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A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both. -- James Madison
“When a dog bites a
man that is not news,
because it happens so often.
But if a man bites a
dog, that is news.”
- Editor John B. Bogart, New York Sun
man that is not news,
because it happens so often.
But if a man bites a
dog, that is news.”
- Editor John B. Bogart, New York Sun
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18 comments:
The flattening of our culture means that the truth is being blurred by the abundance of information that the internet provides. The internet allows for anyone to speak as experts, making it harder for the truth to compete with the lies that are scattered around the internet. The lack of truth threatens communication throughout society because it stunts creativity and encourages plagiarism. Keen believes that viewer ran websites such as “youtube” give amateurs the freedom to disorient the truth with no one there to regulate information. Without regulation of some kind facts and truth will become so saturated that it will lose its purpose.
Andrew Keen is so terrified by the blurred line between fact and fiction because it is leading towards the diminishing of community, knowledge and culture. Our flattened culture is making our media so vulnerable that it can lead to distrust. The public can be so turned off by amateurs portraying themselves as professionals that communities can’t decipher between real news and false news. If the public can’t tell the difference between real and false news they may lose faith and trust in all news, and media depends on the trust of the public.
I agree with Chris's interpretation of what Keen is saying. It scares me also, especially because we are suppose to be being trained as journalists and in every class so far a speaker has come in to share their knowledge with us, and the most important thing they tell us is to "make a blog".
Do I know how to make a blog? Yes. Do I want all of my thoughts, feeling, and actions displayed to the entire world? No.
New comers get these blogs mixed up with real news, and lose all sense of truth. Keen talks about a YouTube video that was made with penguins voiced-over to mocking Al Gore. It turns out it was made by the republican party. No one knew that until a credited paper did some digging around. How do we know who is posting this information and how correct it is?
Keen comments that he could be the one posting all of the great reviews about his new book, how would you know?
Print media is going to be based solely online, fine. That doesn't mean we have to feed into the blog craze. Credibility and trust still have to be prominent in order for journalism to succeed.
The idea of "flattening of our culture" means that we are putting everyone on an even playing field when it comes to using the power of knowledge. In theory, it sounds like a great idea that everyone can be part of the information highway, but when it comes to accuracy, blogging, Wikipedia and citizen journalism are not the answers. Why? Well to be blunt, there are a lot of stupid people out there that do not know what is going on, or what may be worse is the people who think they know, but they do not.
It was one thing to report false information before the Internet boom because the leak could have been stopped before it reach mass amounts of people. But today, in less than a second this information is available for the world to see! And the information posted on blogs, Wikipedia and other user run sites, not repeatable sites, are being taken and used as creditable sources. Opinion is trumping fact.
The "flattening of our culture" means that the truth not only becomes blurred, but it is also obscured, remixed, dubbed over, spun and re spun, opinionated, untrustworthy and eventually diminished into nothing. The truth has become what it means to a particular individual and their amazing experience they had with it. Keen's fear is the same fear that I have: that this "truth" threatens "the quality of civil public discourse"(Keen 17).It's like the opinion based news programs on television, some people are too lazy or just too stupid to not take this guys or that guys opinion for fact. And when it's out there like the real thing on blogs and youtube and Wikipedia and even seemingly reputable websites it becomes hard to distinguish the facts from the crap. I mean when I want to look something up I go to Google and type something in(I am already trained to go to technology instead of an encyclopedia, or the library) and Wikipedia is at least the first three responses. And there is basically nothing I can do with that information. Except to stare at it and get pissed off because I know what I am reading is wrong and its a subject I know nothing about.
