commentary

http://www.everydaypeopleproject.blogspot.com

There's a lot of thought right now about crowdsourcing the production of various media, but what about crowdsourcing its consumption? I realize this becomes sort of a recursive loop but here's what I mean:

Most copies of Sun Tzu's Art of War, I believe, have not only Sun Tzu's original text but also commentary written by several notable contemporaries. The final product we get is richer because of this "crowdsourcing" - even if the crowd does admittedly consist of other experts. What does it mean that it's now hard to distinguish the author of the text, especially in light of the fact that the ones infringing on Sun Tzu's authority are actually other readers?

Also, look at (post?)modernist literature. One cannot read Finnegans Wake by just sitting down and turning the pages - this is a text that demands a whole host of readers collaborating into a sort of collective, mutual understanding. The text was written with this sort of response in mind - it explodes the canon and works on the idea that a group of diverse readers will be much more effective at coming to a meaningful understanding than an expert who is familiar with the standard literary/historical canon.

These are two examples that jump into my head - can you think of other ways that media consumption is crowdsourced? How is this useful? What are the drawbacks? Can anything sweeping and meaningful be said about this process?