On the one hand, Paul and BHT do have a point that the conference, at least to me and with those with whom I spoke about the conference, seemed to have an inordinate amount of preaching from on high and vague generalities that frankly don't seem all that helpful. I imagine that for the overwhelming majority of people attending the conference, they already know that the media sucks and that we don't need to hear it, or hear it over and over. What we need to do is to discuss strategies and tactics on what we have to do to improve things. And to have a structure that helps facilitate that.
On the other hand, other conferences which are far more radical and participatory in their orientation -- like the Chicago Social Forum and the Allied Media Conference, operate along the same lines. You have one or more people serve as hosts of "received wisdom" who pontificate to attendees, and whose participation solely consists of questions. Speech, then Q & A. I suspect even the Z Media Institute which I'll attend next month will be similar to this, though I'll reserve judgment on this count until the conference ends.
Then again, it's not to say that is necessarily bad. On occasion, you want someone with more experience or knowledge of the topic to speechify to people who don't have that knowledge and who are willing to listen and learn. But then again there are times when those in the room who have serious levels of knowledge about a topic don't get to share what they know, and everyone else in the session loses out as a result. Heck, I received three compliments over the course of the weekend for questions I asked during sessions I attended.
I'm wondering also if it's a matter of size. In some of the sessions, you have upwards of a thousand people attending a plenary session. This doesn't lend to very much outside of lengthy speeches, and no way for everyone involved to be able to participate in Q & A.
What I'd also like to know is: What was the criteria by which Free Press chose the people to speak on a given topic. Now, there are instances in which the decision is easy (e.g., George Lakoff on framing). But there are others in which the choice is a shot-in-the-dark at best, someone badly discredited (e.g., the Chicago Media Watch fiasco) at worst.
I have an idea. The workshops on Sunday were probably the most useful part of the conference; the conference should have more of those throughout the conference. Plus, for sessions themed to a given topic (e.g., copyright reform, radio) the structure should be far more loose. Instead of speechifying and Q & A, conference organizers might want to have a modified caucus, where people can openly and freely discuss with others on the same topic, instead of the sermonizing model commonly used.
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[The panelists] talked of their successes, and it was so funny, because sitting through the opening of this panel, the first couple of minutes is just listing off the panelists achievements and I felt that it was so unnecessary. This is a personal opinion, but it isnt how much a person has done in their life that makes me beleive them or think that they are good people, it is how accessible and open they are with that knowledge they hold. I saw none of the panelists anywhere but on the panel. That is a continuation of this overall system of beleif that we do not hold in ourselves, each and every one of us, the ability to be successful (in whatever permeation you shoose to define success). The elitism that reflects reinforces in my mind the idea that there are people better than me and why cant us allies all be on a level playing field, why cant we share with each other in a human way?
I went to several panels then where I could look around the room and see people who I know had at least as much experience, wisdom and expertise on the subject as hand as the folks on the panel in front (and above) us. Too many times I saw panelists reaching to answer questions that they really didn't have a good answer for, where the question could probably have been better answered by more than one person in the audience.
I found this frustrating and expressed as much in my evaluation form at the end of the conference.
Unfortunately, I had this feeling again at the 2005 NCMR, especially in the 2006 Telecomm Act session.
I do think it's valid to say that in some cases some of the panelists have very valuable information and experiences that are not widely known or otherwise shared. It is useful for them to share it with us. However, the simple Q&A after several serial presentations is not really sufficient to create dialogue and move us forward.
I think sessions would be so much more enjoyable and productive if panelists really acted more like facilitators, bringing in information and ideas and then catylizing discussion. I realize that it's a practical problem for sessions with larger audiences, but I also think it's something that can be solved with creativity or just having smaller sessions.
Unforunately, we're still sitting and listening to "experts" tell us what works and what we should do, and I'm not sure that counts as really sharing.
]]>There are to issues which stick out to me. First the media reform movement has organized itself as a small professional cadre in suits which comes to it's annual conferences to preach the reforming the FCC gospel. Their stated goals include building a social movement to push forward media reform. To build a movement you need organizing and struggles in which people can participate. Sure, inspiring speeches and leaders can be a major part of it. By my mom's account, the Bill Moyers' speech was truly inspiring. But we also need space to talk. ...]]>The other major issue was the media reform NGO's looking at independent and indymedia activists as outlets for their message. They are locked out of the corporate media they are trying to reform, so they see the radical / participatory / grassroots / alternative medias as a place to get their message out. While we find the issues that the ngo's are talking about to be compelling, and do cover their work, that's not our job.
