Reading Log

"The Cult of the Amateur" by Michiko Kakutani
June 29, 2007

Summary: This article shows the more negative side to the new age of the web, Web2.0. Kakutani uses Andrew Keen's book, " The Cult of the Amateur" as his main defense. This book claims that the web is being dominated by unreliable sources and because of the threatens to change the traditions of the web. One example used is that people are more likely to use Wikipedia which is run through anonymous authors who may or may not have knowledge on the subject, than an established Encyclopedia written through scholars.

Response: Keen brings up good argument for the fate of our internet. As the popularity of "fad" sites increase, such as myspace, youtube, and facebook, slowly the main interest of our internet is being created through the common person. Learning about one another is not the bad part of this new age of internet, what is threatening is the line between fiction and reality is slowly disappearing. No longer will we be able to determine what is based upon fact rather than merely one's opinion. If other people start to basing their thoughts and decisions on only limited or inaccurate information, our society may not be able to run as we know it. Sites are slowly losing their credibility and many of the people using these resources may be unaware of their decay.
Even though the information of Keen's which Kakutani presented seemed to be credible, he made a statement in which he lost not only his credibility but also respect. Mr. Keen says, "history has proven that the crowd is not often very wise." He gives examples comparing slavery and infanticide to the war in Iraq and Britney Spears. His article did not have any facts to justify the statements he made about our military. Not to mention that claiming the support of our troops is unwise is quite demeaning to this country and the people who are fighting for it. It is uncalled for to compare such a serious and debatable issue with something as horrifying as slavery or infanticide. If this was merely his attempt to voice his thoughts on current issues, than perhaps he should be using the internet sites which he was previously bashing for being supported without fact to voice what appears to be a comment from merely his own opinion.