When something is three-dimensional, it is tangible and real. When it's flat, it's a mere representation of the real thing; an unauthentic stand-in. The "flattening" of our culture is the loss of authenticity--substance, truth (as Chris said) and relevance. As Keen wrote, people became obsessed with themselves and took to the internet to blog, make videos and websites to show the world who they are and what they do. This is scary because it leaves little room for "three-dimensional" information-truthful and necessary. In his book, Keen cites a quote of Prime Minister James Callaghan: "A lie can make its way around the world before the truth has the chance to put its boots on." (19) That's the part that scares me-not only is the real information buried under a pile of garbage, but the garbage can be sprinkled all around, the uninformed eating it for breakfast and sharing it with everyone they know. As Jess pointed out, it's scary that someone can post anything they want on wikipedia or a professional-looking blog and people will read it and digest it as fact. This means that the already screaming-to-be-heard "three-dimensional" sources will probably lose their voices long before their information reaches the masses.
I agree most with Jess's interpretation of "the flattening of our culture." Keen believes that due the millions of blogs and social networking sites, people won't be able to decipher what the truth actually is. People are actually beginning to believe blogs over an actual journalists work which shows the control that the internet has over us.
I also believe that the flattening of our culture means the death of certain types of media outlets. Journalism has been forever changed due to the creation of blogs. Now everyone is beginning to trust blogs and twitter over the researched articles that journalists put out. The flattening of respected sources of information has caused these new sources, blogs, myspace, twitter, etc., to rise and crush the competing media.
This scares him I believe because people are living off of truth told by someone who knows someone, who once talked to someone who sort of read the article by the journalist that blogged on it. It's a mystery who is actually doing the reporting here and it's scary because no one knows what the truth is. There are hundreds of different truths out there but only one is the most truthful. That story would never make it to the surface in a "2.0" society like ours. That fact scares me more than anything. A journalist can no longer hold that power to report the truth, but everyone else can.
It's hard to take a man seriously when he calls people monkeys. I understand his rationale in the sense that most people who feed into the growth of the internet do so without realizing it and merely imitate those around them. I think it is unfair, however, because our world is moving in that direction more and more. Those who do not keep up, by choice or by coincidence, become lost and cannot keep up with the pace at which media moves. I think they are at a disadvantage and become less informed as a result.
Andrew Keen claims that our culture is being flattened. He feels this is happening because there are too many interpretations of news for people to ingest. This notion serves as a supporting detail in the argument that news is subjective. Keen states that "one person's truth becomes as "true" as anyone else's" (17). He is weary of uneducated people posting incorrect material on the web as news, which people could read and interpret as accurate. This is definitely a scary notion because most people do not know any better; they are not educated in regard to what a credible news source is.
When Keen refers to the flattening of our culture, I see it as material literally being flattened. I picture people not getting the full facts necessary to convey a news story. A flattened culture has no depth and merely exists on the surface. The reporting and telling of a story are two factors that I feel are lost in this type of culture. They are details that we, as young journalists, must pay attention in order to maintain the objectivity and credibility of the media that is very often disbelieved.
Keen says that our culture is becoming "flattened" because the internet has given everyone the power to see the world exactly as they want to. People are more likely to see something they like and copy it (repeat an argument from a pundit, share a song, etc.) rather than come up with something original.
The aspect of this that is particularly frightening is the anonymity of it all. While anyone can put something on the internet, so much of it seems to be put there anonymously by people doing public relations for companies (like the Wal Mart or GE blog) or politicians making libelous statements behind the mask of the "web 2.0."
What this basically leads to is a weakened truth. Without experts to check facts and credentials, people just take the things they like and assemble that into their vision of truth. People will even ignore an informed and reliable source if some stranger on the internet tells them something they'd like to hear more.
It must be a great time to be in public relations.
What Keen means by "a flattening of our culture" is that everyone is becoming, essentially, the same because of the internet and the what if offers. He makes the argument that everyone has a blog and it's becoming harder to find the truth because everyone has their own truth. He writes; "These days, kids can't tell the difference between credible news by objective professional journalists and what they read on joeschmoe.blogspot.com." (3)
Basically what he is saying is that the internet has enabled anyone to report on anything regardless of their education or credentials. And not only do they get to report this, they get to have an audience, an audience that may not be smart enough to realize that what their reading is opinion, not fact.
