Finished chapter 10 in Wikinomics today, and found the topic under scrutiny to be fascinating. In particular, the arguments for an against gatekeepers of content. That, supposedly, editors and television producers are ferreting out the best stuff, and sending it our way, vs. letting us determine what content is best for us.
"Traditional 'elitist' media is being destroyed by digital technologies," says Andrew Keen in his book The Cult of the Amateur, as quoted on page 273 of Wikinomics. I have to ask, is that such a bad thing? I've always had a bit of a natural dislike for anything "elitist", particularly for the sake of saying it is elite. The composer Samuel Barber (maybe it wasn't Barber, but Babbitt. I've been out of undergrad for eight years) always rubbed me the wrong way for saying that music wasn't for amateurs, that only the best and the brightest music students could understand and enjoy his music, that you had to understand music theory and his mathematics to enjoy it. I always said, Baloney (or another less polite word to that effect). Have you heard Barber's own Agnus Dei? One of the most beautiful, poignant arrangements of this sacred text I've ever heard. No, perhaps the non-musician will not be able to appreciate the intricacy of its composition, but does that make them shed any fewer tears when it touches them?
I'll get off my soapbox now, but while I generally agree that democracy is not perfect (what is the story? If two wolves and a sheep vote on what to have for lunch, than you can bet democracy will put fear into the heart of the sheep.) I do believe that there is something to be said for letting the masses vote with their mouse clicks instead of with just their $$$.
Just as radio had to adapt to television, and the telegraph was eclipsed by the telephone, so the music industry and the publishing industry, and hopefully the education industry, will either adapt the the challenges of this ever-changing web 2.0 world and incorporate its potential, or be eclipsed by it.
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