Lost gatekeepers

Crystal Ball Gazing Reflections on the role of information resources in a liberal arts eduction
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The lost gatekeepers

In the past, gatekeepers largely controled your information access. Gatekeepers came in many forms, including:

Publishers who decide which texts are worthy of national distribution.
Librarians and bookstore operators who select items to stock their shelves.
Critics and editors who publish reviews of new releases.
Lawyers, doctors, accountants, and other professionals who selectively interpret their specialized information.

Can an information economy function effectively without gatekeepers?

Vignette: Napster writ large

Napster provides a highly effective environment for sharing music files. With Napster, it becomes possible for every local band and musician to distribute music via the Internet with no need for record producers, recording contracts, or disk jockeys to publicize the music -- music distribution without any gatekeepers!

Will this produce a renaissance of music creativity?

How do you learn of the hot new bands without the gatekeepers to highlight their work?

Will the outstanding creations be lost among a flood of poorly-done amateur pieces?

The horror writer, Stephen King, has become one of the first major writers to bypass traditional publishers to sell his stories online. Has he been successful because of the power of this new medium, or because he first became a highly popular writer through the conventional channels of book publishing and movies? In other words, could a new writer build a successful reputation solely online?

Valovic's critique of the popular Internet culture reminds us that gatekeepers have also blocked economy by limiting public access to valuable information:

One example might be the services provided by attorneys, which include standard functions that are continually repeated. The fairly standardized task of drawing up a will is duplicated many thousands of times throughout the course of the nation's workday by practicing attorneys and their clients. The attorneys who perform this service are compensated in the form of symbolic wealth, but how much real wealth is generated by that activity and how much duplication of effort is involved? This activity has been taken over by software, and the resulting increase in efficiency provides a direct measureable benefit to consumers because the real wealth of the knowledge base involved has become more accessible. (cite)