“Review of ‘Here comes everybody’ Clay Shirky” - T Brabazon,
Times Ed Supplement, 3/4/08
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She is generally unimpressed
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Clay Shirky is Professor at New York
University’s ‘Interactive Telecommunications Program (at time of her writing)
and clearly she doesn’t feel academics should be writing about management and
business culture.
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She says the evidence and ideas he uses are
unsound as he tends to use anecdotal evidence (stories and examples from
people’s experiences) and then extrapolate them outwards (so they take what has
happened to a few people and say this is characteristic for everyone). So lacks
validity as evidence. And therefore the ideas are just that – unsubstantiated.
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She equates ‘mob rule’ with ‘social networking’
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KEY POINT
– ‘Older citizens, the poor, the illiterate and the socially excluded are
invisible in Shirky’s “everybody”
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This
whole paragraph is key – he avoids the problematic ways in which user
‘power’ might be utilised, such as in Pro Anorexia sites - by sweeping it under the
carpet – ‘it’s not a revolution if nobody loses’ AND that therefore means NOT the ‘everybody’ he is talking about
in the title.
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There’s no mention of the excluded people who
she says might not have the latest phone – may have no money/time/expertise or
be busy in the real world fighting injustices already perpetrated on them (e.g.
they’re poor and are too busy dealing with that to ‘collectively meet and chat
online' let alone have the means to do so).
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He assumes we can learn from technology without
taking it in context – it makes a difference WHO is creating the content
(i.e. if it is user generated content or ‘professional’) – she thinks this is a
gaping hole in his argument
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She says there’s limited validity where bloggers
link to bloggers for their reference and she complains that his book is not
referenced (no citations).
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He confuses tools with knowledge
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He confuses process with production
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