When I first watched the video that was posted on the wiki about Andrew Keen, I thought that he needed to loosen up a little bit. However, after reading an excerpt from his book “The Cult of the Amateur”, I realized that he made some very valid points. For example, one thing he said was “On today’s Internet, however, amateurism, rather than expertise, is celebrated, even revered” (37). I find this to be 100% true. Just think of all the websites that allow regular people to share with the world whatever they want! Keen uses the example of Wikipedia. He says it has 200 thousand editors at least who are all unpaid citizens that make this website happen. Anyone with access to a computer can edit Wikipedia and a lot of people do. Keen strongly dislikes Wikipedia because he believes that these amateurs who edit entries are disrespecting the knowledge of all the experts out there. But who is to say that only the experts should tell us what is true and what is not?
Well if Keen does not like Wikipedia then he sure wouldn’t like Urban Dictionary. Urban Dictionary is a website that allows you to give definitions similar to Wikipedia. However, Urban Dictionary has a lot more slang and is definitely crasser. Other users can then rate posts with either a thumbs up or thumbs down. Just an example of an entry; when I looked up Indiana University, I found “A school where students spend more time drinking than going to class” but I also found “It has top ten programs in business, journalism and psychology”. It is unusual to have such different viewpoints under the same entry but that is what happens when amateurs are allowed to edit their own content. If an expert was writing about Indiana University, say on the school’s official website, his/her language would be a great deal more eloquent than what was found on Urban Dictionary. However, people still believe Urban Dictionary just as much as they believe other websites. If a prospective student looked on Urban Dictionary at Indiana University and read what was on there, they might not want to attend here. And they don’t even know all the great stuff about IU! I agree with Keen that amateurism is definitely celebrated and is what they say is believed a lot more today than a few years ago.
2 comments:
Amy, good post! You made a good argument about Keen's point of view and it seems like you understand him well. I have never heard of Urban Dictionary until your blog and it made me want to look something up. So I looked up 'St. Patrick's Day' and there are many different viewpoints ranging from the actual history to people's opinion about drinking 'like there's no tomorrow.' I agree that Keen would most definitely not like that site because some people are "amateurs" who post their own definition. It's funny because I think that's great for our culture. We get many different view points, which in the end only makes you smarter, in my opinion. You will always have an open mind when you have access to different view points and information. Again, good post.
Amy, I think the example of Urban Dictionary is great. I also think it's a good example of citizen journalism because these definitions said by people are purely opinion and people are not held reliable for the facts being true or not. This site shows how "amateurs" use the internet and have an impact on journalism. I was looking on the site and some of the facts are very true however, some are simply just ones opinion. I thought you had a great example!
Post a Comment