I really appreciated Shirky’s comments about institutions. Although media conversation is often focused on the collapse of traditional systems, why it’s happening is not often articulated so logically. We say the common people are taking back the nation. We talk about crowd-sourcing, micro-funding, and massive calls to action that are changing institution and bureaucracy; and it seems we often talk of this on the premise that institution is not the natural state of things.
To read Shirky, then, describe the phenomenon simply as the concept of groups being able to function with less managerial imperative, was much more satisfying and understandable. Where he lost me however, was in his suggestion that bureaucracies may be circumvented for good.
In my opinion, the digitized mass media system represents a much more complicated bureaucracy than its analog institutional counterparts. It’s no longer an issue of voices not being expressed, it’s an issue of voices being drowned out, often in a manner that has nothing to do with their merit.
I don’t think we’re seeing the end of bureaucracy by any means. And I have no idea what the solution is or what it will mean for us, but if everyone can talk to the world, I’m inclined to believe that no one can.