Andrew Keen: User-generated content is ruining culture

“Web 2.0, user-generated media, is encouraging us to self-broadcast [ourselves],” said Keen when asked about the impact of new media such as blogs, YouTube, and Twitter.  He insisted that user-generated content is “fracturing mainstream media” and “creating an increasingly inane and trivialized culture” via the creation of multiple messages.

Keen added that one unintended consequence of user-generated content is “the structural crisis in mainstream media," which we cannot take for granted.  In an increasingly mediated environment, he said, “We are less intelligent and less disciplined” in our consumption.  This, according to Keen, results in a cultural crisis where we believe “everything we say.”

Taking his postmodern message to heart, this is bad news for traditional media sources like newspapers that are scrambling to join the Web 2.0 trend with website forums, blogs, and podcasts.  “We’re coming to the end of the user-generated cycle,” said Keen, who argues that traditional media are “doing the wrong thing” by embracing this source of content.

Even if the trend of user-generated content is on its way out, newspapers continue to wholeheartedly embrace it with user-friendly websites and innovations such as the Knight News challenge and SlateV.  In an effort to capture the elusive and Internet-savvy young readers demographic, publishers have turned increasingly to democratized media to stimulate the low consumption of the traditional, mainstream media.  

Compelling arguments can be made for both sides of the Web 2.0 and user-generated content debate.  Keen takes a no-holds-barred approach to his criticism of the triviality of citizen media, but editors and newspaper executives remain necessarily careful in their attempts to incorporate citizen media.  (For example, the recent revisions to the UK Editor’s Code of Practice makes editors responsible for online editorial material, including content submitted by non-journalists.)  It seems that with the rise of the Internet and user-generated content, newspapers would do well to embrace the trend, while keeping in mind Keen’s message and working to effectively harness and guide the vast potential of citizen journalists.  

Despite his pessimistic outlook towards the consequences of Web 2.0, Keen advocated, both in the interview and in his book, cooperation between traditional and new media, explaining that “the best solution is a combination of the qualities of the professional media combined with the innovation and energy of new media.”

Source: Business Week