PROFESSIONAL VS. AMATEUR

POST 2


"Everyone Wants to be Somebody in this world...don't we?"


According to Clay Shirky, all of  our social media makes history,  discarding  old barriers to public
expression, thereby removing the old ways  mass media was characterized.  "The result is that the mass amateurization efforts preserve for media professional"(55).  Amateurs have become an important means for information today,  Publishing is made easier to do and amateurs have obtained a kind of freedom that professionals will never know.   Amateurs do not need the permission of a big corporation or organizations to create or distribute their information or product. They simple share their information with the public with no economic intent.

Amateurs do not experience the same controversies as the media  because they do not have an economic machine behind them like these large businesses.  "Anyone can be a publisher" (77).  Amateurs can be informative, critical and entertaining.  On the other hand, professionals have various resources they can pull from and an established following of consumers of their content. Amateurization is Youtube, Facebook and Web-blogs that can information out to masses of people quickly before a professional has the opportunity.

For Example; the story of Neda Soltan was a prime exampleo of how mass amateurization works.  It allowed everyone in the world  to see the participatory culture of the internet and how activists used video from their cellular phones to d send out the message of what was happening in Iran in real time, even if there were some political propaganda being used.  This Image of Neda and similar stories posted  on Youtube and other media cites had a global impact and changed the  social, economic and cultural dynamic of many Middle Eastern countries. Neda was an activist who fought for educational inequality, freedom of  speech and against economic stagnation.  There is power in mass amateurization. Even with the documentary on Neda's life, the media still managed to put out conflicting stories about what happen in Tehran on June 16, 2009.


Amateurs will continue to break new stories, but will never be able to do it on a level like professionals because they have gained trust from the public and a reputation many value.Although there is a "do it yourself, culture" and we can post anything, at anytime on the web,  the professional will always be at an advantage because of their strong economic power.



If religion, family and education is suppose to shape our lives... then why
are we consume by everything else around us?  The consumption of media by  the public is hypnotic.  Today, we bypass television, radio and news-stands just to recreate the content we read and buy.  Well, what is fan fiction?  According tro Henry Jenkins in "Why Heather Can Write" fan fiction is nothing other than fans redoing read or seen.  It's their own interpretation of  the original content.
  Fan fiction challenges the way  media does business with their audience. Jenkins explaines how  Heather Lawver newspaper  focused on the importance of literacy and it that message transcended all races, genders and class.  The audience was participating in a way that encouraged others to create their own stories(178).  Jenkins believed  that amateur creative expression is good and taking characters from exsting content and writing your own narratives from them, as long as you are not receiving monetary gain. Now that would be stealing.
'Literacy and reading fiction shapes beliefs and actions of children in the real world"(203),


There is a paradigm shift and they new age in which information and narrarives are distributive have become challenging for the professionals to compete with because they brought us content from a certain educational and background level, but now amateurs have demonstrated that you just have to be knowledgeable of your product and use the world wide web to target the right audience and get your messsage out!

                                                           
    



                                                                       Work Cited


Jenkins, Henry. "Convergence Culture." Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press 

Shirky, Clay. "Everyone is a Media Outlet."  Here Comes Everybody. New York: Penguin

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=neda+in+tehran%2c+iran&FORM=HDRSC2

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=fan+fiction&qs=n&form=QBIR&pq=fan+fiction&sc=0-0&sp=-1&sk=