This is a scary thing to think about, that people can get their information from anyone regardless of their education, etc. but, when you think about it, how much different is it from people watching Bill O'Reilly or any other pundit and getting their news from them? Obviously, these pundits are at least educated but they're doing little more than giving their own opinions on the what is happening in the world.
There's nothing we can do to stop people from blogging and reporting on things that they have no professional knowledge of; we can only hope that most people are smart enough to not take everything they read from "joe schmoe" at face value.
When Keen says that we are experiencing a "flattening of our culture" I think he means that we are skewing the ways in which we interpret the truth. He talks a lot about Wikipedia and how anyone can add their own "truth" to an article and suddenly it becomes reliable. Like a lot of other people have said, with the ever increasing amount of blogs on the internet there is also a growth of so-called "experts." This scares Keen because people are self-proclaiming themselves as knowing the answers when they have no merit to back up that claim. A lot of people rely heavily on the things they read on the internet but don't bother to double check if the information is true or not. This could ultimately lead to a society of misinformed citizens who don't know any facts about anything. Instead of listening to people who have spent their time actually studying and researching topics, people turn instead to someone who spends all of their time updating their blogs. This leads to a flattened culture because everyone ends up ignorant of the truth and perpetuates the spread of misinformation.
Keen discusses the flattening of our culture as if media technology is the cancer to print media i.e. books, newspapers, news magazines, etc. He constantly brings up websites like Craigslist, Wikipedia Myspace, and Youtube that allow internet users to obtain free information on any and everything from music to movies to job postings to reference sources (29). However, when talking about blogs, there are some things with Keen that I disagree with to a certain extent.
He stated that we (collective internet users) are blogging with monkeylike shamelessness about our private lives, sex lives, dream lives, Second Lives (3). While I understand his point, he's making it seem like everybody on the planet is blogging uselessly and this is not the case. I know that I've been redundant with this statement many times in class and on my posts but blogs and other online social networks can also serve a use that won't affect the internet or media in a negative manner. For example, I have journalist friends who use their blogs as a way to showcase their pieces of literary or video work because they can't afford their own website.
Blogs and various profiles on Myspace and Youtube are all opinions of people and how they view life in this culture. No matter how relevant or irrelevant their perspectives are, they feel the need to be heard, which results in the competition of who's opinion is more relevant (15).
Keen is fearing that because of the anonymity of internet ghostwriter and the users who follow them faithfully, respected news anchors and publications are suffering. It could possibly be that people are just responding or giving their own interpretation of information that they have received or just plain stupidity. Whatever the reason it is that it feels important to put on blast in the internet, people will still scan the webpages.
I agree with Chris, Jess, and Marcy when referring to what the flattening of our culture means. After reading the book and the other blogs I think the three of them hit the nail right on the head. There are too many people with enough knowledge to create something such as a blog or Wikipedia. However, they don’t have enough knowledge to post accurate information. What is worse is that people actually take this information seriously without doing any further research.
I think what scares Keen as well as my self are the people who use these sites as credible sources. It seems that people who have the ability to create these sites have too much time on their hands and are creating sites for kicks. What is sad are those who visit these sites to get their information. It appears that people believe what they read because it came form the Internet, therefore it has to be right.
First I would say that the people in our culture today are either becoming more naive or just going along with news and internet knowing it is false. In regards to Andrew Keen's quote about the "flattening of our culture," it is very disturbing. I believe this means that what the news, internet, blogs, etc. are stating is truth and no one is responding to it with contradiction. Our culture is beginning to blend in with this concept of beliefs and opinions becoming facts.
The scariest part that I saw was the whole Wikipedia thing. Mid way through chapter one I thought I read something in the back about Wikipedia and it was a review of this book by a co-founder of Wikipedia. He states, "Page after page of really interesting insight and research I look forward to the much-needed debate about the problems that Keen articulates--which can't be lightly dismissed." If a co-founder of site based on others beliefs of truth says this then I don't understand where we could begin to fix things. The problem gets down to business and changing things now would effect many, if not almost every, business out there...scary thought.
I just want to say that I really like Tiffany's interpretation with the comparison of a 3-D object to a flat one being a representation of something in real life.
