#11 Shirky Ch 4-9

Shirky continues in Chapter 4 with an introduction that publications and filtering become separate processes and that filtering takes place after publishing usually in a group/social/community sessions.  I had my own definition of "user generated content" before reading this book, and Shirky brings up some excellent points.  Just because someone creates something on their computer does not alone make it user generated, because then works by well known authors as they scribe their novels, those novels would be considered user generated.  He describes the content as a group phenomenon and from amateur users.  One of the examples like a gallery for this content to be displayed is MySpace where users create posts and blogs for a small group of people.  Shirky asking, "Why would anyone put such drivel out in public?"  The answer of course was, "they're not talking to you."

In the online community there is no ruling authority, only a group consciousness that weighs the scale of justice.  This makes me think of the current Trayvon Martin case in Florida where the group is calling for justice when the governing body doesn't seem to be doing anything.  The thing about the case is that it's expanding farther than just the city, or even state.  This event has garnered the attention of the nation in a call to action.  In essence Skirky ends the chapter by saying that never before have groups had the ability or freedom to say and do so many things.  With so many participating online, there is a removal of obstacles for that same participation by non experts.

Just because people can participate more freely, doesn't mean that people do.  Shirky describes a "caring" that draws people to participate, whether it be personal or for the greater good.  These days people are using social networking to organize, but the social network didn't enable the action, it merely removed the obstacles. In the same movement, the interaction becomes increased and more frequent.  The same action that could have taken weeks to mobilize a nation now takes days, even hours to capture their attention.