About a month ago all hell broke loose on the internet (well, in the
edublogosphere, the ugliest neologism I've met in a long time, to be precise),
when Andrew Keen apparently compared bloggers to monkeys. I say "apparently"
because I don't think he did, but we'll come on to that in a moment.
My first response to all this was, "I wonder who is publicist is?" Yes, it's
the old trick: say something outrageous to grab attention, and when you do, keep
on milking it for all it's worth. And it's a cliché precisely because it always
works. My second response was that I'd like to do something radical: I'd like to
actually read the darn thing before passing judgement on it. I think it's a
terrible thing that some people -- educators -- don't see it in the same way. I
was speaking to one teacher who said she would not read the book because he (the
author) called her a monkey. I believe children learn more from what we do than
from what we say, and if I am right, what sort of messages does
that give out? I don't see how we can expect our students to
investigate issues, cross-reference data, and question the authority of those
who purport to tell the "truth" if we are not prepared to do so ourselves,
unless it is to seek reassurance from like-minded people.
But all such matters can be discussed another time. For now, let's look at
this book.
Subtitled "How today's internet is killing our culture and assaulting our
economy", the author's basic thesis is that the read/write web, or Web 2.0, is
based on the premise, if I may borrow from an article I wrote about 18 months
ago, that twenty jackasses equals one expert. In other words, the
amateur, when it comes to the crunch, can never match the skills, resources and
general very-good-ness of the professional.
So what about that monkey business then? What the author actually says is
that the blogosphere is, in effect, a real-life example of the well-known
probability idea: that if you put a hundred monkeys in a room with a
typewriter each, then eventually, after an infinite period of time, they'd
produce the works of Shakespeare purely by chance. So, he wasn't actually saying
that bloggers are like monkeys, although he does keep harping on about it until
in the end you start to wonder.
It's easy to get defensive about such things, but just stop and think for a
moment. According to Technorati, Technorati is
tracking over 90 million blogs, there are 175,000 new blogs every day, and there
are 1.6 million blog posts every day. So what does this tell us? Well, nothing
actually. Or at least, nothing of any use. How many of these contain anything
worth reading? How many are even written by a human being? (I find, when I'm
looking at blog posts mentioning mine, that some of them just gather content
automatically, presumably to maximise advertising revenue or something like
that.) How many new blogs are continued after the first three weeks? How many of
them actually make us think?
Now don't get me wrong: there are plenty of blogs that meet those criteria
(if there weren't, I wouldn't bother to read any, or even write one myself). But
there is no point in pretending that the stats are all that matter, and that any
blog is better than no blog. I haven't read anything like 90 million blogs, but
there is so much out there now that I have to be very selective indeed. And it's
getting harder and harder to find readable, interesting and trustworthy stuff
out there, because of all the dross. So, in that sense, I think Keen is right:
the chances of finding anything worth reading is about as slim as monkeys
writing Hamlet. He even mentions, as I did back in September 2005, that the blogosphere is like Borges' Library
of Babel.
But where that argument falls down, of course, is that it's based purely on
statistics, and doesn't take into account personal recommendation. I personally
don't think much of the "wisdom of crowds" idea, but I value the recommendations
of people I respect. That makes the chances of my finding good stuff to read on
the internet much higher than they would be if I sallied forth with no map or
compass to guide me.
Another issue is that Keen argues that the amateur blogger can never enjoy
the resources of the professional journalist, and therefore cannot do as good a
job. He is mistaken for two reasons.
Firstly, he assumes that just because a journalist is a professional, he or
she will act professionally, by which I mean honestly and with integrity. I
think there have been enough examples of the converse being true for that to be
treated with a degree of caution. Only last week I expressed my dismay at the English press talking
about the new 5 minute lessons, which turn out to be a complete figment of their
imagination.
Secondly, he appears to have never heard of the professional journalist who
is also a blogger, and I can think of at least three of these in the political
arena:
Boris Johnson, a Conservative MP who is a bit of a loose
cannon in many respects, and erstwhile editor of the Spectator.
Guido Fawkes, an often- hilarious exposer of the baser
elements of the body politic, who was recently exposed himself as a respected
journalist. Well, he had to be someone with inside information - in fact, I
thought for a while that he must be a Member of Parliament. Unfortunately, I
can't recall his real name at the moment.
Melanie Phillips, who is a journalist for the Daily
Mail and yet still finds time to write copiously for her own website, where
she has two blogs, in effect.
Keen argues that the amateur, the crowd, is treated with the respect once
accorded to the expert. These days, and I am paraphrasing here, expertise is
treated with a degree of suspicion. In fact, it is not actually a new thing.
Back in the 1970s the theory of andragogy, ie the pedagogy of teaching adults,
was all the rage -- presumably by people who never had to practise it. The idea
was that adults knew enough about life for their experiences to be brought to
bear in a course of instruction (hmm, OK, not a bad idea to draw on people's own
experiences to make the subject meaningful and lively).
But when it came to recommending that these same adults select the topics to
cover on the course, eyebrows started moving upwards. On a philosophical level,
how would a non-expert know which concepts were key ones, or would know enough
about it to be able to argue for alternative concepts to be elevated to such a
status? And on a pragmatic level, no adult learner I ever met on a course wanted
to spend two hours after a hard day at work listening to people debating about
what topics they wanted to be taught.
It seems to me that the advent of the internet in general, and Web 2.0 in
particular, has enabled anyone to put themselves forward as an expert, in
anything. Furthermore, there seems to be a general consensus that "truth" is
something to be decided on a democratic basis: a pretty dangerous way of looking
at things, as even a cursory study of history would show.
This is where Keen seems to be coming from, and there is enough truth in much
of his argument to make it compelling. Again, however, he overstates his case.
Take Wikipedia, for example. I personally don't hold with the idea that it is on
a par with, let alone superior to, Encyclopaedia Britannica. However, as David
Warlick pointed out in one of his presentations at the recent
NECC conference, what other source of information flags up the
fact that it may be erroneous?
The same applies to Keen's criticism of the Long Tail (which I shall be
reviewing here in due course). He makes the point that nobody makes any real
money the further down the long tail you go, and generally speaking this is
true. But Keen appears to have not considered those markets that are so
specialised that the only way to meet the tiny demand is to go down the
do-it-yourself sort of route. And it's not all about making money either. See,
for example, my video
about the value of print-on-demand services for a school's educational
technology manager.
The author recommends that schools ban social networking sites. I think he is
wrong, and that what schools need to do is ensure that youngsters are
sufficiently-equipped to recognise and then deal with certain types of people
and situations they may come across online. He tells parents that they should
not allow their children to go online in the privacy of their bedrooms, and that
they should have the computer in a family room.Whilst I agree with the sentiment
underlying this view, I think it unfortunate that children are expected to
forego their right to privacy, or even their right to do homework in a quiet
place away from other people, television, and all the other distractions which
exist in a typical household.
So, should you buy the book? Well, although it's another one of these books
with what amounts to a single idea repeated hundreds of times, it does have
merit.
Firstly, it contains examples of cautionary tales that would be useful to
pass on to students.
Secondly, if you are a subject leader for educational technology, or an ICT
co-ordinator, you might use the book to help you identify the sorts of
objections that may be raised against your grandiose plans for incorporating
social networking and other Web 2.0 tools in your classroom, in order to be the better prepared against them.
And thirdly, it's well-written, making it a pretty good read.
Details:
Andrew Keen, The Cult of the Amateur, 2007, Nicholas Brealey, ISBN
9781857883930
If you decide to buy his book, click here:
UK:
USA:
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