Friday, July 20, 2007

Internet destroying the reading culture!!!!


A review of Andrew Keen's 'The Cult of the Amateur' on Amazon by Jonathan Last, Online Editor, The Weekly Standard reads the following .

"In today's self-broadcasting culture, where amateurism is celebrated and anyone with an opinion, however ill-informed, can publish a blog, post a video on YouTube, or change an entry on Wikipedia, the distinction between trained expert and uninformed amateur becomes dangerously blurred.

When anonymous bloggers and videographers, unconstrained by professional standards or editorial filters, can alter the public debate and manipulate public opinion, truth becomes a commodity to be bought, sold, packaged, and reinvented."

The celebrated Web 2.0 interactive technology has now made media amateur experts out of anyone who can put out an opinion. In his view, Web 2.0 is changing the cultural landscape and not for the better.

Mr. Keen's pronouncement is strange for the present citizen journalism cannot be reversed. It is definitely a change for the better.

Mr. Keen says today's bloggers can't read and the Internet amateurs are destroying the reading culture. The truth is today's Internet generation reads differently, it can't be a bad thing. Only thing is the bloggers don't have to go through the gate keepers or the editorial boards of the mainstream news organisations. Bloggers don't have to satisfy news company bosses who sometimes twist and turn the truth before it gets published. Whatever content that is put out by the bloggers can be left for the readers to make their own decisions.

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