Here comes everybody : the power of organizing without organizations / Clay Shirky.
Publisher: New York : Penguin, 2009Edition: Updated [ed.]Description: 344 p.; 21 cm001: 14069ISBN: 0143114948; 9780143114949Subject(s): Social interaction -- Technological innovations | Interpersonal communication -- Technological innovations | Information technology -- Social aspects | Internet -- Social aspects | Online social networks | Electronic discussion groupsDDC classification: 303.4833 LOC classification: HM851 | .S5465 2009Item type | Current library | Collection | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | |
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Book | MAIN LIBRARY Book | 303.4833 SHI (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 089937 |
Browsing MAIN LIBRARY shelves, Shelving location: Book, Collection: PRINT Close shelf browser (Hides shelf browser)
303.4833 SHI The virtual / | 303.4833 SHI Here comes everybody : how change happens when people come together / | 303.4833 SHI Here comes everybody : how change happens when people come together / | 303.4833 SHI Here comes everybody : the power of organizing without organizations / | 303.4833 SHI Cognitive surplus : creativity and generosity in a connected age / | 303.4833 SIM 50 Years on the Audio - Visual Front Line | 303.4833 SLE The internet and society / |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
"A fascinating survey of the digital age . . . An eye-opening paean to possibility." -- The Boston Globe
"Mr. Shirky writes cleanly and convincingly about the intersection of technological innovation and social change." -- New York Observer
An extraordinary exploration of how technology can empower social and political organizers
For the first time in history, the tools for cooperating on a global scale are not solely in the hands of governments or institutions. The spread of the internet and mobile phones are changing how people come together and get things done--and sparking a revolution that, as Clay Shirky shows, is changing what we do, how we do it, and even who we are. Here, we encounter a whoman who loses her phone and recruits an army of volunteers to get it back from the person who stole it. A dissatisfied airline passenger who spawns a national movement by taking her case to the web. And a handful of kids in Belarus who create a political protest that the state is powerless to stop. Here Comes Everybody is a revelatory examination of how the wildfirelike spread of new forms of social interaction enabled by technology is changing the way humans form groups and exist within them. A revolution in social organization has commenced, and Clay Shirky is its brilliant chronicler.
Previous ed.: 2008.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Publishers Weekly Review
Blogs, wikis and other Web 2.0 accoutrements are revolutionizing the social order, a development that's cause for more excitement than alarm, argues interactive telecommunications professor Shirky. He contextualizes the digital networking age with philosophical, sociological, economic and statistical theories and points to its major successes and failures. Grassroots activism stands among the winners-Belarus's "flash mobs," for example, blog their way to unprecedented antiauthoritarian demonstrations. Likewise, user/contributor-managed Wikipedia raises the bar for production efficiency by throwing traditional corporate hierarchy out the window. Print journalism falters as publishing methods are transformed through the Web. Shirky is at his best deconstructing Web failures like "Wikitorial," the Los Angeles Times's attempt to facilitate group op-ed writing. Readers will appreciate the Gladwellesque lucidity of his assessments on what makes or breaks group efforts online: "Every story in this book relies on the successful fusion of a plausible promise, an effective tool, and an acceptable bargain with the users." The sum of Shirky's incisive exploration, like the Web itself, is greater than its parts. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reservedCHOICE Review
Shirky (New York Univ.), a prominent voice in the blogosphere and authority on the sociology of the Internet, has written a sharply analytical book on the effect of online networking tools on social groupings. Using a series of case studies, he argues that manifestations of Web 2.0 such as Weblogs and wikis, as well as content sharing utilities like Flickr and YouTube, are radically changing how people communicate, form social groups, and use social networks to effect change. Not only do collaborative tools enable people to communicate with whom they want when they want, they allow them to circumnavigate established power structures and media outlets, creating grass roots-driven networks that become so powerful they can solve crimes and topple governments. Shirky outlines the implications of a world where every person can express himself and connect with an audience at virtually no cost and without barriers. This book stands alongside such titles as Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything (CH, Aug'07, 44-6933), by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams, and Chris Anderson's The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More (CH, Jan'07, 44-2783) in enabling readers to understand the power of collaborative technology in a niche-driven economy. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. G. R. Innes Western Connecticut State UniversityBooklist Review
Posing questions about how the Internet affects group organization, technology writer and consultant Shirky challenges the perception that it heralds an egalitarian era. Leaning on human nature, such as the varying intensity of engagement within any group with a nominally common interest, Shirky demonstrates in numerous examples how a very few individuals or Web sites come to dominate the activity at hand. Shirky opens with the transformation of one lost cell phone into a cause célèbre after the finder wouldn't return it, ultimately resulting in her arrest. Driven by one person outraged at the effrontery, this story has analogs in Shirky's analysis of what makes Wikipedia work or an airline heed customers' complaints. Generally a committed few find similarly minded folks, who widen the circle with an implicit promise of results at low cost, perhaps redress from the airline. Exploring this dynamic's impact on journalism and business, Shirky astutely discerns the implications of people acting on their own, without the need to transact their concerns through a hierarchical organization. A perceptive appraisal of the contemporary technology-society interface.--Taylor, Gilbert Copyright 2008 BooklistKirkus Book Review
With newfangled technology like cell-phone photography and Internet bloggery, the course of human events is entering a new epoch, a networking guru informs us. Today, active groups can form where such formations were once impossible, declares Shirky (Interactive Telecommunications Group/NYU). Such modern configurations of power based on the free exchange of information can change society. So toss out all those old organization charts: The Internet, according to the author's facts, figures and theories, offers organization without management, networking without hierarchy. There is no institutional overhead, no cost in failure. Now we can publish before editing, Wikipedia being the prime example. In this new modality, victims of an abusive priest find redress together, stay-at-home moms consult communally, networking terrorists plot evil and anorexic teens confer on ways to starve. Collective action is almost effortless, and evanescent flash-mob events are easy to organize, often to the consternation of authorities. Viral networking can spread like the flu, distant conversation is as simple as pecking on a keyboard and everyone can be a journalist, a publisher, an encyclopedia editor. Shirky, with his illustrative anecdotes, provides back stories for latter-day groupies who log onto Flickr, Meetup, Groklaw and those sometimes fleeting wikis. He clearly applies the theories of power-law distribution and collective action, though as the discussion turns to Coasean Theory or the thoughts of Vilfredo Pareto it leans a bit toward the didactic. All that's needed, says the author, is the promise of a useful outcome, appropriate tools and agreement of participants to afford a platform for networking groups, like Archimedes, to move the world. Some wise observations amidst a predominantly old-news text. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.There are no comments on this title.