The Cult of the Amateur: How blogs, MySpace, YouTube and the rest of today's user-generated media are killing our culture and economy [Paperback]

Andrew Keen has the right credentials to address the question of the cultural impact of the web and it is a subject of interest to me, so I was intrigued by the title and the reviews. However, I was really quite disappointed by the book. I now have some suspicions, rightly anticipated by Keen himself, about the reviewers who said it is "beautifully written" and the work of "an intellectual Goliath".

The style of the book is polemical, which in my view detracts from, rather than strengthens, his message. Andrew Keen's hypothesis is that the internet, or rather the mass contribution of its content by "amateurs", is a threat to "our culture and our values" or something that might destroy "the institutions of the past". At the centre of this hypothesis is the argument that the millions of amateur contributors of free, unregulated, biased, poor quality and downright untrue web content are undermining, obscuring or preventing the contributions of professionals (amongst which Keen presumably counts himself) which are high quality, truthful and . . er . . costly.

Yet I find his arguments are weak and contradictory, and the metaphors and anecdotes he uses often cut both ways. There are so many examples it is hard to pick one as an illustration. Keen quotes from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four to provide a flavour of what might become of us through our mass ignorance and rejection of expert guidance - "Two plus two makes five" might eventually be considered true - but he misses the point that only in a totalitarian state could such an untruth be accepted as true. The "democracy" of the web is precisely the sort of mechanism that would prevent this being possible. He also stoops to some fairly crude character assassination in describing the background of those he disagrees with: "Drudge was a mediocre student who came to the media business via a job managing the CBS studio gift shop". I think Einstein was a mediocre student and worked as a technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office.

Keen also avoids two obvious questions - why should "our culture and values" not change - as they have been changing for centuries - and why should the "institutions of the past" not give way to the institutions of the future? Indeed, the essential success of the United States as an ecomonic and social power has been precisely because of its readiness to embrace the new and change its institutions to accommodate it.

In the end, Keen finds that the solutions to his problems are already emerging: the courts are being used to pursue flouters of copyright law; entrepreneurs previously behind mass contribution sites and blogging are starting to use experts and professionals to supply material and "maintain order". Perhaps the future is not so bleak after all. So why all the fuss?

Finally, an admission. I am one of Keen's much-vilified "amateurs". I do not review books professionally, nor would I consider myself to be well-read. But Keen's readiness to berate the "amateur" in the name of some "professional" and quite condescending superior authority got up my nose a bit and I felt compelled to respond.

It doesn't take to read the whole book to agree or not. It's enough to reflect on the title as it captures the whole concept brilliantly and comprehensively enough to reject or to embrace the idea behind the book. It's probably one of the most to the point, sharp and precise titles I've came across and I agree totally.

I even think not enough has been said as the trend is by no means limited to internet only. Just turn on any information channel on the TV. Most of them around the world (with Japanese NHK being an exception, thanks to a slightly different format though) tend to follow CNN. In its international edition it seems like it's equally important what an anonymous person from a middle of nowhere thinks about global warming or financial crisis then an expert who has devoted his life to explore the issue. Of course experts can be biased and they don't ensure objectivity but at least they have knowledge to share, rather then subjective opinion. Or at least you can try to extract this knowledge and hard data from what they have to say and try to work out your own view if you wish.

Today, "Your opinion matters" seems to be the mantra of modern media. Long before famous cover of Time magazine from December 2006 with the hero of the year being portrayed as "you" (three big letters on the computer screen - ring any bells?) media have been moving fast from informing its consumers to flattening them and coquet at the expense of quality. Its shrinking fast, and we are moving back to kindergarten when meticulously selected music accompanies the news in case you don't know what kind of emotions you should feel. If it doesn't make you feel scared, don't read the book.

Do you really want amateurs interfering in your own profession? When the poop hits the prop you probably don't. There is a place for amateurism and a place for professionalism, but they shouldn't be mixed too freely.

In my Central European travels I recall Polish museums exhibiting a panoply of pamphlets from people's underground printing presses. During the Solidarity era these helped to undermine and finally to dismantle the Iron Curtain. This show of expression proves how circumventing the establishment can be an urgently necessary thing to do. Often though these presses were manned not by amateurs but by professionals - forced underground by totalitarian insanity.

This book suggests that we need to foster a healthy establishment to complement our latest people's press, the Web. After all we don't want our own institutions to go the way of Brezhnev's and Jaruzelski's.

Before we proceed, some etymology:

Cult-> cultus -> to tend or take care.
Amateur -> amor -> love

[source: Dispatches from Blogistan: A Travel Guide for the Modern Blogger (Voices That Matter) page 60]

Yet, before we get too gushy, lets not forget that there's plenty of destruction and hate on the Web too.

Like any polemic this one should not be swallowed whole. Yes I regret every record and book shop killed off by Amazon and iTunes. In this and other specifics the book preaches to the converted. However it does not give due credit to the sheer energy in amateur circles such as those enabled by the Web. After all, any professional was once an amateur. For example Punk's D.I.Y. ethic put a firecracker up the backside of the musical establishment, but subsequently was assimilated by that establishment, re-energizing it in the process. The Web will continue to be a place where authors, musicians, filmmakers (etc) find their feet before they move on to prove themselves in the wider world (The Arctic Monkeys headlining at Glastonbury springs to mind).

However, for all the dynamism in amateur circles, it is counter-productive to build a cult around amateurism. Andrew Keen is right - it is wrong to preach that amateur content will supersede all that has preceded it. In this vein Keen criticizes Wikipedia's model of hive intelligence, and recommends Citizendium instead. In my arbitrary test neither encyclopedia was perfect; both still need uncyclopedia to leaven the mix. Long-term perhaps we will see the mighty institution of Wikipedia assimilate Citizendium's ideas - a webosphere instance of this book's argument of the need for stable institutions.

And we in turn, as social individuals, need to learn how to assimilate the web, rather than vice versa. To avoid becoming locked into poor web design models we will benefit from a plurality of web models and from books such as this one that fertilise the debate.

It is hard to dispute the author's central argument that we need a healthy professional establishment with its quality control and rule of law. We should not blot out the hard won lessons of our past. Regarding this constant need to maintain a realistic outlook, Gordon Brown's quote that technologies like Twitter would mean that "You cannot have Rwanda again" comes to mind. Gordon should Tweet that to people in Sudan, Northern Sri Lanka, Somalia, Iraq.

Keen argues that we need professional editors and campaigning journalists who have skin in the game, i.e they might be sued. Alternatively you might argue that through this book the publishing industry kills two birds with one stone: egging on a technologically savvy author to provide them with profitable product while simultaneously bolstering their cause. While there may be some truth in this it is also true that the publishers should be rewarded for bringing this illuminating read to market. Book length studies are necessary to make sense of things.

Unfortunately I am in danger of making a cult of The Cult Of The Amateur. After all plenty of specialists benefit from mainstream Web tools to write expert content. Ultimately though the book delivers a professional hit job on the Web's lazy establishment bashing. Worth a read.