Andrew Keen

Andrew Keen, 2015

Andrew Keens arises (in english )

Andrew Keen (* 1960 in Hampstead (London) ) is a British-American entrepreneur, author and Internet critic.

Life

Keen earned a bachelor's degree in history from the University of London , continued his studies at the University of Sarajevo and graduated with a master's degree in political science from the University of California, Berkeley .

He has taught at Tufts University , Northeastern University, and University of Massachusetts in the United States . In 1995 he founded audiocafe.com in Silicon Valley . He worked for media companies such as SLO Media, Santa Cruz Networks, Jazziz Digital and Pure Depth. In 2005 he founded AfterTV . Today he lives with his family in Berkeley, California .

Andrew Keen is an active blogger and also publishes a podcast on AfterTV.

Critic of the internet

In his book The Cult of the Amateur (German: Die Hour der Stümper , original 2007, German 2008), Keen criticizes several current developments in the Internet, including free, collaboratively created websites such as Wikipedia . Keen accuses Internet development, among other things, of trivializing culture through amateur content . In Keen's opinion, many Internet users lack the necessary healthy dose of suspicion about what is on the Internet. As a result, Keen says, mistakes and lies spread like bacteria on the web. In this context, Keen also fears that PR people and lobbyists will gain too much control over the Internet through clever marketing.

In addition to this criticism of the development of Web 2.0 , Keen also addresses possible copyright infringements and the spread of free software on the Internet in his writings on the subject. He describes the positive notion of Web 2.0, that everyone can participate in the Internet, as a great utopia similar to Karl Marx's ideas of society . According to Keen, however, contrary to this utopia, the Internet is mainly used for self-expression ( narcissism ). Technology has advanced, but humans and their properties have not. Keen explains in interviews, however, that he deliberately polemizes (exaggerates) in order to make the problems of the Internet clear.

Keen has recently turned to the problem of Internet social networks. He criticizes that many people are actually annoyed by it, but that it has now degenerated into a social compulsion to participate in such networks.

reception

The reactions to the work of Keen were very polarized. In many reviews it was praised that it addressed legitimate points of criticism. In particular, Keen's sweeping criticism of amateur content and the supposedly widespread distribution of illegal content on the Internet was often contradicted, and his attitude was sometimes described as elitist and traditional.

The New York Times gave the book a positive review, calling it "a shrewdly argued jeremiad" ("a shrewdly presented lament"). Der Spiegel described it as a "highly regarded 200-page polemic", according to Deutschlandradio "his criticism of civilization [...] presents the spiritual end of the world as a showdown. Just American. "

Critics from the blogosphere accuse Keen of trying to attract attention with insubstantial and poorly structured provocations in order to increase the market value of his person and his book.   

Fonts

• The hour of the bunglers. How we destroy our culture on the internet . Original English title: The cult of the amateur . From the American English by Helmut Dierlamm. Hanser. Munich. 2008. ISBN 978-3-446-41566-9
• The digital debacle. Why the internet failed - and how we can save it . Original English title: The internet is not the answer . Translated from the English by Jürgen Neubauer. German publishing house. Munich. 2015. ISBN 978-3-421-04647-5 
• How to fix the future. Five ways to repair a more human digital world. English original title: How to fix the future . Translated from the English by Jürgen Neubauer. German publishing house. Munich. 2018. ISBN 978-3-421-04805-9

Web links

• Literature by and about Andrew Keen in the catalog of the German National Library
• Videos by and about Andrew Keen on the Technical Information Library AV Portal
• Official website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ from biography ( memento of October 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Presentation of About AfterTV ( memento of the original from June 17, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Robert Balicki: Blogging Berkeley ( Memento of the original from December 6, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . The Daily Californian , February 21, 2007  
4. ↑ Andrew Keen: Web 2.0; The second generation of the Internet has arrived. It's worse than you think. . In: The Weekly Standard , May 16, 2006
5. ↑ see interview on Spiegel Online, April 24, 2009
6. ↑ www.nytimes.com
7. ↑ Everyone their own network . In: Der Spiegel . No. 29 , 2007 ( online ).
8. ↑ dradio.de Deutschlandradio
9. ↑ netzpolitik.org
10. ^ Cooperative.wordpress.com
11. ↑ connectedmarketing.de
12. ↑ planet9.wordpress.com