Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky

It’s interesting that a book about, among other things, the radically changing nature and “amateurization” of consumer media was published by Penguin and has three pages of blurbs at the beginning of the book from major, established media organizations.  In addition, the cover has a quote from the Boston Globe (which I think is now bankrupt) and the back cover quotes from the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the New York Observer. 

This suggests one of two things. 

One: Skirky’s book really is on the front edge of a wave that the most of society hasn’t fully caught yet; Penguin realizes that but still has to appeal to older patterns.

OR

Two: the role of the managed, professional class isn’t really going anywhere, despite Shirky’s observations.  

Of course, it’s probably a combination of both these options. 

And that’s one of the more refreshing parts of Shirky’s book: he looks at both sides.  He appreciates that new media trends are just now unfolding and beginning to be understood. He also recognizes that people now have an outlet for the human desire to create groups and organize in ways that allow for the greatest depth and breadth of expression. 

By that, I mean I can now find people to share with and learn from about ideas and experiences that are critical to me.  This, in turn, allows the body of knowledge for everyone to expand exponentially.  If I get Lyme disease, I will be able to find groups of people that have had it, recovered from it, and have loads of information that I would find useful.  In the old method of management and communications, if I got Lyme disease, I would have to seek out support groups or other “communities of practice” that had been created top-down by various professional organization or medical institutions.  No longer.  Now, I can find these communities of practice organically emerging based on the needs of the group.  If I have been experiencing arthritis as a result of Lyme disease, then surely I will be able to find groups discussing and sharing on just that subject.

However, I use a medical example here to demonstrate some of the limitations of these new methods of decentralized communication.  As Shirky says, “It used to be hard to get people to assemble and easy for existing group to fall apart.  Now assembling latent groups is simple, and the groups, once assemble, can be quite robust in the face of indifference or even direct opposition from larger society” (p.210).   This can obviously be a problem if the information the group is providing is either plain wrong or is leading to destructive behavior.  I have seen this with forums discussing the benefits of using massive doses of antibiotics to combat Lyme-like symptoms, despite evidence to the contrary.  Shirky gives the example of pro-anorexia groups on discussion forums of YM.

As a result, I thought Shirky could have put more energy in his book to the idea that indiscriminate blogging, posting, and web publishing does have a dark side.  In a medical situation it could have unpleasant consequences—masses of people determining the best course of action, as opposed to doctors or researchers with evidence based research. 

We see this pronounced in political blogs, the vast majority of which are people who watch/read the news and provide ad-hoc analysis, simply based on their perspective—as opposed to an investigator who diligently researches what is actually in a bill or the voting pattern of a particular elected official.  Hopefully, we will find an economic model in the near future that allows for hard-core investigative research AND for the collaborative power of the blog.  (State of Play touched on this).

One of the weaknesses of Here Comes Everybody was a general lack of real data.  Most of the book read sort of like a thoughtful blog.  Skirky made keen observations about the changing nature of communications, but he didn’t provide real data to back it up; rather, he provided interesting antidotal examples of new media in action.

Despite this, his book is timely and useful, largely because the pros of new media far outweigh the cons.  The outlets for human expression have exploded, and that is a good thing.  The difficult part will be figuring out how to balance this communications “revolution” with institutional knowledge and practices that have proven quite robust so far.  Perhaps his next book.