In the News: Online Auteurs Hardly Need to Be Famous

Online Auteurs Hardly Need to Be Famous – New York Times—back in the day (a phrase which really only makes the writer look old), folks talked with wonderment of the great abilities of the Web to democratize publishing, given that even a dog can compose a Web site. This article is in many ways the modern revision of that old observation: anyone, it seems, can make a film nowadays.

As articles like this one make broad claims on anyone’s ability to be a filmmaker, we need to continue to interrogate how “anyone” is defined. What socio-economic groups are included and excluded? How is age represented? Who creates which kinds of resources? While “online auteurs hardly need to be famous,” there are still many other things an auteur needs to compose and share works online.