1. The Cult of the Amateur
A BOOK REVIEW BY ART AIELLO
JMC 68004
SOCIAL MEDIA IN PUBLIC RELATIONS

2. About
Andrew Keen
•A contradiction
•One time Silicon Valley
entrepreneur
•Silicon Valley
technological elite
•Became a critic of the
social web
•According to
Keen, Web 2.0 is:
• Destroying culture
• Destroying our
economy
• Trivializing expertise
• Creating cacophony

3. The Beginning of Disillusionment
 September 2004: FOO (Friends of O’Reilly)
conference
 The hot topic: “democratization”
 The establishment would lose its grip on content
 Keen saw content chaos
 Author and audience become one and the same
 Dumbing down of culture
 Misinformation likely to be spread

4. The Crux of Keen’s Arguments
 Wikipedia
 Not a knowledge engine, only an aggregator of content
 We comment on existing content—a culture of punditry
 What’s the value of content if all we do is change it by
aggregating and annotating?
 Citizen Journalists
 Everyone becomes a Matt Drudge
 Just because you can see and share it doesn’t mean it’s
accurate
 No ethical standards
 No ramifications for spreading misinformation

5. The Crux of Keen’s Arguments
 YouTube
 Has marginalized the notion of professionally produced
content
 We used to turn to professionals for broadcast content; now we
turn to anonymous video producers
 “Free” content doesn’t necessarily mean “good” content
 What of those content creators who have paid their dues?

6. Keen Goes Off the Rails
 Is Keen a luddite?
 The pendulum has swung both ways
 The Utopians vs. Keen
 Tower Records, traditional newspapers
 Keen laments what he holds dear
 The social web isn’t solely responsible for the demise
of traditional media
 Rob Bundy: water from the “soulless” tap

7. What PR Pros Need to Know
 Transparency will be key
 In an anonymous world, we cannot contribute to anonymity
 We can lead others in “piercing the veil” of anonymity
 Help stakeholders sift through content to find what’s
true
 No gatekeepers anymore
 PR can be “cleaners”
 PR can move to a role in which we serve stakeholders
regardless of professional allegiance

8. Thank you for your attention.