pantless bunnymuffin's beminar slog

(Sorry this is so late, I've felt like complete crap all day, but now decided that a fever-dreamish blog posting is better than no posting at all. My apologies.)

Even though Harold Innis, author of Bias of Communication, may be a bit confused about how to categorize the Internet at this point in time, I believe he would assume that the Internet is space-biased. Some have called the Internet a “series of tubes” (Sen. Ted Stevens), others believe it is a network whose infrastructure encompasses the entire world in a kind of “infinite space” (p. 111). It is mostly considered in the present tense, as opposed to printed written works that are considered to have a much longer history. Even though some Internet content is monitored and recorded by the U.S. government, most people do not record much of what they read on the Internet for a lengthy period of time. As such, the Internet is not very durable.

Also, despite the fact that many people today consider the Internet to be a democratic form of medium, we can see from the examples of other communication technologies discussed in this course (Douglas, Fischer) that the democratic potential of a new media form is often over-exaggerated. Congress has been making fervent attempts to regulate Internet content, and Internet access, especially that of broadband Internet, is still severely limited within and outside of the United States. Although it is possible that a more democratic medium will result than any we have seen in the past, historical precedent and current Congressional actions imply that the Internet will most likely stay in the hands of large telecommunications companies and state governments. This kind of elite control also points to what Innis would call a space-biased communication technology.

Posted by kkovacs2 at 08:15 PM | Permalink

Harold Innis' essay "Minerva's Owl" in The Bias of Communication attempts to show the central role of communication technologies in guiding the development of civilization, and the civilization’s important role in the development of communication technologies. Innis argues that the way certain media types formed in a particular place directly influenced the form of governance, the power of the church, and the relationship of class structures within that society. He points to differences between societies having a strong oral tradition and others incorporating particular forms of writing using papyrus, paper, and the press. He quotes Mark Pattison, saying “Writers are apt to flatter themselves that they are not, like the men of action, the slaves of circumstance. […] But this is not so. Whatever we may think and scheme, as soon as we seek to produce our thoughts or schemes to our fellow-men, we are involved in the same necessities of compromise, the same grooves of motion, the same liabilities to failure or half-measures, as we are in life and action” (29).

Innis' main argument seems to be that writing and the development of written language created channels of human communication that limited the expanse of human thought. As he states, "Writing with a simplified alphabet checked the power of custom of an oral tradition but implied a decline in the power of expression and the creation of grooves which determined the channels of thought of readers and later writers" (11). In some cases, the use of a new form of written medium also limited, or 'checked' the power of tyranny within a society.

This argument is important to consider, since communication technologies have had an essential role in framing the development of societies through their methods of communication. However, Innis seems to overgeneralize and oversimplify his description of the particular ancient societies he discusses, and does not mention much historical data to back up his statements. What allowed certain forms of media to ‘check’ a particular power structure? How did that form of written communication develop to such an extent that it was powerful enough to fundamentally change social structures, and what is inherent within that technology that motivates publics to challenge authority? He needs to discuss these more substantially.

Posted by kkovacs2 at 02:48 PM | Permalink

Philip Howard's book New Media and the Managed Citizen talks about how campaigns and other groups working on political issues have been using the Internet to send personalized messages to individuals, while neglecting to educate citizens about the all of the issues they promote. Comprehensive education is no longer considered useful in organizing using new media technologies; instead, the Internet has become a mediating tool - a gatekeeper between political organizations and the general public used in a rather manipulative way to gain the public's support.

As Howard states, "The hypermedia campaign takes advantage of the norms and values that have been entrenched in technology when designer choices embedded attitudes about how democracy should work into code. The tools of a political campaign, the choices that campaign managers make about manipulating data, ideas, and people, reflect their own political norms. [...] Some campaigns choose to obstruct real learning about political issues, manipulate their membership, and precent too much interactivity" (203).

He also goes on to say, "Other campaign allow a range of interactive tools, adapt their organizational behavior to allow members to both produce and consume political content, and give such members the capacity to seed their own campaigns" (203). However, he thinks "even the hypermedia tools created by altruists [of this sort] are used for political redlining" (131).

Howard raises an important point about some of the negative aspects of using the Internet as a form of outreach for political campaigns. My paper looks to apply his argument to the work of media policy organizations and media reform movement, which have relied largely on the Internet as a way to build supporters. I argue that use of the Internet alone as a form of outreach is insufficient to build a holistic grassroots movement, and can alienate and confuse some participants who rely on websites and email as the sole form of communication between the 'leaders' of the media reform movement and themselves.

