<DIV>For what it's worth, this post from Joshua Levy is encouraging. I follow efforts by death row inmates on Texas Death row, and the MySpace and penpal journalism phenomenon holds a powerful potential for some serious reflection on an issue that corporate media has a strangle-hold over. Of course we'll take the "professional" journalist, but only when they know what they're talking about. (To say there's no call to replace traditional media is, perhaps, minimizing a problem, of course.) By contrast, I was disappointed by the discussion raised by Michel Bauwens and Robert Labossiere. Bauwens says something about "the key" to successful projects, making reference to "community validation" and "quality," and answering Labossiere's call for ideas on "talent" and "agents." This just sounds like business school to me.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Bernie<BR><BR><B><I>idc-request@mailman.thing.net</I></B> wrote:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">Send iDC mailing list submissions to<BR><SPAN id=lw_1177952838_0 style="CURSOR: hand; BORDER-BOTTOM: #0066cc 1px dashed; HEIGHT: 1em">idc@mailman.thing.net</SPAN><BR><BR>To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit<BR><A href="http://mailman.thing.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/idc" target=_blank><SPAN id=lw_1177952838_1><U><FONT color=#003399>http://mailman.thing.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/idc</FONT></U></A></SPAN><BR>or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to<BR><SPAN id=lw_1177952838_2 style="BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; CURSOR: hand; BORDER-BOTTOM: #0066cc 1px dashed; HEIGHT: 1em">idc-request@mailman.thing.net</SPAN><BR><BR>You can reach the person managing the list at<BR><SPAN id=lw_1177952838_3 style="BACKGROUND: none transparent scroll repeat 0% 0%; CURSOR: hand; BORDER-BOTTOM: #0066cc 1px dashed; HEIGHT:
1em">idc-owner@mailman.thing.net</SPAN><BR><BR>When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific<BR>than "Re: Contents of iDC digest..."<BR><BR><BR>Today's Topics:<BR><BR>1. Re: THE ANTI WEB 2.0 MANIFESTO (Joshua Levy)<BR>2. Agency (was Re: THE ANTI WEB 2.0 MANIFESTO) (Samuel Rose)<BR><BR><BR>----------------------------------------------------------------------<BR><BR>Message: 1<BR>Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 10:22:40 -0400<BR>From: "Joshua Levy" <BR>Subject: Re: [iDC] THE ANTI WEB 2.0 MANIFESTO<BR>To: "sergio basbaum" <BR>Cc: Craig Bellamy , <SPAN id=lw_1177952838_4 style="CURSOR: hand; BORDER-BOTTOM: #0066cc 1px dashed; HEIGHT: 1em">idc@mailman.thing.net</SPAN><BR>Message-ID:<BR><BR>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"<BR><BR>I've been reading through a galley copy of Keen's book and I've been struck<BR>by its similarity to Nicholas Lemann's piece in the New Yorker last summer,<BR>in which Lemann worried about the effect of citizen journalism
on<BR>professional journalism. Sure, citizen journalism might provide hyper-local<BR>commentary and help round out coverage, he wrote, but it can never replace<BR>the kind of well-funded investigative journalism that sustains our<BR>democracy, etc.<BR><BR>The problem is, I've never heard any citizen journalist or advocate for<BR>citizen journalism suggest that traditional media should be replaced; Lemann<BR>set up a straw man that he could conveniently use to scare the pros out<BR>there about the blog menace that, with their amateur-hour ramblings and<BR>content-aggregating CMSs, were going to destroy traditional media and<BR>therefore the very foundations of our democracy... it all sounded like the<BR>protestations of someone nervous that his grip on the status quo was<BR>loosening, and he was feeling defensive. What he failed to mention was<BR>that big media companies were too arrogant to notice that the public was<BR>coming to expect a more transparent approach to
reporting, and was coming to<BR>think of itself as a producer rather than a receiver of content, and now<BR>that it was almost too late they were blaming it all on those damn<BR>amateurs.<BR><BR>While I do think that the "web 2.0" is about opening up the process of<BR>making, receiving, sending, remixing, gatekeeping, mashing, etc. to more<BR>people (democratizing the process), like citizen journalism, this isn't<BR>about replacing an old paradigm of trusted sources with a new one of amateur<BR>relativity, it's about (hopefully) correcting a model that represents the<BR>interests of a very elite, wealthy few -- though those elite tend to own the<BR>most popular participatory sites, as Trebor has pointed out, which certainly<BR>complicates things.<BR><BR>In any case, the big media companies won't become extinct because of this;<BR>instead they will have to learn how to coexist in a new environment that<BR>invites a broader conception of culture and art than their
market-tested<BR>approach allows.<BR><BR>And while this means that alongside some culturally important stuff we see a<BR>lot of inanity on YouTube, or narcissistic chatter on MySpace, it's not like<BR>inanity and narcissism are hard to find on any television channel...<BR><BR>-Josh<BR><BR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR><BR><p> 
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