When digital media entrepreneur Andrew Keen predicted in 2007, which was the focus of the user Web 2.0 would result in a discount in well-researched and fact-based information – and subsequently a rise in amateur opinions – clearly there was something to it.
More than a decade later, Keen’s predictions have likely come true. Today, the Internet is a source of seemingly limitless amounts of easily digestible material. Countless people contribute to “factual” information and promote their very own opinions as fact. Through Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, people – especially celebrities – can also promote products and ideas in a way more direct and visual way. And create or reinvent themselves as experts in completely different fields than those by which they gained fame.
Amateur experts
For example, although people have been modeling and promoting fashionable clothing for a very long time, in the last ten years many celebrities have developed this concept. They broke away from the activities that made them famous – acting, singing or sports – and they rediscovered themselves as business people. They will not be only promoters of specific products, but in addition those whose style should only be copied. They are the basis of a modern lifestyle.
The indisputable fact that stars are moving into the business isn’t any longer such a surprise. However, the way they tackle expertise in matters they don’t have any education in is a brand new twist in the development of the amateur. For example, Spice Girl Victoria Beckham is now a dressmaker, and actress Gwyneth Paltrow is a way of life and “health” guru. When Beckham first launched her clothing line in 2008, fashion editors they were willing to stay skeptical, but influential magazines like Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue were impressed. Despite having no apparent training in design – her initial ‘specialization’ in the field got here from a private interest in clothes and being photographed in fashion – Beckham recently celebrated a decade as a dressmaker.
Paltrow’s “modern lifestyle brand” GOOP sells similarly face creams and other products under the umbrella of health and beauty. They were approved by Paltrow herself and collaborating doctors help lawyers the so-called medicinal elements of some of its products. Despite the chorus of criticism against Paltrow and ‘GOOP’pseudoscience”, the company is now reportedly price $250 million.
Fame and facts
Using the Internet as a tool to advertise celebrities also worked in the case of former businessman Donald Trump. Even though Trump never held the office of state governor (a typical path to political power and the presidency) or political knowledge, Trump could grow to be president of the United States. It wasn’t just his advantage because of a social media campaign which consisted in reproducing his “ordinary speech” and not his political rhetoric.
These latest experts don’t even must be famous for every other reason to exhibit their expertise. For example, Ella Mills is a British blogger who, by documenting her illness and experimenting with food, became a staunch supporter of “clean eating” (though she has since she tried to distance herself from the deadline). This helped launch her “natural and honest” food brand Deliciously Ella, with none experience as a dietitian.
Now anyone with a Twitter or Instagram account and an opinion can promote their expertise, and stars can engage directly with fans, showing them the way to emulate their very own impressive lives.
While social media can be considered a force for good in education, the dominance of a viewpoint approach on this sphere – relatively than true expertise – can have a negative impact on the expertise itself and on the perception that one spends time training and gaining qualifications of their chosen field , before looking for specialist knowledge.
As more and more people turn to the Internet and social media for information of every kind, it is going to likely grow to be way more difficult to find out some extent of view based on empirical and fact-based research, since each information now appears in the same place. A recent example of that is wider spread of pseudoscience. Pseudoscience itself relies on amateur opinions, and the problem is that social media is becoming the best platform to perpetuate it. It may be very easy to seek out information that confirms a given point of view relatively than disproves it.
As social media has proven that individuals can succeed without obvious qualifications and training, and as viewpoints increasingly validate people’s viewpoints, scientific knowledge is more likely to erode. And similar to social media produces financial incentives through marketing opportunitiesthe power of these “experts” could increase, creating a wholly latest shift in knowledge acquisition. Keen originally predicted that as a substitute of expanding and diversifying knowledge, interactive media would inevitably result in digital narcissism and an increasing narrowing of the self. While many individuals have benefited financially and in terms of social status, the quality of knowledge emerging from social media is increasingly narrow and difficult to measure.