Here’s a topic for discussion - considering how my co-bloggers are generally enthusiasts of new media. Andrew Keen writes in the Weekly Standard about the dirt-cheap user-generated ads run by Doritos during the Super Bowl:

IT’S AMATEUR HOUR at the Super Bowl this year. On Sunday, 90 million television viewers on CBS will be subjected to commercials made by “You”–Time magazine’s Person of The Year for 2006. Three Super Bowl XLI advertisers–Doritos, the National Football League, and Chevrolet–will all be running 30 second commercial spots made by amateurs. The Web 2.0 revolution in user-generated content has infiltrated the American living room. These amateur creators, who Time praise as “people formerly known as consumers,” are now providing the entertainment at the biggest event in the media calendar.

This is not good news. The shift from professionally produced to user-generated advertising makes us poorer in both economic and cultural terms. The arrival of user-created commercials at Super Bowl XLI represents the American Idolization of traditional entertainment–the degeneration of professional content into a “talent show” for amateurs.

We, the conventional television audience, are certainly losers in this new fashion for user-generated advertisements. We have traditionally watched Super Bowl commercials to be entertained by memorable ads. Often, these commercials are more memorable than the game. Occasionally, they even represent significant cultural moments in American history. Few of us, for example, can remember who won Super Bowl in 1984 (Los Angeles Raiders 38, Washington Redskins 9), where it was played (Tampa), or who sang the national anthem (Barry Manilow). But most of us can remember the Chiat/Day produced, Ridley Scott directed, commercial for the Macintosh computer, with its Orwellian subtext and its indelible explanation of why “1984 wasn’t going to be like 1984″.

As I hear about the hype and buzz surrounding user-generated content, of YouTube, blogs, fan fiction, etc., I’ve wondered if I was in the minority of… well, not really liking much of it. The crap-to-value ratio seemed like searching for needles-in-a-haystack/diamonds in the rough. Sure, maybe there are some untapped creative geniuses out there, but finding them in the mess is an arduous task. Yes, blogging brought some new, interesting, insightful voices to our attention. It also gave a soapbox to a bunch of loud and obnoxious loons.

On paper, this is why we have the media structures that we do — the multiplex is supposed to give you the best movies available at any given moment, the papers and magazines the best writers, the publishers the best authors, the television the best shows. Radio, personalities that you actually want to listen to for an hour or two, or just good music.

We like to believe “anybody can do it!” And indeed they can. But not everyone can do it well. Sometimes professionalization has its benefits. In the writing/journalism sphere, I will say from personal experience that having editors is sometimes frustrating, but generally, they’re there for a reason, and often they can actually improve the quality of the work.

Flip-side: I don’t always like what mass media has to offer, either. And yes, when you see the umpteenth movie in which Eddie Murphy plays ten parts and they’re all loud and annoying, or the tenth movie in which Hannibal Lecter eats people, you want to kick Hollywood so that they try something new. But I’m not sure user-generated content is telling us much more than there are a lot of starving artists and garage bands out there. And generally, they achieve modest success for a reason.

Cam: How about we just say most content in general sucks these days. Seriously. With all the crap that’s on television, I watch 2 1/2 hours a week (24, House, and The Office). I can’t tell you the last time I bought a cd from a “popular” artist. There’s just a lotta crap out there.

Marshall: Sorry, but Keen is spouting elitist horse poo. I agree with our two commenters, who both observe that one of the Doritos commercials was the best of a very weak Super Bowl crop.

More broadly, blogs and other online tools that lowered the barrier to entry on everything from video to book publishing consistently demonstrate that there are great minds and talents out there who are no longer subject to the whims of gate-keeping editors. This can’t be anything but a good thing. Granted, there’s a lot of crap. To be sure, not every writer is Hemmingway. But that’s okay. Every person does and should have a voice.

Here’s what we know for sure. Bloggers, even the bad ones, are better informed and more likely to engage and influencers others than the average American. They consume enormous amounts of news. They think, and they express opinions — even if those opinions are often less than clear. That’s real dialogue, and it can only be good for our society.

Jim: Okay, the general opinion so far seems to be pretty supportive of User-Generated Content. Maybe I’m being too hard on it. I do tend to think that people get better at skills (writing, singing, putting together web-videos, etc.) with experience. (Back when I was cartooning, somebody once described it as, “you have 10,000 bad drawings in you; the 10,001st will be good. So get started on those 10,000.”) and that the rise of user-generated content has brought a lot of rookies into the pool, with the results about what we would expect. But I’m judging this new media while it’s still new; in ten years, bloggers may be as useful and informative as any other media.

And yes, it is good that the gatekeepers are less powerful than they used to be, and now anyone can set up shop and try their hand at these new fields.