I'll Publish, You Filter

In Here Comes Everybody, Clay Shirky extends a discussion on media as publication – whether it be weblogs, MySpace (or Facebook for today’s readers), or Wikipedia – over three chapters: “Everyone is a Media Outlet,” “Publish, Then Filter,” and “Personal Motivation Meets Collaborative Production.”  What these three chapters seem to have in common is the “replacement factor.” In “Everyone is a Media Outlet,” Shirky discusses the replacement of professionalism with amateurism in regards to print journalism being replaced by blogs. He explores how the rise of new technology has also impacted how we see professionals and experts.

In “Publish, Then Filter,” Shirky looks at how social media has replaced intimate relationships, which leads to a misunderstanding of what is being published on social media websites. When faced with the question “why would anyone put such drivel out in public,” Shirky answers with “they’re not talking to you” (85).  He also looks at the ratio of readers to the author: in a personal site, the author has interactions with (almost) all commenters, while in a widely read site, the author rarely is able to respond to most commenters.

In “Personal Motivation,” Shirky spends much of his time on how Wikipedia has replaced traditional encyclopedias, and how the collaborative environment keeps Wikipedia somewhat accurate. His analogy comparing Wikipedia to a car company posed a problem for me, however. It really is a false analogy, comparing not only a service oriented collaboration to a tangible product, but setting up a problematic comparison between a site where false or erroneous information is not physically harmful to its users and a product that is subject to government safety regulations to avoid physical harm. If Wikipedia were a product that users were paying for, and contributors were being paid to update, I have a feeling it would function, at least slightly, similarly to the car company.

How these chapters relate to our class and our projects is quite obvious. In the social media analysis for the Clemson University Libraries, we must be aware of how social media functions, what is expected from a site administrator who has potentially twenty-thousand-plus readers, and what sort of collaboration could be expected from library patrons. While Ms. Reid does try to greet each new follower on Twitter, as the social media expands, this may be an unrealistic goal. As Shirky says, “someone writing for thousands of people … or millions, has to start choosing who to respond to and who to ignore” (93). Keeping this, and all of these chapters, in mind can only prove beneficial when analyzing the library’s social media use.