The Great Digital Seduction [2007]

Are we at the mercy of the amateur? How can we build trust into the new structures of knowledge enabled by the internet?

SPEAKER: Andrew Keen (UK), Author of ‘The Cult of the Amateur’

“By stealing away our eyeballs, the blogs and wikis are decimating the publishing, music and news-gathering industries that created the original content those web sites ’aggregate’. Our culture is essentially destroying the very sources of the content they crave.”

This is a quote from Andrew Keen’s controversial book, ‘The Cult of The Amateur – How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture’ (2007), which has made him one of the leading contemporary critics of the internet.

In this talk from New Media Days 07, Andrew Keen expresses his concern for the recklessness of online amateurism, spawned by the digital revolution. How today’s internet is polluting our media, jeopardizing our cultural economy and corrupting our civic life – these issues will be the basis of discussions for years to come.

After this session Andrew Keen met Peter Hirshberg in a debate about Web 2.0. The two speakers offer radically different views on the state of the internet and how the transition from customers and audience to partaking producers will affect the media business.

Related:
VIDEO: Hirshberg vs. Keen @ New Media Days 2007