What term captures the link between citizen journalism and fan-produced texts, describing a shift where professional media no longer predominates?

• A. Cognitive surplus
• B. Mass amateurisation
• C. Wason
• D. Web 2.0

Answer: (B)

Mass amateurisation describes the shift where a large number of ordinary people begin producing content, linking citizen journalism with fan-made texts and challenging the dominance of professional media. Digital tools and platforms let individuals report events, create remixes, fan fiction, or other media, and share them widely. This flood of amateur output changes who gets to produce and influence what counts as news or culture, so the traditional gatekeepers lose their monopoly.

Cognitive surplus is related in that it explains why people contribute time and creativity, but it’s the broader pattern of widespread amateur production that mass amateurisation names. Web 2.0 describes the technology and platform culture that enables participation, but the specific phenomenon of mass production by amateurs across media is what this term captures.