There’s a new cast of “influentials” in culture and politics … it’s you and me. Before, only the elite, the professionals and the insiders were in the know. But barriers have become much more fluid.

“The masses now have huge access to culture that they never had before,” Gabi Asfour of the design collective ThreeASFOUR told The Times. “And that access is the real wealth, in a way that money is not. In 10 years there won’t be an elite controlling access to culture, and then things are going to change incredibly fast.”

Things have already changed in the exclusive fashion world. Bloggers, who are quicker to post reviews and photos of shows than magazines, are upsetting some of the fashion cognoscenti. During New York Fashion Week in September, Tavi Gevinson, the 13-year-old blogger of Style Rookie, was seated in the front-row at the Marc Jacobs and Rodarte shows. Bryan Boy, a blogger from the Philippines, was seated near Anna Wintour at the D&G show in Milan.

These infiltrators are not only in the front row but also behind the camera. Take D. Sharon Pruitt, 40, who lives in Utah. After a vacation in Hawaii, she uploaded her photos to the photo-sharing site Flickr, The Times reported. Getty Images took notice of the quality of her pictures, and the stock photography company now gives her a monthly paycheck whenever publishers or advertisers license her images. Most amateurs are happy to accept any form of pay in return, making it more difficult for professional photographers to earn a living .

But what exactly is a professional these days when everyone’s a critic? With Facebook and Twitter, there is a stream of continuous online commentary during television shows and events like the Olympics and the Oscars where viewers talk back to their televisions and start a conversation with others watching the same show.

This digitally enabled critic’s gallery is changing television . Now major events like the Olympics and the Grammys rely on social media to increase ratings and encourage discussion.

“The Internet is our friend, not our enemy,” Leslie Moonves, chief executive of the CBS Corporation, told The Times. “People want to be attached to each other.”

Twitter enables that kind of attachment, even with those who may seem unreachable. Members of the United States Congress use Twitter and Facebook to connect with voters, as does Australia’s prime minister, Kevin Rudd, wrote The Times. Shashi Tharoor, a member of India’s Parliament , has caused some controversy with his tweets questioning India’s strict tourist visa policies .

Mr. Tharoor reads almost every Twitter post sent his way and personally responds to as many as he can, his staff has said. Twitter, Mr. Tharoor told The Times, “is a way of engaging the people to whom all politicians are ultimately accountable in the substance of our work.”

Many of India’s powerful elite question his “enthusiasm for a medium that collapses the distance between the governors and the governed,” wrote The Times.

But when access has been turned upside down and is seemingly democratized, who’s serving whom is now a whole new notion in the cult of the amateur.


ANITA PATIL


ANDREW H. WALKER/GETTY IMAGES FOR Y-3
Amateur bloggers, photographers and critics are wielding greater power. Blogger Tavi Gevinson, 13, at the Y-3 fashion show in February.