Etes-vous elitiste?

The French have discovered CULT. "Etes-vous elitiste?" I was asked by Les Echos, the French version of the Financial Times. I've even been christened "l'Anti-christ de la Silicon Valley" by Liberation, the French leftist daily. Both articles are actually very intelligent and reflect a growing interest in my work in continental Europe. I just accepted an invitation to speak at LeWeb3 in Paris in December. I'll be speaking at the Crossmedia Picnic event in late September. And I'll be keynoting a number of other events in Europe in the Fall including the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers in Frankfurt in October and Online Educa Berlin in late November.

In real life, of course, I'm neither un elitiste nor l'antichrist.  Want proof? Come and hear me talk. I'll actually be in Europe all of next week, lecturing about the future of media, culture and technology:

09/04   Royal Society for the Arts, London (6.00 pm)
09/05   Toward a Social Science of Web 2.0, University of York  (6.00 pm) -- in debate with Charles      
            Leadbeater, one of the UK's most distinguished digital optimists.
09/06   Frontline Club, London (7.30 pm) -- introduced by Richard Sambrooke, director of BBC's Global
            News
09/07   IJP Alumni Conference, Bonn (noon)
09/07   Watershed Media Center, 25th Anniversary Celebration, Bristol (7.00 pm) -- in conversation with
            filmmaker Ana Kronschnabl and writer/director Hazel Grian.

Comments

[Mat]

I'll be interested to hear your dispatches from Europe... I wonder if there's anything exciting happening across the pond in Web thought? I suspect yes.

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[Seb]

You are well known in France. Come here, we will enjoy discuss with you.

[TroyB.]

Seb's right, you're known in France as "one the most reliable source of info on media and tech". Glad to read you'll be at the "LeWeb3", I'll be there to hear what you have to say ,).

Troy

Ps: title in french... catchy ^^.

[Vladimir]

Nice. Nothing wrong with being the Anti-Christ, though. I would wear it as a badge of honor.

[Frances Grimble]

I've spent a career in publishing, and my take is this: Andrew Keen and his publisher saw an opportunity to publish a profitable book cashing in on the Internet phenomenon by trashing it. There are already many competitive books praising the Net in various ways, and trashing it is a newer angle. They knew _The Cult of the Amateur_ would annoy a great many people: That is exactly what they were (and are) aiming for.

For a book to sell well, people have to pay attention to it. It doesn't matter whether the attention is positive or negative, as long as readers buy the book. Even the crudest negative comments on this blog translate to positive publicity buzz. Note that the author’s main publicity angle is continually repeating that people have called him an elitist, etc. He seldom says anything more substantive here to market the book.

I bought and read _The Cult of the Amateur_ because I had read an article of Mr. Keen’s (I believe a book excerpt) in my local newspaper. I agreed with him on many points, and I still do. There is an enormous amount of erroneous information, idle chat, narcissistic blogging, and general junk on the Internet. Most commercial books are much more carefully edited and produced than most amateur material on the Net. The cost of producing quality books, their size, and the number of people typically involved, mean both that it is very difficult for an amateur website to produce comparable work, and that publishers must invest a great deal of money that must be earned back. Yet, readers are flocking to lower-quality material on the Net just because it’s free. It’s a real publishing industry dilemma.

I too am appalled at the ignorant and childish behaviour, the incoherent prose and bad grammar, displayed by some adults during b-board and other Net interactions. I too have scrolled through many a blog thinking, “Who cares?”

And I have absolutely no objection to a publisher making money by publishing a book on a popular subject such as the Internet. Including aiming to put that book on the bestseller lists. Publishers need to make money, and it’s a worthy topic.

But: I believe that it would have been possible to produce a book that would have been a much more thoughtful, analytical, and in-depth attempt to discuss the problems created by the Internet. A book that was less inclined to blame the Net for general cultural phenomena, and one which discussed more possible outcomes and potential solutions to problems.

I also think it would be possible to market the book in a more substantive way, by discussing the topics in it, explaining why they are important, and asserting that the book does a good job of covering them. Continually marketing it by saying, “My book must be important because everyone called me the following names!” strikes me, even as someone in the book-publishing industry, as a low-energy sell-out. “Who cares, as long as there is buzz there are revenues.” Yes, controversy is a common marketing angle. But earnestly discussing ideas is often highly controversial. And that’s what I’d hope to see for a book that is essentially about the serious subjects of sociology, economics, and the future of literary works.

