Why don't we just meet in the middle?

Of everything we learned this week I found the piece on convergence culture to be the most eye-opening. In that piece Deuze argues that the concept of "convergence culture" is becoming far more prevalent in the modern era. One of the primary reasons for this is that the rise of the internet has allowed a more bottom-up method of information dissemination. Whats more, it plays significantly into the concept of the decentralization of information. I would argue that these interrelated concepts are far more prevalent than most understand. With information we don't just meet in the middle, with half of the information coming from to-down sources and the other coming from decentralized information sources.

The key to understanding these concepts is to simply think about how much you learn and know and how much you don't. How much time do you spend consuming mass information? Now stop and compare that to what you learn as an individual. Now let's cover the underlying concept here of the decentralization of knowledge.

Leonard Read wrote probably the most prominent and well known piece on the decentralization of knowledge. I, Pencil explains the concept that no individual has all the information necessary for the creation of our favorite yellow writing utensil. No matter how well read you are, nobody knows all the various jobs that go into it, from the graphite miner to the waitress who serves the coffee to a trucker hauling the lumber which makes him not fall asleep and drive off the road.

Now what role does all this play in cross cultural communication? By understanding that information itself is almost entirely decentralized it gives us a new perspective on where that delicate point of informational equilibrium lies. This information would lead one to think that the balance leans toward decentralized, consumer driven information, with it shifting toward even more decentralization with the advent of the publications that Deuze writes about.

Nick