Pre-class Discussion for Jan 14

Lessig, Free Culture, Introduction (pp. 1-13)

• Does widespread generativity offset attempts to assert increased levels of cultural ownership to any significant degree? Can those attempts keep pace with the constant and diffuse creation of new cultural content enabled by the internet (at least absent substantial technological changes actually as opposed to legally constraining the creation itself)? Jhliss 07:34, 13 January 2008 (EST)

Amateurism

Andrew Keen, Cult of the Amateur, Ch. 2

• So many questions. I'll try to just pick a few . . . Jhliss 15:07, 13 January 2008 (EST)
  • Keen uses the words "we" and "us" a lot. To whom is he referring?
  • A doctor's not exactly like a journalist, right? Isn't the distinction important?
  • I don't think Keen and I read the same blogs. Even leaving aside the Britney/Paris criticism, doesn't Keen paint traditional media (and other cultural outlets) with a rather uncritical brush? Do I remain a journalist simply by virtue of my college education and employment by a traditional media outlet if I fabricate stories or act as court stenographer for those in power? Conversely, if I produce original reporting and informed commentary while offering my readers both accuracy and transparency am I still not a journalist just because I don't have a journalism degree and my work happens not to appear in print? Doesn't the ever-growing number of bloggers receiving press passes, for example, or paid serious attention to by major corporations, suggest a world of far more substance than Keen contemplates?
  • "Can the cult of the noble amateur really expect to bypass all this and do a better job?" Is the amateur entitled to create only if the product will be better than that of the non-amateur? Pity the poor movie studios?!
  • Was the $331,000 that Frito-Lay didn't pay for a professional Super Bowl ad really "sucked out of the economy"?