Click here for a download link, or you can subscribe to the mediageek podcast feed and listen every week. It's medialicious.]]>
Frustration over many things -- from the lack of involvement with the local black community and press to the apparent use of the Independent Media caucus to rally journalists to spread the word of Free Press' and Media Access Project's campaigns, and Free Press' refusal to allow a media center to be set up in the first place -- had been building for two days. This indy press room provided some release valve for these frustrations, while also communicating them outside the walls of the Milennium Hotel.
Handbill fliers were made explaining Indymedia and pointing people to the media center and were handed out as conference attendees exited the keynote. I helped cut up fliers and handed out a bunch, and was brought back down to earth with the reminder that still even at this media reform conference a lot of people really don't know what Indymedia is and how it works.
Unfortunately, the Wi-Fi went down before the Keynote ended and bulk of the attendees entered the lobby. At first there was some wondering if the spiking of the wi-fi was retaliation for organizing the expression of dissent. But moments later Phlegm came running out of the ballroom saying that the network was down everywhere and that they'd lost the ability to do the live stream. So, instead it was just part and parcel of the overall crappy net access that had plagued the conference from the start.
Comments about the conference have filled the St. Louis IMC newswire, and they've been posted in response to a feature recounting the first day of the conference.
I'm a little burnt after 6 days of media reform / consolidation conferencing, but will try to gather my thoughts and post them here and at my blog. I hope some of my fellow BeTheMedia bloggers will do the same.
I will say right now that I feel less energized than I did after the 2003 conference, even though I think I was more exhausted after the one in 2003. I'm glad I went, and attending has forced me to think harder about the tension between the media reform movement and Indymedia and other movements that focus on more fundamental and systematic change.]]>
On the Chicago Media Action front, we had a very successful workshop along with GRIID and Grade the News. Plus, thanks to everyone involved with the book The Future of Media who mentioned CMA twice in the book. (Hey, guys! If you're interested in us writing a chapter or two for your next book, get in touch with me!)
I'll post some specific suggestions about conference logistics and suggestions for conference improvement, which I'll also direct to Free Press, as thoughts come to me and when I get time to breathe.
Props to a number of excellent projects, including Independent World Television, The NewStandard, and MediaChannel.
And damn, I didn' get to visit the Gateway Arch.
]]>The ballroom was full and Al Franken was crankin', introducing Bob McChesney as I found a seat. Perhaps responding to subtle undercurrents of gripes about marginalization by the conference's focus on policy and reform, McChesney called for all of us concerned about media to work together. "It's the way we go forward," he said. Pointing the finger at corporations for corrupting our media, Bob called the idea that media reform is just a left wing movement "bogus". The only way they could win on this issue is by labeling people working on media issues "wacky liberals." But in fact, issues like local ownership, government propaganda, censorship, and "children's brains marinating in advertising" are important to conservatives too, he said.
FCC commissioner Michael Copps, also getting a standing ovation for walking on stage, said this is a "weekend America can be proud of." Copps vowed to work against piecemeal rule making by the FCC, heavily influenced by corporations and hidden from the public view, which would destroy media's ability to serve the people. Is media reform winnable? "Damn right" it is, he said. "If we roll up our sleeves, all of us, we can settle this issue of who controls the airwaves."
Franken returned to the stage, riffing on being an old disconnected white guy and not understanding what it is that Davey D does. Fortunately, it was a brief introduction, and Davey D took the mic.
"We can no longer afford to treat media as passive spectator sport. We have to be interactive," he said. "We need to hold the decision makers of broadcast media accountable."
"We have to inform creatively and intelligently others on this issue," he continued. Davey D ran through several local campaigns actively challenging broadcasters on their decision on what goes on the air. Because it is a 40- or 50-year-old guy making the decision that it is okay for announcers to use the "n-word" and the "b-word" and other "nonsense," he said. "Communicate with each other, network, use each other's resources and recognize each other's strengths," he said. "And by next year's conference, make sure things have changed for the better." Davey D. brought the house down, receiving enthusiastic applause.