So before anyone posts any more crude insults, or ravings on the order of “I’ve never read this book but I hate it,” remember this: Such posts are just more publicity buzz for the book, and are probably actively being sought.

[Mister Jensen]

Elitisme culturel ?... N'y a t'-il pas dans tout celà, la notion de narcissisme ?
La culture impose des sacrifices à ses participants, par le renoncement libidinal, narcissique et agressif exigé. Aussi, elle a le devoir de les dédommager en leur offrant des solutions de compromis, source de satisfactions substitutives. Ce sont, (pense Freud), les idéaux culturels et les œuvres artistiques qui procurent à ses membres des satisfactions nouvelles, de nature narcissique. Par ailleurs, la religion représenterait un autre don de la culture à ses participants, avec, hormis une éthique, son système de protection et de consolation référé au désaide humain essentiel. Le Web 2.0, nouvelle religion, expression de tous les narcissismes ?...

Mister Jensen - FRANCE
http://midi-chez-meleagre.blogspot.com/

[Ian Thorpe]

Andrew, it is refreshing to come across a writer who has a mind of his own. Far too many now subscribe to the cult of "positive." Thus we do not speak out, to tell the truth as one sees it is to be negative, a dinosaur and much much worse, not a team player.

As for the "publisher" above who says you only use the blog to publicise your book, did he not use his comment to publicise himself, am I not using this comment to boost Greenteeth?

Media communications has always been chiefly about publicising things, products, ideas, causes. When will people realise the internet actually offers little that is new, simply new tools for familiar tasks.

Good luck in Europe. I'm sure if anything truly innovative is going on it will come from Scandinavia.

[Alastair Moore]

I've had a skim through the sample chapter, and will endeavour to read it fully later on today, and quite probably buy the book, as in many ways I do agree with what you're implying. It feels to me that over the last 5 to 10 years (and I'm speaking about my experience in living in the UK) that taste and class has gone out of the window and people are content with listening to, watching and reading tripe. That said, media is a very personal thing and one man's Bob Dylan is another man's Backstreet Boys. It's difficult to criticise people's taste in music or film - simply put, you may well love Bob Dylan and see him as the height of quality music but not everyone is going to agree. Since using the internet, I have discovered an incredible amount of brilliant, brilliant music that I would very unlikely have discovered otherwise.

In the excerpt, you describe traditional media producers being replaced by "homespun moviemakers and attic recording artists". Frankly given the choice of a quality amateur production or the tat that is continually coming out of Hollywoods every orifice of late, give me that amateur production every time. The same goes for the music industry - popular music these days is dreadful and it is no wonder people are turning to these attic recording artists.

As far as music and film goes, that listeners and viewers are being given a choice is a very good thing indeed and perhaps as a result, the major labels and movie makers may start to wake up and realise what people actually want to listen to and watch. Another soul-less production line musician spawned from the hell that is x factor or pop idol is certainly not it.

[Paulus]

Welcome to Europe. I hope you have a good trip.

I heard you on "You and Yours" today. Interesting. You made much of the moderating effect on journalists of being published in proper newspapers. Just four names explode your argument: Robert Maxwell, Conrad Black, Silvio Berlusconi and Tiny Roland . What others are out there I wonder? No blogger has the power of a determined media tycoon.

[Vics]

I've just listened to the BBC radio 4 show 'how has the internet changed your life?' and this is actually the first I can remember hearing about your book, what struck me was not that you held such views but that, rather than saying; 'I feel' or 'I think', every other sentence was 'my book says..' or 'in my book..'

This did not endear me to your point of view, I can agree with certain sentiments but it seemed that everything you said was designed not so much to provoke thought or to make a point but to sell this book.

The one thought I did have, and I doubt i'm the first to voice it;

What makes your opinion any different than the million other amateurs writing about the affects of the web on our culture? Why does writing a book make you more credible?
I congratulate you on the achievement, never mind the obvious success it's brought, but I do hope that you point out in all these talks you give that all you're offering is your opinion? yes, you may be able to offer facts and statistics to show why you hold that opinion, but at the end of the day - so can people who hold an opposing view.

[Rafael Imas]

Thanks God you're keeping the good work. Instead of the Antichrist of SV, we should call you The Almighty King of Media, Lord of Common Sense and Guardian of Good Things in Life. Maybe you could change your name to Adolf.