Role of Expert in Amateur’s Life

It is now commonplace to watch that the web has made information more accessible. This is often more of a truism than truth, but it's fair to mention that the web has enabled lay people – amateurs – to try to knowledge work that rivals professional institutions in certain areas. Crowdsourced websites like Wikipedia, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and software packages like Photoshop and movie Pro enable amateur users to develop and share often self-taught skills (what some sociologists call “lay expertise”); become “influencers” in fields from fashion to politics, and develop modes of collaboration (what some media theorists call “networked expertise”) that have transformed how print-based industries like publishing do business.

We mention these developments to not overstate the facility of digital amateurs or trumpet the equalizing force of Web 2.0 participatory cultures but to argue that multiple models of experience are live on the web in highly visible ways. It's the place where abstract claims about the knowledge society feel almost palpable.
Knowledge may be a sort of currency for everyday users on social media also as for traditionally knowledge-based industries striving to adapt to digital media. Information may be a commodity for the technology companies operating the platforms and services that keep internet culture afloat. Yet, as knowledge becomes increasingly central to entrepreneurialism, self-management, occupational advancement, and economic process, our actual understanding of the concept grows more remote. Knowledge: the recorder at the center of everything.

By: Khushboo

Birla School, Pilani