Polemical Overdose: Lay off the Craziness Keen

This Picture Sums up Keen's mentality in his manifesto "The Digital Emperor Has No Clothes".

Keen is indeed a romantic writer, one who cannot thrive literarily unless he feeds on stark contrast and manufactured controversy. Well, ok I'll concede, he grasps certain struggles and rivalries that have sometimes bubbled up over the years between the "blogger" and the "the professional reporter." I must also point out however that he uses a powerful magnifying glass to blow the issue into historic proportions. In his rush to prove a point he fails to acknowledge successful efforts of making reporting a partnership between reader and reporter.

These entities have created very successful partnerships, most recently with the June 2009 Iran election protests, where young progressive Iranian reformers protested what many see as a stolen election by the theocratic regime. These protests were indeed the largest Iran has seen since the Iranian Revolution.

In this event Iranian social media provided primary footage and documentation for the traditional world media establishment to aggregate. Social media forced traditional media to respond earlier than usual to this story, in effect ensuring that traditional media would provide their consumer base with the most up to date information and developments.

For the first few days of the protests, it felt very surreal for me as a media consumer to see the Iran elections dominate social media coverage, yet hardly any mention in traditional media sources like CNN or the New York Times that I pay attention to. I remember the campaign to change people's Twitter Avatar pictures green to show solidarity. I still have that greeen avatar to date.

National media sources, and even local American media as you will see below, were able to access this video and primary reporting for free from social networking. Previously these media companies would have to pay up large sums of money for reporters, cameramen, and security for their staff on the ground.

These are still important functions of a news media organization, however more often than not conflicts tend to breed restrictions to on the ground media reporting. When this happens and traditional news media cannot use their usual reporters, turning to social networking allows them to continue reporting on the issue with up to date information.



Keen is way too polemical for my tastes. The relationship between traditional and social media is more complex than "Is it good or bad? Part of the solution or part of the problem?" Keen mainly wants is for someone to tell him how important he still is. Indeed, someone should do so immediately, before we are subjected to another self-aggrandizing piece by him.