional media, hierarchies and business models.
Whereas he believes that this threat results in an deterioration of culture due to a lack or authorititive voices qualified by formal training and ‘gate keepers’, most of the world is realising that new web services are emerging that are very accurate ways of successfully navigating for ourselves the mass of information available on the internet.
The argument boils down to a belief in the cababilities individual, Keen considers the public to be ameteurs, or worse
‘monkeys’ who are incapable of independent critical decision making. As Keen mentioned in his Newsnight appearance a few months
ago, he does not trust people to choose the information that they want to consume or to decide what is good or
bad.
Keen’s argument is threatening to our work at thinkpublic because our work relies on the value of individual experience. We believe that everyone’s experience is subjective but valuable in some way regardless of position, training and qualification. We try hard to incorporate this in the the design of a service- a reliance on traditional expertise alone does not stimulate innovation.
The discussion can be heard here.
An extremely interesting online debate with Emily Bell can be read here.
Sep 8th, Marc Fonteijn said:
Thanks for the links Ivo. I listened to the discussion. So much things were discussed and there are so many point of views that I hope you’re also coming to Holland so we can discuss this in real life.
My short response is that our culture changing and web 2.0 / new media is filling in demands that arise in this new culture. If we should be happy about this changing culture is a discussion where personal opinions will always vary. I prefer to look at the possibilities new media offers.
Sep 10th, Ivo said:
I very much looking forward to discussing this in person, I am very optimistic about the capabilities of new technologies to transform culture positively, this is why I’m interested in Keen’s arguments which are specifically about the negative effects.
Sep 28th, Marc Fonteijn said:
He’re a video of the discussion with Andrew Keen and David Weinberge at Picnic07.