Keen, Andrew. “Introduction.” The Cult of the Amateur. New York: Doubleday, Currency. 2007.

Keen’s “Introduction” paints a pretty bleak picture of what is expected of blogging and social media journalism. He invokes the “infinite number of monkeys” who will eventual write Shakespeare to emphasize his view of the hit and miss (and miss again) nature of putting media in the hands of the people rather that having the system of old media, in which the news was generated by the 4^th estate, separate from other classes.

I have to say I found his alluding to open online media as “mob rule” a little bit retrograde. It’s almost as though his implication is that not everyone should have a voice, or that some people’s voices should be louder than others. I post on a blogs from time to time so I went with a topic that I used to write about for a British blog, urban exploration, in particular about abandoned mining towns. It’s a niche topic but does attract a fair amount of curiosity from people who travel or are interested in alternative lifestyle and tourism.