How is Publishing Changing in the Digital Age?

Interview w/ Clay Shirky, Professor of Interactive Telecommunications, NYU.

Excerpt:

"Publishing is not evolving. Publishing is going away. Because the word “publishing” means a cadre of professionals who are taking on the incredible difficulty and complexity and expense of making something public. That’s not a job anymore. That’s a button. There’s a button that says “publish,” and when you press it, it’s done."

"In ye olden times of 1997, it was difficult and expensive to make things public, and it was easy and cheap to keep things private. Privacy was the default setting. We had a class of people called publishers because it took special professional skill to make words and images visible to the public. Now it doesn’t take professional skills. It doesn’t take any skills. It takes a Wordpress install."

Do you agree with this definition of publishing? Which professional skills do you think are "no longer required"?

H.L. Mencken said “freedom of the press is limited to those who own one”. How would you update this?

Europe vs. Facebook: Fair Information Practice Principles

Fair Information Practices are covered in ch. 13 of our Fluency texbook.

As a contemporary case study, read how a 24 year old law student from Vienna, Max Schrems, has filed 22 complaints with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner targeting Facebook's lack of compliance with  EU requirements.

Article: 24 year old student lights match - Europe versus Facebook.

Associated website.

The Fair Information Practice Principles (FIPPs)

In 1973, the U. S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare published five principles that would allow the benefits of computerization to go forward, but at the same time provide safeguards for personal privacy.
The principles also provide an excellent tool to judge the merits of cases such as Europe vs. Facebook:

To evaluate the merits of Mr. Schrems' case against Facebook, read the first two sections of the IT Law Wiki article: (i) The HEW Report and, (ii) European Developments.

CHART OF THE DAY: Why The Newspaper Industry Collapsed