Making Room for Mass Amateurization in Media (Renee Curva)

The evolution of technological means for the written word have changed the way people share and communicate with each other. Creations such as the web, computers, social media, and smart phones make sharing words and images an instantaneous phenomenon. With easy access to sharing and creating content on the web, careers such as journalism and photography have found themselves in a professionalism grey zone. Now that publishing for public view can happen in an instant, almost anyone with access to the internet can become a writer or photographer themselves.  In Everybody is a Media Outlet and Publish, Then Filter, Clay Shirky elaborates on the mass amateurization of the professions, analyzing how it effects the sharing of user generated content, and how it will ultimately mold the future of media once again. Furthermore, in Why Heather Can Write, Henry Jenkins discusses the relationships between fan fiction communities online and the amateurization of an author’s work.

Tumblr as a Mass Amateurization Outlet for Blogging (Find Image Here)

In Everybody is a Media Outlet, Shirky explains “mass amateurization” as the decrease in the need for a profession because the art form and specialty of it have been lost in the masses. Shirky explains, “As new capabilities go, unlimited perfect copyability is a lulu…digital means of distributing words and images have robbed newspapers of the coherence they formerly had [making] the newspaper  merely provisional solution” (Shirky, 59). Shirky looks back the specified need of scribes in the early 1400’s, the eventual loss of the need for them with the printing press, and how the importance of the printing press isn’t as dire in the 21^st century due to mass amateurization. Mass amateurization places more authority in the consumer’s hands, allowing them to become their own writers, editors, and publishers. From this point, the masses can decide what is news worthy, rather than news outlets deeming what should be considered news. This action was seen early in 2015, surrounding the Chapel Hill Shooting of Muslim college students. The news of the killings of these students mainly broke out on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook. The social media outrage on the lack of coverage of the incident made headlines as well. Huge news corporations did not start covering the incident until the morning after. Shirky sees this shift as something “from news as an institutional prerogative to news as a part of a communications ecosystem, occupied by a mix of formal organizations, informal collectives, and individuals”(Shirky, 66). A diversified “new ecosystem” is created by the Web, no longer placing professional publishers and journalists at the top of the media outlet food chain.

Iphone Lense Dial and Amateurized Photography (Find Image Here)

The outcome of mass amateurization is the spread of journalistic privilege to almost everyone. Shirky claims, “When it was easy to recognize who the publisher was, it was easy to figure out who the journalists were. We could regard them as a professional (and therefore minority) category. Now that scarcity is gone,” (Shirky, 73). Outlets such as blogging, podcasts, and television are few of many that are now being held at the same caliber as professional journalism. The primary distinction between professional photographers/journalists and the public has almost become indistinguishable.

 Moreover, the outcome of mass amateurization is the instant decision to publish something because the process is so effortless. In Publish, Then Filter, Shirky adds, “Most of what gets created on any given day is just the ordinary stuff of life…but now it’s done in the same medium as professionally produced material”(Shirky, 86). Almost anything is fair game for publishing, whether it’s a review on a product, a lengthy piece on current affairs, or a tweet about wanting a Pumpkin Spice Latte. More emphasis is placed on posting quickly rather than holding off to fully edit content. According to Shirky, this user generated content is a combination of mass amateurization, mass communication, and the interactivity through recreative tools. People now can access countless tools for video, image, and writing, making the increase of publishing among the masses unprecedented. Shirky concludes, “Amateur production, the result of all this new capability, means the category of ‘consumer’ is now a temporary behavior rather than a permanent identity” (Shirky,108). 

Meme Satirizing Mass Amateurization (Find Image Here)

Mass amateurization has created an active participation among the public. In this active participation, online communities such as fan fiction groups have found their voice in re writing stories. When thirteen year old Heather Lawver launched the Daily Prophet, an online fan fiction newspaper for Harry Potter enthusiasts, it combined all Shirky’s talking points- an amateurization of J.K. Rowling’s work, instant publication to share with a larger community, and made the consumer an active participant in the media. “Consumers are using new media technologies to engage with old media content, seeing the Internet as a vehicle for…grassroots creativity” (Jenkins, 175).  Despite the legal questions that were asked in active participation of published work, in Why Heather Can Write, Jenkins analyzes how fan fiction allowed the opinions of children to cross generation gaps. Active participation has proven to mold the minds of future story tellers and improve their writing skills, while mass amateurization continues to contribute to saturating the specialized class of journalists, writers, and publishers. These readings suggest that in the specialized fields of journalism and photography, more will be suspected of said professionals to distinguish them from the laypeople. Higher standards will be set and a highly competitive nature will further surround the working spheres of media professionals, all caused by mass amateurization.

Jenkins, Henry. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York UP, 2006. Print.

Shirky, Clay. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. New York: Penguin, 2008. Print.