Been reading up on commentary about Andrew Keen and his book The Cult of the Amateur. Keen posits that the rise of easy web publication for non experts (in blogs, music, etc, etc) is subverting the primacy of traditional legitimate expertise - the academy, organised media, major music and print publishers, etc, etc.
I'm a bit torn on this one. For starters I'm an example of the sort of amateurs Keen dislikes. On the other hand, I'm a bit dubious about all these trends as well.
I just don't know. I do like it that Keen has put the wind up the sort of proselytising misfits who think things like Creative Commons is a good idea.* Then again, Keen's sacred cows aren't necessarily all that sacred. The modern academy was largely created in the 18th and 19th centuries by gentleman amateurs, and much contemporary academic work, in the humanities especially, is little more than self-indulgent claptrap, so I feel a considerable amount of joy at the thought of the ignorant masses tearing down those smug ivory towers. **
There is a greater problem with the effect of blogging and ranting on the serious news media, though that's been atrophying of its own accord over the past 40 years - you couldn't blame Web 2.0 for that. But I think that at least some people will always want an authoritative fourth estate, so I can't see it going away. I think the free market is a much greater threat to the media than Web 2.0 will ever be.
You can read an interview involving Keen and Wired editor Chris 'Long Tail' Anderson. I'm a little frightened that some of Keen's arguments vis: the music industry are very similar to ones I've used. Whether or not any of this new media crapola is going to be ultimately beneficial, we can't really close this Pandora's box now. (Was there ever even a point where we could have?) Let's just see what happens.
* I have doubts about the whole Creative Commons endeavour. Personally, I have no use for it. The only stuff I want to sample is copyrighted, and I'm sure as hell not going to give up my right to derive income from my works... should they ever accrete some sort of economic value ;-). There's also the problem with coporations actually using CC generosity to their advantage (see this article for a commentary - complete with a deliciously snobby reference to YouTube's exploitation of 'the lower classes who lack the resources to create through other channels proceed to submit their works under CC licensing schemes').
** And this from an arts graduate. Tut tut!