Blogging may be a cult, but so is Time magazine

By David MacGregor, November 6, 2007 @ 12:03 pm

Does mass collaboration herald the rise of a new literati, or just more monkeys with typewriters? Two books take polar views

There’s a Buddhist saying that if you go alone, you go faster, but if you go together you go further. In a nation of just four million people nothing could be more certain. Collaboration isn’t simply an interesting idea; it’s essential.

Wikinomics is a foray into the realm of collaboration using the tools and mindsets of Web 2.0. According to its authors, Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams, “mass collaboration changes everything”.

It is an interesting book. The contents are based on a privately-funded study undertaken by the pair. They tantalisingly dangle the titbit that their findings are proprietary so they can’t share all the information they have with the reader. Curiously ironic for a book that promotes openness.

Wikinomics explores the effect that new tools such as blogs and wikis are having on the way business is conducted. One of the central ideas is that companies in rapidly changing markets should always strive to be the best at what the customer values most, and outsource everything else. It is now possible to facilitate widespread contributions from teams or individuals spread across the globe. The days when a company kept the keys to the kingdom (including all of the intellectual capital for every component part) are over.

That is not to say that every business will harness the opportunity. Many will actively resist making the changes. There will be plenty of owners and senior executives who cherish the notion of being ‘the smartest guy in the room’. For some a loosening of the reins of power and control is simply not going to happen. I’m sure you can think of plenty of operations where information is guarded closely within the company. Silos are often built around the notion that knowledge is power. The result is like a handbrake on the business. It stifles innovation and the exchange of ideas that are necessary to move quickly to surprise the competition or react to competitive threats.

The authors point out that the connected, collaborative future may be difficult for the baby boomer generation to fully grasp. The ‘NetGen’ take to it like a duck to water though—they treat their computers “not as a box, the computer is a doorway”.

Wikinomics sometimes descends into consultantese and I sometimes found myself feeling that I had heard much of the argument before elsewhere (for example, the case study of GoldCorp, the Canadian mining operation that sought input from a global network of brilliant geologists to locate the mother lode from data that their own scientists had failed to successfully interpret, is told more eloquently by William Taylor and Polly LaBarre in Mavericks at Work), but all-in-all it is a worthwhile book to read.

“The idea that all ‘quality’ media will vanish is patently absurd. What will change is what is regarded as quality, how much we are prepared to pay for it and how it will be distributed”

The concept of collaborative work practices is certainly something Kiwi businesses must get their minds around. It may make concepts like ‘made in New Zealand’ difficult to reconcile. But there is no reason why we should isolate ourselves from the opportunities presented by participating in global networks to produce greater outcomes than we would by going it alone. As Rockefeller once said, “I’d rather have one percent of the proceeds from the efforts of 100 men that 100 percent from the efforts of one.”

In opposition to the ideas in Wikinomics is The Cult of the Amateur by Andrew Keen.

Keen’s argument is a little hysterical. Not in a good, Groucho Marx kind of way—more the Chicken Little kind … you know: “The sky is falling, the sky is falling, the sky is falling!” With every utterance the pitch slides up the tonal scale until you are glad you’re not a dog (because you’d still hear it after us humans have screened it out).

The subtitle of the book kind of tells all: ‘How today’s Internet is killing our culture and assaulting our economy.’ Yikes. Should we be afraid? According to Keen, Web 2.0 and the democratisation of media is the reason for declining sales of newspapers and magazines and television channels beginning a long, slow death roll that can only gather momentum as ‘citizen journalists’ stop paying attention to anything other than the inane wittering of other bloggers, vloggers and podcasters.

The scenario he paints is a future without hardworking autocue reading ‘broadcasters’ like Paul Holmes and Susan Wood, where journalism has no future and ‘discovered’ or bona fide authors won’t be paid for their work because the competition will be free.

Throughout the book he cites his own argument as proof of his own argument, especially when it corroborates the leap from one wobbly lily pad of argument to the next. He cites proof where it fits his hypothesis but relies on other unproven or discredited sources for evidence in support of his own conclusions. In his criticism of the online video phenomenon Loose Change—a documentary made by amateurs that questions the plausibility of the official story of the terror attacks on the US in 2001—he cites the report of the 9/11 Commission, but fails to acknowledge the report is the work of many authors and that many of the commissioners were partisan in their politics. Keen seems keen to assume that anyone in authority is an authority.

