Here Comes Social Media, Part Four

So, what did I think of the book?

Generally, I agreed with Shirky's arguments and conclusions. In particular, I liked how he stressed that the tools themselves are not what are causing social change -- people are the ones doing this, just like they always have; the Web tools are facilitating this, but the users are the drivers. At one point in the book, Shirky uses the printing press and how it replaced scribes as a historical analogue for what is happening now. People always wanted to create books and share information; Gutenberg's printing press just let them do this much more easily. I think the analogue works very well.

I also appreciated Shirky's understanding of the complexity of social media interactions and why they occur. In Chapter Eleven, he stresses that there is no "magic formula" for the success of a platform and that the interplay between its users and elements can create success that is hard or impossible to replicate elsewhere. A network of people on LinkedIn may look very different from one on LiveJournal, and a viral marketing campaign using Twitter could be either more or less successful than one built around Facebook. There's much about using these to accomplish a goal that is still unknown, and Shirky acknowledges (and even embraces) this.

Really, my only criticism of the book is that Shirky at times comes across as too triumphalist regarding social media and the Web as far as improving society. In his defense, he does acknowledge that they can have a dark side, such as his brief mentions of terrorists using them to coordinate attacks or his raising the question in Chapter One of whether social media can reinforce class differences. Nevertheless, I somewhat agree with reviewer Stuart Jefferies of the Guardian who wrote that Shirky sounded "naive about the desirable social changes being unleashed in new media...these tools and these rhetorics can just as readily be co-opted by The Man." Shirky often does come across as someone with an advocacy agenda, and a more balanced view would improve the book.

I hope that Shirky writes a follow-up to Here Comes Everybody at some point in the future, if not as a full-fledged book, then at least as a long article or series of blog posts. I think that it would be very interesting to look back five years from now, for example, at what he got right and what evolved in ways he didn't predict (if in fact anyone could). Shirky is correct that social media is helping people transform society faster than they have been able to before, and, although I think he underestimates the possible negative results, I do mostly agree with him that these changes are for the better.

Here Comes Social Media, Part Three

The decreased transactional costs associated with organizing, networking, and sharing using social media tools creates challenges for established institutions. Blogging platforms, for example, let users publish writings on any subject they desire. Though most blogs and LiveJournals are just used to talk about one's life and keep others informed on one's activities, some use these for chronicling current events and conducting their own version of online investigative journalism. Shirky asks the question, if anyone can be a journalist, does that mean everyone should be afforded the privileges given the established concept of a journalist (such as shield laws)? Traditionally, professions exist because of a need for skilled practitioners in a field with substantial barriers to entry, such as law or accounting. But what happens when someone can use a site such as Groklaw to find case history and precedents instead of paying for a lawyer's services? Shirky argues that the sharing enabled by social media and the Web in general will require us to redefine just who exactly a professional is.

Other examples of challenges to the existing order are Shirky's description of the birth of Wikipedia in Chapter Five and the illustration of how flash mobs were used to protest against the government of Belarus in Chapter Six. Wikipedia showed how people can be brought together by something other than a motivation for financial reward to produce something that often rivals (and sometimes exceeds) the work made by paid professionals. The protesters in Belarus show how social media works by “replacing planning with coordination” (p. 172) and the implications of institutions being unable to predict or forestall group activity, instead being only able to react to it. Improved coordination allows a smaller, weaker group to outmaneuver a larger, stronger opponent. Of course, the actions taken by these smaller groups can sometimes be destructive; Shirky uses terrorist cells as an example of the dark side of enhanced coordination. This reinforces the idea that social media and the Web are only tools, and that the end result is up to the user. Likewise, in Chapter Nine, Shirky uses the unsuccessful Howard Dean presidential campaign to show that just being connected is not enough – people need to have motivation, commitment, and drive to accomplish their goals, and just signing on to be a part of something big by itself will not get results if nobody is willing to commit to the grunt work.

Read on to Part Four to see my overall thoughts on the book and its arguments – where I think Shirky is right, and where I'm not so sure.

Welcome PWR662 Readers!

Just a quick note to welcome everyone from my Writing for Digital Media class to my blog. If you're interested in the subject matter, I hope you'll stick around, otherwise thanks for the visit!