Mass amateurization
In addition to whole websites and applications, Web 2.0 has also birthed a variety of digital tools that facilitate organization and problem solving on a large scale.
[2] Mass amateurization is a social, cumulative and collaborative activity, wherein ideas will flow back up the pipeline from consumers and they will share them among themselves.
These obstacles include the costs that an institution incurs while educating, training, directing, coaching, advising, and organizing its members.
Mass amateurization is changing the definition of words like journalist and photographer to include non-professionals outside of the institutional realm.
Furthermore, mass amateurization is changing the way news and other content is diffused and consumed by the public through various media outlets.
[1] George Lazaroui explains that mass amateurization "is a result of the radical spread of expressive capabilities," due to "an explosion of Internet tools designed to make media authoring easier" during the early 21st Century.
He defines serious leisure as "the systematic pursuit of an amateur, hobbyist, or volunteer activity that is sufficiently substantial and interesting for the participant to find a career there in the acquisition and expression of its specials skills and knowledge.
A fall in the cost of consumer video recording technology in the early 1980s meant that amateurs were now free to make their own films at home.
Fan films mentioned by Jenkins include Kid Wars, The Jedi Who Loved Me, and Boba Fett: Bounty Trail.
I could have very easily shot the Young Indy TV series on Hi-8....So you can get a Hi-8 camera for a few thousand bucks, more for the software and the computer for less than $10,000 you have a movie studio.
As meteorological equipment and texts became more accessible, amateurs were able to scientifically monitor the weather by taking measurements with barometers and observing the skies.
Many amateur astronomers make a contribution to astronomy by monitoring variable stars, tracking asteroids and discovering transient objects, such as comets.
In his 2005 TED talk, Clay Shirky illustrated how amateurs have used tags on Flickr to solve the problem of organizing photographs.
But with the powers of mass amateurization and tags, Shirky is able to quickly assemble dozens of photos of the Mermaid Parade without putting forth much effort or spending any money.
Other media industries in general have suffered from the fall of transactional costs and the advent of "communication tools that are flexible enough to match our social capabilities.
"[2] In particular, the mass amateurization has led to an increase in international news reporting that would not be financially justifiable in the professional model of publishing.
[2][8] Lazaroui points out that "Many people in the newspaper business missed the significance of the internet (the only threats they tended to take seriously were from other professional media outlets).
In 2005, the Los Angeles Times attempted to offer its online readers access to its "Wikitorial", which allowed users to edit and contribute the website's editorial page.
[9] Examples of citizen media in the Web 2.0 space include Reddit and any blog wherein the author conducts original investigative journalism.
The institution often spends a great deal of time, effort and money seeking, gathering, educating, training, housing, advising, and organizing these professionals.
In essence, a great deal of time and effort is spent to form a "monetary and organizational relationship" that will lead to the solution of a given problem.
For example, photographers who are hired, paid, and gathered under the supervision of a larger, professional institution will be able to take a lot of good pictures.
Within institutions, "professionals are often too busy polishing their technique...to find time to read about the history of their endeavor or about the forms, styles, periods, or persons beyond their immediate work.
In Clay Shirky's example, users on Flickr fall into the definition of collaborators and they, without any institutional guidance, figured out how to solve the problem of organizing photographs.
[1] Due to this contrast in production among contributors, traditional hierarchy is replaced with a heterarchical format wherein distinct roles are blurred.
[3] These resources are now more readily available today due to low transactional costs and recent technological innovations in media creation.
[2] Lazaroui notes that "material published in a content-rich environment is destined to remain obscure"[2] and therefore the benefits of mass amateurization are not as accessible to society as they could be.
He charges that amateur reporters "need to focus on making this content accessible and interesting to new audiences," rather than aiding professional institutions in their news monopoly.
[6] However, while amateur content may not always favorably compare to its professionally produced counterpart, both play a major role in modern media.
[7] Institutions have been known to harness the power of mass amateurization for their own profit thereby turning the efforts of everyday people into free labor.
