Green Tea Ice Cream

I’ve been reading Stephanie Booth’s summary of an exchange of views between David Weinberger and Andrew Keen at Supernova 2007 (there’s another account over at Social Media Club) in the context of the fall-out from Danah Boyd’s (inadvertent) media bomb . The reaction to Danah’s essay in the newspapers suggests that mainstream media are still very fond of privileging expert, authoritative discourse – when it suits them (i.e. when it gives an opportunity to discuss/reinforce class divisions, say “Oooh, it’s bad this Noo Medjaa stuff, isn’t it?” and so on…). Three days previously, Weinberger and Keen were debating the “…value of authority in a connected world…” and it’s fascinating how much of the attention given to Danah’s post accrued from her status as an academic (and how much hatred that this seems to have generated on the comments on her most recent post).

One might argue that perceived “expertise” has always been related to demagoguery both benign and sinister (Gina Ford of Contented Little Baby, Scoble, Hitler, Alain de Botton, Ghandi…) – social media just democratises people’s access to becoming a demagogue (lowers the entry requirements).

Perhaps “experts” then, in a constructed sense, are still very much with us but social media renders them more open to challenge than ever before. The Danah cited in a slightly sloppy piece by the BBC is thoroughly mediated by their take on her work but it’s one click away from her blog. On her blog, she’s speaking for herself – and people can answer back.

Any conclusions? Expertise is accountable on Web 2.0. And perhaps more useful as a result of this, as any socially mediated means of distribution makes the consumer of expertise equally accountable for the uses they put it to. Well, that’s my optimistic take on it, anyway…