I also argue that email campaigns, though they reach impressive numbers, show little 'real' citizen involvement with political campaigns, while at the same time creating serious problems with constituent mail backlog in Congressional and other leadership offices. I will include demographic information about Internet usage in the United States as well, examining what portions of the population are reached by messages of the media reform movement. This will come from an analysis of records of public involvement, such as public comments filed to Congress and the Federal Communications Commission, as well as of websites and blogs that discuss media policy and media justice issues on a frequent basis to establish spheres in which discussions about these topics take place. I will also look at general Internet usage data from the Census Bureau and the Pew Center for the People and the Press.

I will also use my experiences as an intern at Free Press and a staff assistant at Congressman Maurice Hinchey's office to create an ethnographic portion to my paper. I will describe the ways that I, as the main organizer of constituent mail in a Congressional office, worked with the overwhelming amount of mail, nearly all of which were 'blast emails,' and how the mail overload often inhibits timely consideration of handwritten letters and emails. Indeed, Congressional offices, including Hinchey's, have begun attempts to reduce this mail overload using logic puzzles on their sites that prevent many blast emails from reaching Congressional offices. These blast emails, as many Congressional staffers agree, are not considered legitimate forms of communication between citizens and their leaders. (Obviously, this statement can and has been contested, mostly in the form of further blast emails to Congress; however, the fact remains that use of the logic puzzle has become widespread on Congressional websites.)

I am also in the process of conducting interviews with Free Press employees on how they have been conducting Internet-based outreach, and what ways they feel they can improve in this area.

I do not imply that Internet campaigns should be abandoned altogether, and my paper will point out that this form of outreach is essential for the media reform movement. However, I do argue that Internet campaigning still limits direct public involvement, especially on a more local, community-based level, creating a false sense of democratic participation without providing sufficient agency and public education.

In other words, more needs to be done. In my conclusion, I will attempt to lay out alternatives for media outreach that surpass the current singular focus on online political campaigns and involve community-based education about media literacy and the relevance of media issues to everyday life.

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"Information technology now provides the skeletal support for our democratic political culture, but in interesting ways this infrastructure was designed by a small group of campaign managers with a specific vision of how it should look. We do not regulate the informational infrastructure of two important political institutions: the political party and the political campaign. [...] The political campaign is one of the most important organizations in a democracy, and whether issue- or campaign-specific, it is one of the least understood organizations in contemporary political life" (203-4).

Posted by kkovacs2 at 11:29 PM | Permalink

Books we have read for the course up to today have relied on historical data to analyze how populations interpreted certain media forms. The books by Douglas and Fischer, especially, were able to reach more concrete conclusions not just about the way people used a medium when they first encountered it, also about how their efforts worked out in the long run. In this sense, historical analysis is perhaps a more fruitful endeavor for academic study, since it provides information about how particular media developed over a longer time frame, leaving less open to speculation. Miller and Slater, on the other hand, conduct their analysis essentially in the present tense, and are therefore unable to discuss much more than up-to-date efforts by populations to utilize a new and unique technology.

Douglas’ discussion of the amateur broadcasters, for example, was an explanation of both the initial efforts and success of the amateurs – what Miller and Slater might call their attempts to reach their “expansive potential,” – as well as the subsequent regulations by the government that limited further ‘grassroots’ development of wireless technology. It encompasses a story from beginning to end, with not only social, but also political and economic factors in a more well-rounded discussion due solely to the benefits offered by the history factor.

In comparison, Miller and Slater’s discussion of the clothing and textile firms in Trinidad can offer no more than a static analysis, since they cannot know how a particular business effort online will manifest itself in the future. Essentially, they are just making observations.

Although this method of research can be interesting and useful – or, at least, is a gutsy and interesting change of pace, – where Miller and Slater go wrong, in my opinion, is in their overly flowery and optimistic presentation of the textile firms’ use of e-commerce. They seem to be advertising Trinidadian e-commerce, as if to stick up for Trini modernism, more than objectively taking notes. Though it is clear that they are attempting to demonstrate Trini efforts to reach “expansive potential,” their analysis could be more useful, and may lead to more substantive conclusions, if it included more detail and less optimism.

Posted by kkovacs2 at 11:57 AM | Permalink