Clay Shirky mentions how the world is moving onward from “printing presses” and material goods; physical practice. The internet has now become the main medium of transaction. The media, its children, platforms as the many different routes you could take to participate in consumption. Is this a good thing?

Shirky remarks, “Social tools create what economists would call a positive supply-side shock to the amount of freedom in the world” (Shirky 2008, pg 172) delineating that the world is in-fact liberised by these new networks. To decentralise in a communication context is to enable feedback and participation. To distribute is to heavily engage and interact with transactions like never before. Networks like these have allowed an ongoing digital conversation, “To speak online is to publish, and to publish online is to connect with others” (Shirky 2008, pg 172).

“Every time a consumer enters this network a producer comes along with it”, Shirky is elucidating the effectiveness of this shift to internet paradigms. To consume is to create like never before.

Shirky C (2008) Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organising Without Organisations Penguin Books