Pam Brown's Blog l emission - control. net

The Failure of Culture Jamming: Resistance in a Post-social World

A night sky is lit up by bright neon lights and video screens displaying products – first a camera, then a car, next a bank logo.  The lights form letters and the letters form names of global corporations, two-dimensional images embodying multifaceted ideas, relationships and lives.  A side of a building is painted with letters that connect us to an object, something we instinctively, reflexively desire.  A square, once skirted by small shops, is now surrounded by big signs, logos, brands, global entities that dominate our public space.  It is a city, it is a town, it is any day, and any where in the world.  We find ourselves living amongst products, immersed in a world of objects, connected to things that have been animated by other things we call corporations.  This shift to a world of objects coincides with a shift from an economy based on the manufacturing of products to an economy based on the manufacturing of brands.  This shift in global mode of production has resulted in our immersion in global economic “realities” that seem to lead some toward extreme wealth, others toward extreme poverty, and still others toward life on the treadmill, constantly running to stay ahead in fear of falling into an abyss, but never getting very far. 

The Rebirth of News

From The Economist:

"But the only certainty about the future of news is that it will be different from the past. It will no longer be dominated by a few big titles whose front pages determine the story of the day. Public opinion will, rather, be shaped by thousands of different voices, with as many different focuses and points of view. As a result, people will have less in common to chat about around the water-cooler. Those who are not interested in political or economic news will be less likely to come across it; but those who are will be better equipped to hold their rulers to account. Which is, after all, what society needs news for."

The rebirth of news

Broadband Around the World

From Bits (NYTimes Blog):  "The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development released its latest data on broadband access. For broadband penetration, the United States is in the middle of the pack, slightly above average for OECD member countries."

Broadband Around the World

Free Press Media Reform Summit

The Free Press Media Reform conference last Thursday in Washington D.C. was an interesting event.  The media policy reform organization was able to obtain heavy weight speakers including three former FCC Chairs, Barack Obama's current National Economic Policy leader, and the CEO of NPR. The conference focused on broadband policy, internet reform, and the crisis in journalism.  The issues were framed around policy initiatives.  Unfortunately, the conference did not touch on issues that will impact the future of media including fundamental changes to our mode of production with the change to production of intangibles (brand) versus tangibles (products), and the power of the internet to shift the paradigm of market capitalism in the same way that other new technologies have changed political economic paradigms in the past.  While the current policy issues are certainly important, the conversation needs to grow to incorporate the economic and sociological changes we are currently seeing related to the internet.

Content from the Free Press Summit

Michael Copps: New Media Shouldn't Pay for 'Old Media Sins'

Thinking Across the Issues, Part One

Thinking Across the Issues, Part Two

Free Press Presents New Policies to Save the News

New report calls for national strategy to contend with the crisis in journalism

"Traditional media have been battered by a perfect storm, as the rise of the Internet and the disappearance of traditional ad dollars collided with the economic downturn," said Craig Aaron, senior program director of Free Press and co-author of the report. "But many of the media industry's wounds are self-inflicted, the result of bad business decisions and failed strategy, aided by idle regulators who looked the other way. We need a new approach."

Saving the News: Toward a National Journalism Strategy

Free Press Proposes New Direction for U.S. Broadband Policy

New report exposes failure of digital deregulation, offers recommendations for national broadband strategy

"America's broadband failures are the result of policy failures -- and the blame falls squarely on the FCC's shoulders," said S. Derek Turner, Free Press research director and author of the report. "The FCC predicted a future of broadband competition, and then regulated as if it were already here. While promising consumer benefits, it tore down consumer protections. Digital deregulation reduced the broadband revolution to broadband mediocrity."

Dismantling Digital Deregulation

Newspaper Narcissism: our pursuit of glory led us away from readers

"American journalism is in trouble, and the problem is not just financial. My profession is in distress because for more than a decade it has been chasing the false idols of fame and fortune. While engaged in those pursuits, it forgot its readers and the need to produce a commercial product that appealed to its mass audience, which in turn drew advertisers and thus paid for it all. While most corporate owners were seeking increased earnings, higher stock prices, and bigger salaries, editors and reporters focused more on winning prizes or making television appearances."

Newspaper Narcissism by Walter Pincus in Columbia Journalism Review