Clay Shirky

Analyse shirky’s theory of media development and audience transformation.

Media has developed greatly threw the years online, print and on the televisions.  The way media has adapted has been seen as nearly as smart as the human brain. Media has definitely had such a positive input into the way we trade news feed and the way we communicate. Media could also be seen as a negative for many reasons such as security and also global censorship. In shirkys speech he talks about the way media has developed greatly and how audiences have transformed.

Shirky describes the way that the government have used the internet to promote a rise to gory. He uses the example of Barack Obama’s elections and how has it changed the way the audience are involved with voting and opinions. He created a website called Mybo.com and Obama changed a law that he said he wouldn’t change. His own supporters were very angry that he changed his mind on this law as it did not suit what they wanted as a president. Shirky used this example for a number of reasons. it was the fastest growing group on this net  then the largest group because of the comments people voiced on his page. Many of his supporters had mane comments on the reasons why Obama changed his opinion. Shirky then states that media online gave people the chance to have conversation and discussions about the disagreement. however Obama made a statement apologising about his change in opinion and publicly posted it online but he  still wanted to change the laws and ended up sticking to it but the pubic changed their ways after h made the statement and respected him for it. This shows the way that the audience can at any time post things online in a split second and can be seen globally.

Shirky points out the way that media has transformed to suit the purpose of the audience from Printing press, telegraph telephone, recorded media movies, televisions, internet support for groups and conversation shirky looks at the way People can be producers and  consumers. By this he means that people in the public can produce media and also receiver it , it is a big group thing that never happened before. In the olden days a conversation could only ever be by word of mouth but now more than 10 people ca be involved in one conversation.

As media coverage has is pros and cons shirky then goes on to talk about the China earthquake which was measured at a 7.9 magnitude. The earthquake reported as it happened which is an example of citizen reporting as the public are able to produce media coverage. QQ which Is Chinas largest internet service was able to get the different feed from people reporting about the earthquake. Many people were  listening and viewing the news from all over the world. Even the  BBC got their news over tweets from china. The last time china had an earthquake it took them 3 months for the government to make the event official this is because they did not want the world knowing that there was such an  event that took place so people from outside China would not be involved. This shows a negative into Chinas media as many things in the country are sill undiscovered. However Shirky states that citizens gave reports about the earthquake via twitter and the government got their news from the public. As the news spread across the globe, The  top searches were about the quake. Donations sites were set up in hours of the earthquake happening.

Great fire wall of china is chinas biggest internet server and  because of the citizen reporting in China, this fire wall as used during the anniversary of Tiananmen Square they were shutting down all access to twitter so news could not be filtered out from china. This shows how vast and clever media coverage in china is because of the way they are able to create national censorship ad security. This example shows how shirky is right about the way media has changed and how the audience are able to adapt to it.

Media is global and social has grown into a big network of humans, the public can talk back to one another but not only that but they can speak to everyone at the same time and not be disconnected. The size of the network is always growing and will never stop growing because o the amount of media that can be produced every second. We know this by the way there different media devices that we can walk around with phones and ipads.  

In conclusion it is evident that media is changing and transforming all the time. Shirkys theory on media is a good coverage on what is in store for the future as the past has adapted so well.