Nichols got on stage and proclaimed that the 2500 people attending the conference - representing the 50 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico - were with "Davey D and your struggle." Then he actually brought a tear to my eye (because I'm easily moved by these types of things) when he listed all the cities that were hearing the program, being aired live by Pacifica.
Then, the entertainment part of the show, but to call Patti Smith an entertainer, does not do her justice. She's so much more. Her performance was great.
When Franken returned (again), he thanked the close captioner. This was the funniest routine of the night: an odd exchange between him and the woman typing what he was saying (adding her own comments, which he had to read on the big screen). Really, she got all the good laughs.
Jim Hightower, with his big white cowboy hat, followed Patti Smith. The man radiated humility and righteous indignation, delivered with smooth Texas charm and such coolly colorful and poetic phrases. But he spoke too swiftly for me to quite capture them. I did catch this: "Using the feather is erotic, but using the whole chicken is kinky." I'm sorry, though, because I did not get the context.
"My message to you tonight - I'm sure you're wondering - is that this is a big time for us," he said. "You are on the right path of challenging the great media combines. ... The majority of Americans are on your side. ... Not just the bean sprout eaters, but those snuff dippers too."
Al Franken returned once more to the stage and assured the audience that his fellow Minnesotan's have as many "color aphorism" as Texans, introducing NOW's Kim Grandy as a "real nice lady." Grandy talked about NOW's commitment to media reform and its importance. By now, my brain is tired and I'm having trouble picking out the important stuff. But she does make a joke that "women can't get equal pay and they can't even get equal payola," referring to the amount of money Armstrong Williams received from the Department of Education to Maggie Gallagher's payments from the Department of Health and Human Services. The lack of media diversity impacts everything we do, she said. "Put media diversity on your group's agenda [whatever it is]."
Grandy introduced California representative Diane Watson. There is a growing consensus that "media is the issue," she said. Watson represents Hollywood, located in the 33rd Congressional district, perhaps the most diverse district in the United States. American culture account for 40 percent of U.S. exports, she said. "Our nation's creative voices inform and shape our understanding of the world," she said. But they are "under siege" by consolidation, lack of consumer choices and exclusion from regulatory decisions.
Looking at George W. Bush's press conference two weeks ago, CBS initially decided to air "Survivor" instead of the press conference on its main channel, but would carry it on its digital TV network, radio network and over the internet, she said. After negotiations, CBS did agree to carry it on its main network channel, but only if the time was changed by a half hour. And the press conference coverage was cut short.
"The real questioned that must be asked: do Americans have a real choice in receiving the programs they desire?" How can voices free from commercial interests get to Americans? she asked. "If the president can't get full coverage on TV, how can [others] expect to be seen and heard so that the public can make an informed choice?" she asked.
I stepped out to edit the post thus far. When I come back in, Phil Donahue was introducing the "Big Media Hall of Shame" A pre-produced video presentation briefly profiled the nominees: Lowry Mays, Michael Powell, Rupert Murdoch, Ed Rendell, and Dave Smith. "And the winner is ... Rupert Murdoch." The announcement is followed by a full round of "booos." Amy Goodman accepts the award on behalf of Murdoch.
And then I left the hall to post this post. But low and behold, THERE IS NO WI-FI ON SATURDAY NIGHT. By now, a familiar problem. I look forward to the day of community wi-fi. May it be 1 hundred million times better than this "millennial" hotel.
]]>Introduction, Lauren Coletta, Common Cause,
Creating Media and Demcracy Coalition, working towards a media democracy bill of right. A Consensus document, a set of tools to guide work with congress, fighting against further consolidation, cross-ownership.
We've spent a lot of time talking about this document, and last Monday we held an event at the press club where we had 22 journalists from around the country and consumer groups like Consumers Union and other groups like the UCC and the leadership coaltion for civil rights. They're talking about doing these sessions in San Francisco, Los Angeles and points in between.
She wants various stakeholders in the movement share their perspective on how a media system that serves their needs might look like. And she would like to hear from us on what that system ought to look like.
They're taking notes to capture our ideas, and are interested in other organizations joining in.
]]> Jonathan Rintels, Creative Voices in MediaWe had a wonderful media reformers retreat that Common Cause put on, and we talked about the media we'd like to see, and talked about pushing that forward in Washington with concrete action. We came up with creating a media bill of rights that would lay out a set of principles that would guide us and policy makers in the way they look at media.
