Chapter 3 of Here Comes Everybody begins by defining “profession,” so Shirky can further explain the unexpected incongruity that arises when non-professionals begin to do the work of professionals, frequently unprompted and unpaid. With the rise of online publishing and the accompanying drop in costs to publish, news (and most other text) has become completely free. This opens up an unlimited potential for information: as Shirky puts it, there is “a switch from ‘Why publish this?’ to ‘Why not?’” (60). Professional online journalism aside, the influence of amateur bloggers can sometimes direct traditional media as well: if enough buzz can be generated online, information suddenly can become important enough for the national stage. The question also exists as to whether or not these amateur reporters can truly be considered “journalists” and be given all the rights and respect that that entails.

Chapter 4 goes on to describe the varied nature of some of this published blogging content, highlighting users’ tendency to publish unedited and inane content along with the interesting stuff. Shirky offers reasoning for this and ties it back to the idea of community: although many blog posts are available to be read by anyone on the internet, they are only intended for a small, familiar audience; other blogs exist to generate information about specific topics and are intended to distribute information to the internet at large. It is therefore necessary for individuals to filter information; it would be impossible and unhelpful to browse the internet at random.

Chapter 5 discusses Wikipedia and the power of collaboration in user-generated content. Wikipedia works effectively because there are a huge number of users actively working to improve the articles and edit the site, the vast majority of them unpaid. A core group does much of the work for each article, generating the content, and then others make edits as needed.

Much of the reading from Design to Thrive echoes concerns from Here Comes Everybody. Dr. Howard’s most-delved-into example is Iran’s Twitter-driven revolution attempt in 2009. The chapter examines social media’s potential to effect actual societal change and looks into some problems which arise when social media becomes a somewhat legitimate form for journalism and otherwise. I’ll address Iran further in my response, but the issues described as “the social networking battlefield of the future” stood out to me more clearly as I read, given current events (and my tendency to panic about the future of the internet):
1. Copyrights and intellectual activity
2. Disciplinary control vs. individual creativity
3. Visual, technological, and new media literacies
4. Decision-making contexts for future markets

I feel all of these are important and currently in play, but with so much recent government intervention into the internet, I worry that the second issue (control vs. creativity) will eventually fall too hard on the side of the former to allow for much of the latter. This issue is really outside these four; these all assume fairly unlimited internet access, with the “control” referencing more censorship than flat-out limitation, but the recent situation in Egypt and the current situation in Canada are placing an artificial scarcity to this information that we’ve acclimated to as a society. The issue in Canada and the US are ISPs trying to get more money and possibly curb illegal filesharing, but the shutdown of telecommunications in Egypt successfully caused mass confusion and hampered protesters’ efforts. It’s hugely notable that the day before the government shut off the entire internet, they blocked just Facebook and Twitter. Egypt’s revolution in 2011 could have been as closely followed as Iran’s was in 2009 by gathering these citizen journalists’ reports from the ground, but by shutting down everything (and capturing, beating, and confiscating the equipment of professional journalists) much of the information spread could be controlled and manipulated by the government. Citizens can use social networking tools to effect great change, but once they're used to them, it can be difficult to effectively organize a massive movement without.

EDIT (9:15am 2-3-11): Perhaps I should have more faith in government, or at least in Canada's. Or maybe our blog posts are inexplicably linked to current events and I should wait until the due date to post them.