Reading Response: The Great Seduction - Essay Example

September 10, Reading Response: The Great Seduction The article en d “The Great Seduction” written by AndrewKeen presented the contention that the democratization of the Internet undermines the ability to acknowledge the voice of authoritative and expert professionals over those of the amateurs within the electronic medium. Its main points included the democratization of “media, information, knowledge, content, audience, author” (Keen 14) apparently by the Web 2.0 revolution. Likewise, Keen asserted that the lure of the Web 2.

0 phenomena was actually analogous to a great seduction where a promise of truth was supposedly offered to be readily accessible and available to everyone; yet, in truth, the Web 2.0 revolution was seen to deliver unsubstantiated information written by just anyone who could blog about just anything possible. As such, the author discussed for foreseen repercussions in terms of blurring the lines between fact and opinion, proliferation of property theft, plagiarism, and hampering of creative talents.

The contentions were actually corroborated by Steven Strauss who indicated that “so far, and paradoxically (considering how much Web 2.0 has touched our lives), no productivity revolution is visible…For most of human history, productivity growth was negligible, causing per capita income to remain the same from one generation to the next” (Strauss pars. 2 & 3). This confirms that despite the magnanimity of information being shared and exchanged, it was evident that no new productive value of information or literary discourse has been acknowledged and recorded.

Likewise, Strauss also validated Keen’s argument that the Web 2.0 revolution has in fact endangered the print media through diminishing patronage and publication of books, newspapers, and even the encyclopedia. The reading has therefore provided a greater understanding of the impact of citizen journalism, defined as “the gathering, writing, editing, production and distribution of news and information by people not trained as professional journalists” (Curtis par. 1). Although seen by promoters as enhancing the creative skills of amateurs and supports freedom of expressionl citizen journalism poses dangers in terms of exposing unsubstantiated or bogus information which could jeopardize the reputations and lives of others; even prior to validation of the truth.

Works CitedCurtis, Anthony. "Citizen Journalism ." 2012. University of North Carolina at Pembroke. http://www2.uncp.edu/home/acurtis/Courses/ResourcesForCourses/Journalism/CitizenJournalism.html. 23 January 2014.Keen, Andrew. "The Great Seduction." Keen, A. The Cult of the Amateur: How blogs, MySpace, YouTube, and the rest of todays user-generated media are destroying our economy, our culture, and our values. Doubleday, 2008. 11-34. Print.Strauss, Steven. "Web 2.0 Is Everywhere, Except in the Productivity Statistics.

" 18 November 2012. The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-strauss/social-media-productivity_b_2155479.html. 23 January 2014. .