Crowdsourcing, from my understanding (and a Google search), is the practice of getting information into a task or project by using the services of multiple people. Companies that have grown alongside the age of the Internet are pretty much designed to take advantage of this networked world. The labor that these companies do isn’t free but it costs less than paying traditional employees. To me, crowdsourcing almost sounds like freelancing because it uses the labor of other people. According to “The Blurring Line Between Amateur and Professional”, the media is basically divided in two: professionals who produce content and are paid for it, and amateurs who consume content but pay for that privilege.
I think that crowdsourcing is changing the way that companies approach creating content because now that user-generated content is on the rise, an experienced and credible journalist can compete with an amateur and the amateur can still receive the same amount of recognition or more. Many media outlets and websites will allow an amateur to write for free or not much pay. It almost reminds me of the Traditional Journalists vs. Bloggers assignment that we had a few weeks back. I think that crowdsourcing is going to continue to be a trend in the media world because nowadays any content can go viral at the hands of an amateur as opposed to a professional.
