A good article on social media and the internet

Just as the invention of the printing press transformed society, the internet's capacity for "an unlimited amount of zero-cost reproduction of any digital item by anyone who owns a computer" has removed the barrier to universal participation, and revealed that human beings would rather be creating and sharing than passively consuming what a privileged elite think they should watch.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jul/05/clay-shirky-internet-television-newspapers