“When an objection cannot be made formidable, there is some policy in trying to make it frightful; and to substitute the yell and the war-whoop, in the place of reason, argument, and good order.”—Thomas Paine

Keen also seems to have little faith in market forces. The idea that all ‘quality’ media will vanish is patently absurd. What will change is what is regarded as quality, how much we are prepared to pay for it and how it will be distributed. Even among communities in the ‘blogosphere’ there are those that capture the imagination of audiences with potent ideas. The power of word of mouth (hyperlinking) has always been a potent force in the spreading of ideas and the growth of mass media.

“The most offensive aspect of this book is the frequently inferred notion that blogging is done by ignorant, uneducated, badly informed clowns—or ‘monkeys with typewriters’—who may well be paedophiles (I kid you not). aside from being by turns offensive and laughable, ‘the Cult of the Amateur’ omits to acknowledge that today’s amateurs are tomorrow’s literati”

I wonder whether the author’s real, unstated issue is that he doesn’t like change at all—burn those cotton gins!

His defence of ‘traditional’ media—he loves to cite Time magazine and The New York Times—fails to account for the fact that the majority of media is populist. I’m betting that flaky horoscopes, Sudoku, real estate sections and gossip columns sell more weekend newspapers than any actual news. Anyone who has ever watched a Fox news programme, let alone read a New Zealand Herald editorial, has to understand that all media is partisan. Recently the New York Times bestseller list was topped by TV journalist Bernard Goldberg’s whistleblower book, Bias: A CBS insider exposes how the media distort the news.

The lines of quality mainstream media are also blurred by heavily sponsored, commercialised content like Mitre 10 Dream Home. The changes are ringing in all media, driven by market forces.

It’s true that the economics of media are changing. But that’s economics for ya.

Although 20th-century media might be undergoing changes in structure, content and economic models—the scenario is no more or less to be concerned about than, say, the demise of the vinyl record or the carburettor. To be concerned about job losses or loses in revenues is naive. What do you think will happen to the talent? Will it vanish or find voice elsewhere? All contemporary media that depends on advertising for revenue has only ever been in the service of the market. When the market speaks the media will change with it. It is dynamic and non-hierarchical. If you haven’t noticed yet: people don’t like being told what to do.

Independent publishers—bloggers and video bloggers—with less at stake, it could be reasonably argued, are literally more independent than any journalist whose income depends, even by a couple of degrees of separation, on the whims of advertisers—or more accurately the audience. If traditional media is in decline, there is no point bemoaning the dumbing-down of society. Keen criticises many of the leading spokespeople imagining the future of the Internet (ipso all media) as ‘utopians’, as if it were an alternate term for naive fool.

There is another aspect to blogging that Keen gives scant regard. The second iteration of the web is social media. It invites comment and participation. Twentieth-century media depended on projecting ideas and ideals on mute mass populations.

The suggestion that mainstream media ‘get it right ‘ because they have trained journalists and apply vast resources is wrong. Before the US occupation of Iraq, the media took everything it was spoon-fed about weapons of mass destruction as it was served. Not a single weapon of mass destruction has been found in the occupation. As Elbert Hubbard said: “Editor: a person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.” [Make sure this bit is printed. –Ed.]

In short, I found The Cult of the Amateur to be something of a rant. Perhaps I have more faith in humanity and less regard for people who believe they know better than everyone or anyone else—whether it’s the Ancien Régime or the Politburo.

The most offensive aspect of this book is the frequently inferred notion that blogging is mostly done by ignorant, uneducated, badly informed clowns—or ‘monkeys with typewriters’—who may well be paedophiles (I kid you not).

I just can’t buy the argument. Aside from being by turns offensive and laughable, The Cult of the Amateur omits to acknowledge that today’s amateurs are tomorrow’s literati. You may have heard of an unpublished author—a state beneficiary and single parent—who had an idea for a book that was rejected by several of the world’s largest, most educated, experienced and informed publishers—Joanne Murray. You’ll probably recognise her better as JK Rowling. She wrote the first Harry Potter novel in cafes while walking her infant daughter in a pram to try to get her to sleep. How many English lit students actually go on to succeed as authors?

Are you cynical? Do your friends who participate in the blogosphere irritate you? Are they making friends around the world and ignoring you?) Choose Keen’s book. Are you an optimist? Do you like change and empowerment—so you want to participate instead of being regarded simply as an economic unit, a consumer? Maybe Wikinomics is for you. Does it have to be either/or? I need to think about that some more. But probably not alone.

Originally published in Idealog #12, page 89