"TV is unbalanced—if I own a TV station, and you own a television, I can speak to you, but you can’t speak to me. Phones, by contrast, are balanced; if you buy the means of consumption, you automatically own the means of production. When you purchase a phone, no one asks if you just want to listen, or if you want to talk on it too. Participation is inherent in the phone, and it’s the same for the computer. When you buy a machine that lets you consume digital content, you also buy a machine to produce it. Further, you can share material with your friends, and you can talk about what you consumed or produced or shared. These aren’t additional features; they are part of the basic package."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Academics from the United StatesTechnology writers from the United StatesEducators from the United StatesYale University alumniInternetologists
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Clay_Shirky
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Clay Shirky
18 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Clay Shirky →
Related Quotes
"When we change the way we communicate, we change society."
"The members of the Invisible College did not live to see the full flowering of the scientific method, and we will not…"
"If I had to pick the critical technology for the 20th century, the bit of social lubricant without which the wheels w…"
"I was having dinner with a group of friends about a month ago, and one of them was talking about sitting with his fou…"
"Society is not just the product of its individual members; it is also the product of its constituent groups. The aggr…"
"We use the word "organization" to mean both the state of being organized and the groups that do the organizing... We …"
"The typical organization is hierarchical, with workers answering to a manager, and that manager answering to a still-…"
"Because Wikipedia is a process, not a product, it replaces guarantees offered by institutions with probabilities supp…"
"[an Ontario-based bus company] Trentway-Wagar was arguing that because carpooling used to be inconvenient, it should …"
"Social production is not a panacea; it is just an alternative. Although we are better off being able to use it when i…"