Interesting thoughts about online video

Clay Shirky, the author of "Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations", hass been guest blogging on boingboing.net

His thoughts on the future of online amateur video are very interesting, if somewhat narrow - his focus is very much around the way video was used during the recent American presidential election. Having said that, he is trying to make broader analyses from this data. Here he is refering to how video will change for the 2012 election, but I think it is generally applicable:

Two uncertainties produce four possible futures. Consider the future where the motivation of amateurs turns political and average quality rises; we could label this "The New Agora", where online video becomes a key arena of political argument. The opposite of that world would be most amateurs making video for personal motivation, and falling average quality. In this world -- call it "Lost in the Noise" -- in-jokes and me-tooism would make amateur political video a sideshow, compared to 2008.

The following articles are specifically on this topic:

Video from the Presidential Campaign, Republican Division

Video from the Presidential Campaign, Republican Division, #2

and

Uncertainties in amateur media for 2012

from which the quote above was taken.

His full list of articles is in the guestblog tagged secction of boingboing