But anyway. I agree that with the "flattening of our culture," comes the blurring of truth. It gets drowned out by the masses of information being self-published.
I actually know people that don't know that Wikipedia is a site that allows any user to put in any information that they want to. One of my co-workers told me yesterday that she only just realized as of late because her professors don't let their students use Wikipedia as a valid source in papers.
I don't agree with Chris in some respects -- At the end of his comment he says "If the public can't tell the difference between real and false news they may lose faith and trust in all news..." I think it comes down to the internet and the branches of the internet, such as Wikipedia, YouTube, etc., that Keen is talking about that we will not trust. As a collective, we will continue reading newspapers and watching the news (and yes, as we've discussed, the news is entertainment, not really there for news purposes but still) and going to valid news websites. If our culture keeps visiting links like I stated above, we're not necessarily going to become more stupid, because some of the information we read might just be accurate, but it's really about the possibility of being manipulated by people we don't know. As Jess said, it puts us on an even playing field, which to me is comforting in a way because it empowers us, but at the same time, it is frightening because anyone can say anything.
This is what Keen is talking about. I can't remember where it is, but Keen says something along the lines that he wouldn't visit a doctor that didn't go to med school or a lawyer that didn't go to law school, so why would he get information from someone that doesn't really know what the hell they're talking about?
When Keen uses the phrase "a flattening of our culture," he is addressing the now omnipresent and universal use of the internet, namely blogs and amateur reporting websites, as a means of expressing oneself/spreading the ideas one has on a subject in a manner that seems as though it is factual. He calls it the "flattening" of our culture because it seemingly puts all social networking websites, youtube, blogs, etc, on equal footing with "credible" news sources. The lines between fact and fiction/opinion is becoming so blurred that it terrifies Keen. I dont know if it is so much that he is afraid for himself, because if one looks at the situation in a realistic light, it seems as if Keen himself would be able to decipher between the two, but he is scared that a majority of the American public will be unable to do so. This inability can soon lead to a deterioration of American culture and ultimately trickle down to ruining individual communities. For example, one false accusation is posted on facebook at the University of Kansas, a string of massive fights break out and a school communitty is ruined with players from all different athletic teams being arrested and suspended.
The main focus for all journalism should be integrity and a trust based relationship with his readers. If a story is bland, the story itself is bland. There is no use for blogs that sensationalize and twist stories to spice things up; it should be the language and stance on the issue taken by the journalist that makes it interesting.Although some of us have criticized his use of the term monkeys to describe humans, personally I think it fits because there are people out there who are extremely careless with what they publish, unaware that what they say can have an influene over the thoughts and actions of others, and it is that use of reason that seperates us from animals. If we don't have credible information to base our logical decisions on, are they logical?
Missing five comments hours after deadline.
The "flattening of our culture" means that the truth has been spun and flattened into opinions. For instance when someone begins to have symptoms of what they feel is a sickness they automatically turn to the internet to diagnose themselves. They may see two different conditions as to what they may have and formulate his/her own opinion as factual.
Everyone has their own version/side of things as seen in blogs. I view it as three sides; my opinion, everyone else's and the truth. In a society where fact and opinion are close in mind it's merely impossible to have authentic information as Tiffany said. The garbage that covers the truth seems so much more appealing than the truth and in that, the truth has been twisted and has lost substance.
I do not have anything against blogging. I think it can be posed as a way to stimulate interest and formulate opinions. What I do have a problem with is when people view these blogs and take what they see, single handedly as the truth or a piece of the truth. There needs to be space for research (for the truth), but what exactly is the truth and where can it be found in this garbage filled media?!?!?
People tend to give up easily and just give in because it is convenient to believe what they see in front of them. I would rather look to print media and trust it more than online media. In this day in age online media has become dominant in a way that print may become obsolete. I would hate to live through that because I would have no other alternate resources to turn to.
i just found this interesting in comparison to this class....since the escalator is a quicker, easier technology (like television and computers etc.) can't we just make reading and going outside, etc. more fun? watch this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw
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