Taking on the system

Attempting to get my hands on Markos Moulitsas Zuniga’s book “Taking on the System” was partially my own method of taking on a system. The system that I had taken on was the Lehigh University Bookstore.

To put it lightly they hit me with the okie doke, they found a way to disallow me to return books that I had purchased the day before. To add insult to injury the day after my purchase my professor informed me that we didn’t even need the two books.  The greatest part about this whole situation is that the clear cut genius who worked at the register completely failed to mention that they didn’t have a return policy. Since this instance I told myself that I would never purchase a book from the Lehigh bookstore ever again.

Taking advantage of the fact that I was a member of the first real generation that had the potential to communicate with mass amounts of people without any kind of gate keeper, I immediately went to twitter. Yes, I know I speak entirely too much about twitter in my posts but I feel like it is such a great example for so many different things.

With a string of angry tweets I attempted to inform others of the horrible experience that I had with the bookstore. I received a few reply and re-tweets, however ultimately my warning and issue was relatively unheard. The span of my communication was not anywhere near as far as I thought it would be. It also didn’t surprise me very much either considering I only had about 250 people following me at the time.  

This was almost a text book example of “Taking on the System’s” foundational rule, “Without the media little can be accomplished”. If you cannot influence the flow of information, you cannot affect change on any substantial scale.” Obviously this is not a life and death type issue but the principle remains the same. People now have the ability to openly and honestly express their opinions in many different ways without requiring approval from anyone, and more importantly without being censored by any type of gatekeeper. Amateurs can start a revolution, and have in a few different countries.  

Several social revolutions have been spurred by Twitter and amateur voices seeking a place to be heard. The most notable one to date would be the recent revolution in Tunisia, where citizens used the site to speak out on the political unrest that was occurring within the country. The method was actually so affected that the government attempted to block citizen’s internet access. It also spurred another revolution in Egypt, where journalists posted articles on their own blogs in addition to tweeting about events and uploading videos of social unrest onto Youtube. Twitter and social media, aka forums where people can freely voice their opinion without worrying about being censored or gatekept, could potentially be blamed for destabilizing an entire region, simply by giving amateur people a voice.

Amateurs now have the power to have their voices heard as if they were professionals, not just through Twitter but also through blogs, Youtube and Facebook. Society no longer has an infatuation with the professional person and professional institution. Prior to our generation, in order to be successful, to have credibility or to have any influence, you had to be a professional. Technology is a major factor in this change. Zuniga’s example of this came with Wikipedia, which is the definition of a user based and user-maintained site.

“The encyclopedia uses the collective power of its massive community to produce and police the quality of the content rather than depending on a handful of ‘experts’. According to its own website, in early 2008, Wikipedia had 75,000 contributors working on 9 million articles in 250 languages.”

An amateur based encyclopedia is now considered to be a highly credible source of information, which is something that would have never happened prior to our generation and technology. The gate keeping concept of someone needing to be a professional to produce credible and professional quality material no longer exists. This really can be seen within the music industry. Artists are now completely aware of how they are being hustled by major labels, which has led them to bypass the process of recording and distributing through a label completely.

Zuniga speaks of a group called radiohead, who I am not quite familiar with, but they were very successful. After being Okie Doked by their label six times, they decided to record the album themselves in a home studio on relatively inexpensive, non “Professional” equipment. The group then proceeded to distribute the album strictly online in a digital form. They allowed fans to purchase the album for a price that they determined. On the average, fans paid between $5 and $8 dollars per album, and the album went platinum. The group made more money off of their single, digital, label-free album, than all six of their previous albums put together. Artists now can get themselves in the door and distribute their own music without the gate keeping of a record label or distributing company. Music fans will ultimate be the death of the major record label, simply because they will continue to buy their favorite artists regardless of the way the music is produced or distributed. This also comes as a result of technology. Digital media has unlocked the door for musicians to really turn a profit in the industry.

With blogs, amateur journalists managed to cause social change, and digital music artists were given the ability to actually turn a profit on their music. In addition, with Wikipedia, amateur people managed to create a credible encyclopedia. The removal of the gatekeeper in society has the potential to benefit us in many different ways. It also has the potential to make it harder for users and consumers to find the information they want, simply because now there is more information than ever out there for people to consume.