Is the Internet killing our culture?

Today the internet is a huge part of today’s economy, you can search for literally anything and find something on it, but this can have a bad effect on things like newspapers and music artists being sold in everyday shops.
You can literally buy anything online, a lot of shop have their own online websites where customers can buy online, which for many people is more convenient, its great for the customers but not so much for high street stores.
In the article between Andrew Keen and Emily Bell, Keen argues that the mass media over time has ‘produced a lot of trash’ (Keen, A and Bell, E. 2007:1) like tabloid newspapers, television soap operas etc. but there was more good than bad in the mass media such as the BBC, Guardian, New York Times and record labels, which where all committed on creating high quality work meaning many artists could make a full time living from their work.
The Internet made paperback books, recorded music, movies and newspapers more accessible and affordable for the consumer. Anyone with internet access can publish anything online, Keen states that ‘the internet is producing the cult of the amateur, a dumbing down of culture, in which innocence is replacing expertise as the determinant of value’ (Keen, A and Bell, E. 2007:1).
Everything on the net is dumbed down, simplified so its accessible to everyone with a connection, making it easy for people to find exactly what they need, which is good and bad. Newspapers are losing economic exchange value because of it being available on the internet. In Keens opinion the internet is leading to fewer produced books, movies and music. I don’t agree on this, without the internet artists wouldn’t have the amount of publicity, artists put their work online for everyone to view, and people can easily buy their work, its another way of advertising. One of the major problems with the internet is illegal downloading, getting music and films online for free by downloading, it has become so easy to get free music, films etc. without paying, people now do it without thinking about it and the effects it has on the artists and companies. Record companies and film companies are seeing the bad side, with sales decreasing in shops through accessibility online and the online sales not being as strong because of illegal downloading. Emily argues that artists aren’t suffering because of the internet, the internet seeds it. It gives the artists more ways to get their name out. I agree with this, so many successful artists where born through the net like Lily Allen, Sandy Thom, Kate Nash, Gnarls Barkley and The Klaxons. They used the internet to promote their work, Amazon online has lead to massive increases in the number of titles published each year.
In my opinion the internet isn’t killing our culture, its helping it, allowing us to have so much access to the things we need, for artists it carries advantages and disadvantages, getting their music more assessable but having it at the risk of piracy. With saying this artists much have a much harder job promoting their work and advertising their music if the internet wasn’t available. However I do agree that the internet sales are having a bad effect on our high streets with many companies closing down due to lack of sales, I don’t believe the internet will ‘kill our culture’.

Bell, E and Keen, A. (2007) Andrew Keen v Emily Bell: Is Todays Internet killing our Culture? The Guardian (Comment is Free) [WWW] available from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/aug/10/andrewkeenvemilybell