The Great Levelling

There was a tv programme on BBC 2 the other day called “The Virtual Revolution” (see here). The title of the first episode was “The Great Levelling”, as the internet was supposed to empower everyone and enable anyone with access to the internet to publish. The programme cited blogs and wikis as great examples of this phenomenon. Is this really the case?

Wikipedia is seen by many as a great example of the power of the internet to collate human knowledge. In reality, the number of editors is tiny in relation to the number of people who use it, so it’s still not very level at all. It’s also got other flaws. Vipul Naik talks of the many articles that are caught in a situation where two or more groups of editors battle to get their view published, one eventually winning as the other becomes bored. This isn’t what was meant to happen. We were meant to collaborate and reach an absolute truth. Anyway, it’s much more fun just to type something rude isn’t it?

Blogs do allow anyone to publish yes, but just because it’s out there on the web doesn’t mean anyone will read it. If you’re a moron, people still won’t listen to you just because you have a blog. Saying that, even popular blogs aren’t necessarily any good. Crowds aren’t wise after all. But if you do want to follow the crowd, many blog search engines and other social media employ a rating system as a means to generate participation. You can even earn badges for your blog or profile so others can see how good a contributor you are. Nice and level eh?