Interview with Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture.
Andrew Keen, an alumnus of the University of California, Berkeley and media entrepreneur, has become known to a large public through his recently published book The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture, with which he positioned himself as the leading critic of the Web 2.0 movement. His view that the immense new wave of personal publishing facilitated by the Internet endangers traditional media and now constitutes a serious threat to our culture has enraged liberal commentators and web enthusiasts alike.
Andrew, however, has not always been a contrarian. Among the earliest Internet pioneers, in 1995 he founded the highly commended website Audiocafe.com. From this time on, he has been in great demand as a media expert and quoted and portrayed in many newspapers and magazines. Today, he is the host of the Internet chat show afterTV.com and regularly appears on television and radio.
OEB: Mr. Keen, in your book, you both satirise and confront the growing Web 2.0 community. You speak of some sort of laymen’s ethics that are quite dominant in the Internet, implying a lack of expertise, talent and real knowledge. What makes you think this way?
Andrew Keen: For me, the main idea of the Web 2.0 Internet is to challenge the authority of experts. I think many of the Internet utopians believe in the competence of “courage”. Unfortunately, though, the real challenge that emerges is to traditional authority and any established kind of hierarchy. The student-teacher-relationship is a rather good example in this respect. Traditionally, the student has looked up to the teacher, the teacher being more educated, wiser and more authoritative. The student listened to the teacher and thus was educated. Many Web 2.0 aficionados, however, seek to do away with that. They are trying to empower everyone, putting away proven authority structures, and I think that is the bad thing.
In my mind that is antithetical to education – the entire “the-teacher-does-not-know-more-than-the-
student-thing”. It will cause the entire premise of education to break down. On the other hand, the teacher should be a friend and not the one who tells the pupils what to do – that is totally wrong.
Sad to say, I see this as part of a broader socio-cultural flattening, a cultural revolution on how authority is understood and deployed. Web 2.0 is not the cause of it, though; it is an effect. In any case, I am against the trend. I am suspicious of the idea that the student knows as much as the teacher.
OEB: What other lessons can we extract from your book?
Andrew Keen: Essentially, my book suggests that if you do away with the editor, you do away with the ecosystem of traditional media, whether it be the editor, the teacher, the agent or the publisher. Doing away with these valuable media contributors is disastrous because you need gatekeepers for value. Without them, the dynamic will lend itself to corruption. So again, in my mind, undermining these values doesn’t help the development; it only helps new oligarchies to emerge. Even worse, these oligarchies in the Internet are often anonymous.
OEB: Your sharp arguments in The Cult of the Amateur are often seriously contested. For instance, you’ve recently been designated l'antichrist de la Silicon Valley. How do you handle these epithets?
Andrew Keen: I think this one is rather entertaining - being called the antichrist de la Silicon Valley. Seriously, though, some reactions rather struck me. My book is actually a satire on Silicon Valley. Thus, the earnestness and seriousness of many of the Web 2.0 utopians seem quite harrowing to me.
These people really do not have a sense of humor, and that is why a lot of the site operators take themselves so seriously and become so angry when people criticise them. They see themselves at the core of a world revolution, but there is not a great deal of worldliness about it. It is rather provincial.
Global media - dear me - there is nothing really global about it. This is the reason why there has been a very different reaction to my book in Europe than in the US. Europeans tend to be a bit more sympathetic to what I have written partly because they apparently comprehend that my book contains some humor. American readers, in contrast, sometimes appear to take it somewhat too literally.
In any case, my book was definitely not written for Web 2.0 ideologues; I wrote it for teachers, publishers and so forth. I’m happy to have the opportunity to speak at your event because it reaches a lot of online educators.
OEB: You also spare no efforts in pursuing the dispute about Web 2.0. What else have you experienced while discussing the topic?
Andrew Keen: Well, the book has really catapulted me into the public eye, which is very exciting from my point of view. On the other hand, it has cast me into some pretty deep waters.
What I certainly see is a very dramatic division between how old people and young people have responded to my book and my theses. This doesn’t mean that all old people are in favor of my opinion and all young people against it, but there is a tendency.
Older people like my book more, particularly if they are teachers or members of the education community - they are extremely sympathetic, as are elder journalists, editors and literati. They understand the problems, dangers and destructiveness of this flattening of media. Young people, on the other hand, particularly high-school children and college kids, tend to be very naïve.
I think there is also a male-female thing going on as well. Most of my harshest critics are men, whereas many women endorse my theses, some of them commenting that they’ve been very turned off by the aggressiveness of the blogosphere. Yet another factor may be that - if I may make a sweeping generality here - women appear to have a more intense perception of emotions than men and a different sense of relationships.
OEB: Notwithstanding your sometimes harsh judgments, do you also see any advantages in Web 2.0? After all, you yourself are a blogger and operate the Internet portal afterTV.
Andrew Keen: Beyond doubt, there are many advantages. I like the way in which the Internet 2.0 is putting positive pressure on mainstream media and think that’s a good thing, but I do not want the existing system to be replaced wholesale. I think is helping online educators be more efficient and more honest. It is good that the Internet is giving traditional media a kick in the pan, but I do not want it to be a kick in the crotch or to kill them off altogether.
I like a lot of things about the Internet: its energy, its excitement and its dynamism. You can certainly not argue that Web 2.0 alone is destroying the mainstream media, but it is one of the influences having an onerous impact on them.
OEB: So how can quality be enhanced?
Andrew Keen: I think you can get quality if it is driven by mainstream media, if you have traditional publishers putting their work online. I do not have any problems with that.
In my book, I cite the “Guardian Unlimited”, the online version of the left-of-center British newspaper, as a great example of how a traditional medium does a brilliant job of integrating the expert traditions of the newspaper with the interactive democracy of Web 2.0. For this reason, the Guardian Unlimited now has more readers in the US than some top domestic papers.
I believe this proves that the potential of the Internet is huge when it is used by experts, by authorities. Also, look at the project of my friend Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia. With his expert platform Citizendium, he offers new ways of linking experts in specific subjects together with the participatory energy of Wikipedia. What is so good about it is that it acknowledges the fact that some people know more about certain things than others. If Web 2.0 leaders like Larry recognise this, there is hope after all.
OEB: How are you going to follow up on "The Cult of the Amateur"? Are there new projects in sight?
Andrew Keen: I will do another book, and it will probably be something about America. But I am also interested in projects in the Internet, allowing experts to benefit from it. I see the Internet as a platform for expertise – bet on building businesses around expertise and authority, not against expertise.
OEB: What can listeners expect from your Online Educa Berlin talk?
Andrew Keen: I am thinking of new ways in which both high school and college teachers can deploy their authority on the Internet. At Online Educa, I plan to talk about the good and the bad impacts of Web 2.0 on education and also offer some opportunities in which experts, intellectuals and academics can use the Web 2.0 technology for their own benefit.
I will also a give summary of my book and my critique of Web 2.0, but the main issue will be how to go forward to Web 3.0. I have some observations about how we can take advantage of the technology while continuing to combat some of the leveling cultural and political ramifications of web 2.0.
Mr Keen, thank you very much for your time!
The interview was conducted by Nina Wittrock from OEB News Service
Andrew is the opening speaker at Online Educa Berlin, Thursday, November 29, 09:30 - 11:00
Also join what promises to be a lively and highly interactive discussion: In Conversation with Andrew Keen, GEN 30: Thursday, November 29, 16:15 to 17:30.
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