ThePoMoBlog does a good job of tackling this piece. The biggest point and one I always come back to, there is no "Cult of Amateur." Keen takes natural market forces at work and the demands of random unconnected people and is turning it into a movement. By that reasoning every day after work there is a "Cult of Traffic" – and mobs of people take it upon themselves to flood the streets in an effort to cause more traffic.
Who are these traffic loving freaks and what master do they obey?
If that sounds dumb, just take a step back from the Internet and ask yourself the same thing. "Who are these Internet surfing freaks and what master do they obey?" The Internet is built on the backs of the masses. There is no way around that. Perhaps some people prefer experts but as Mathew Ingram notes Newsweek’s claim that there is a movement back towards experts is unsupported. There is lots of organizing going on in the intertubes – but to my knowledge their are no movements about "taking down the experts" or "taking down the amateurs."
Perhaps I’m letting the analogy run away with me – but read Terry Heaton’s post below to get a better sense of things. The final point I’d like to make: The Internet and even citizen journalism is not an expert versus amateur debate. That is a fallacy. I’m tired of that narrative.
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Dave
I too have been thinking a lot about this, not least in the context of the subterranean self-publishing that I have been recently documenting from the late stages of the Soviet rock scene. Keen is trolling mainstream and new media for personal gain, but he does more damage to mainstream media than new media by offering reasons not to act. The web is many inflection points. But it clearly now is in a special period.
Whether it is the Soviet Union, or newspapers, well-established cashflows attract more than their fair share of what economists call rent seekers. When the rationale for those cashflows starts to break down, there will be howls of protest from the rent seekers and their representatives. The creators of new cashflows are the entrepreneurs. Because many of them start from outside the system they can look unwashed and amateur and they will be disdained. The truth that I observe all over the web is actually professionals connecting with one another in communities or reaching audiences directly. I seem to skirt the trashy amateur with a blink. I don’t invite it into my Google Reader so I don’t see that much of it.
Tim