Clay Shirky is among one of new media’s most vocal theorists. Shirky along with other traditional media doomsdayers like Charles Leadbeater, claim to have found some future outcomes to the multiple social changes created by the internet. Shirky’s main claim relies on the fact that professional journalists will soon cease to exist. His theory is based on this notion of growing “amateurization” in the media.
According to Shirky, since anyone can publish anything at any time and their content is instantly published to the world, then anyone can be a journalist. This of course begs the question of future authenticity in new media and the potential downfall of the traditional meaning of professional journalism. What will happen to journalistic ethics if anyone can do this?
The worry is these rules and ethical standards will go flying out the window and be replaced with a bunch of mindless amateurs filling the public’s brain with nonsense. However it is hard to see a difference when “professional journalists” write articles about what kind of toothpaste Amanda Knox bought when she made a brief visit to the store.
Furthermore what does it mean to be a professional journalist versus and amateur journalist? To be professional does one have to be paid or follow a certain set of ethical guidelines, or both? Some “amateur bloggers” fit into both these categories. Is it better and safer to say the definition of professional journalism and how it is broadcasted to the public will alter?
I do not believe a team of bloggers or the internet will be responsible for the ultimate death of professional journalism. There is a certain standard and honesty that society has come to believe and expect from large news corporations that a thousand bloggers, tweeters or social media users cannot earn in the near future. This worry about amateurazation and the potential for fabrication in this new media climate is ironically paralleled with the already established journalistic corruption within much of the larger news corporations today. Take Fox News Corporation for example. Need I say anything more? Is this type of reporting called “traditional journalism?” Or how about all the important social stories people do not hear about because it conflicts with the news media’s parent company’s views or stock price.
On the other hand, this movement to professionalism to amateurism does bring up some legitimate concerns. Yet the one detail Shirky and others like him neglect to mention is that news media, and all media generated content for that matter, is expensive, hard to do and even harder to do well. In addition, media companies control a billion dollar industry and I will be surprised if they do not adapt their business model to the changing times.
All in all, these changes tend to bring about new job openings and create more competition to an otherwise stagnant and corporate dominated market. What people will ultimately do with these opportunities and new technology cannot be known for sure. Yet I am certain we will all learn to adapt and create new policies and new standards without compromising our current values and ethics. Or at least have the illusion that we have.
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