Everyone having the power to contribute to mass media is a fairly new phenomena. It used to be a limited number of professionals in radio, television or newspaper steered and channeled our thoughts and ideas with the limited number of outlets that were available. Now, with the emergence of the internet everyone has the resources and tools to become a reporter or display their opinion to the masses. In the reading, it discusses Trent Lott’s comments on Strom Thurmond, and how mass media did no cover the story but it was amateurs who kept the story alive. This is a perfect example of the amateurization of media.
The internet has also brought us the concept of peer production and social knowing. These things have decentralized media which has also led to the amateurization of mass media. Professionals have to command over these ideas, therefore the traditional authority of channeling information is absent.
I also think that Strom Thurmond or the recently published Romney tape are good examples for the amateurization of mass media.
But even though professional journalists did not publish these stories in the first place, it is still the traditional media that makes them known to the masses.
In this sense the two systems professional journalism and amateurish journalism complete one another: A blogger posts an interesting story on his rather unknown website and a professional journalist descries this story and makes it “big“ news.
I like to look at blogs by amateurs when it pertains to politcis because certain news outlets seem to favor one political party over another. They tend to tell part of the story. Amateur bloggists can sometime add information that the main stream media deleted when they presented the story.
Yes i agree with last comment. When can get a well rounded view on politics or current issues from the amateur journalist. There are a lot of news orgs who tend lean one way on an issue instead of remaining neutral. Last night on Rock Center with Brian Williams, he and Ted Couples took a look into partisan news media. One thing mentioned was the absurd amount of money these news org bank a year as well as the content which seems to the notion of trying strike fear in people.
http://rockcenter.nbcnews.com/