It was kind of easy to come up with this since in his spare time he was noodling with a media declaration of independence, which was entirely negative -- it was about what they don't like. When he was tasked to be the lead drafter of the bill of rights, he turned it around to be all postiive -- nondiscrimination, artists creative rights being respected. He wants to confess something here, he actually voted for Republicans in the past.
In terms of the rhetoric I wanted to bring to this, it's a mainstream rhetoric that would appeal to Democrats and Republicans, conservatives as well as progressives. America is a country built on vision, so visioning is important -- it's in our constitution, bill of rights, supreme court decision. His thought in doing this was to place the media reform movement in this tradition. Put the vision that underlies those documents into this, and have it be the outgrowth of how that vision applies to the media reform movement.
It's a way of saying we're on the right side of all of this. We can trace these principles through American tradition and legal precedence. The other side, that favors consolidation, is outside that tradition and has hijacks. Efficiency and expediency don't show up in any part of the tradition.
Some people from the original committee noted that I'd left things out, since I was from a commercial media background. So we put it out to broader realm of media groups and found that I'd left a lot out.
We've come up with something that does lay out a lot of principles, a kind of wish list, that we can take to place in the debate with policy makers in Washington, and not be seen as off the wall or radical, or outside the mainstream American political tradition.
I know we're going to speak in this room about if we've left other things out. This is a process, this isn't something that's come down from the mount. The way to get the broadest basis of support is to get as many perspectives in the document as possible. This is our vision document. Whether it's lpfm, free wireless, or network neutrality.
Alice Myatt, media consultant.
She's new to the coalition and hasn't yet participated in a meeting, though she's seen a lot of emails on the listserv. She started out always wanting to make television. Went to school for masscomm in the late 60s when it wasn't popular. Went to school in Boston, worked in production, then development, then strategic planning. Has worked in public and commercial media and has moved back and forth.
Was program officer for media at MacArthur foundation, moved onto PBS until 2 years, when the institution was taking such a drastic turn that she felt she could not longer be productive there. She moved to consulting nonprofit organizations.
One group she's worked with has been the Center for Digital Democracy and Jeff Chester. Their work is tied to the bill of rights, in the subsector of public media. The Bill talks about media as a whole, but they think public media has a particular place -- it's more than NPR and PBS, more than municipal wireless and community radio.
The question is, what is public media and it's role in society? These are the big questions we're asking of individuals and institutions, and we're going to ask you. We hope over time you give them some good consideration, and hope you'll reask those questions and ask them of friends, family, neighbors and elected representatives.
We hope will come up with answers that will collectively serve our nation, and have a construtive dialogue about public media.
First the questions:
1. what is public media and how does it serve society?
What should a sustainable public media econlogy look like>
How can it encompass news, public affairs, education, arts and culture, civic engagement.
How does it fit within the media reform movement?
How do we develop strategies and tactics to realize those goals?
What infrastructre does our public media need to have.
How do we ensure ease of use for producers, distributers and users?
The Bill of rights is the foundation for thinking of that structure.
Sustainability. What models of financing should we explore? Should we explore multiple methods? Tax, portion of spectrum sales, advertising?
Governance. What standards do we put in place to ensure accountability and transparency, to offer true diversity.
Another theme is the role of public media in society -- what can it provide that won't be provided by private media?
Should an explicit role be to stimulate creative innovation?
Movement building. How do form stronger alliances? Do we start with mapping all aspects of media reform and independent production?
Do we work more closely together to avoid duplication?
These are the questions we need to answer in order to address the issue. Public media needs to be reformed. How do we do it?
Jenny Toomey, Exec. Dir. Future of Music Coalition
One of the ways she was going to talk about it, is to talk about the organization. She is an activist and a rocker, and started the coalition about 5 years as a result of a few things. She ran an independent record label for 8 years. Thought one way to change things was to create better music and do good business, treat artists well. She was lucky to start out in punk rock, which had a parallel culture, it's ideals weren't overtly commercial. At some point in time the style of music they were making, and the parallel economy of college radio, record stores and zines, became cherry picked by the major labels. We realized we'd spent 8 years building a parallel economy that was vulnerable.
It was actually profitable, in that you could be 25 years old and live on it. But then you'd loose all your popular bands because they could make more in the mainstream economy media.
They closed down the label because they were faced with the choice to join a distribution deal with a major label or close down. They didn't start a label to own bands' copyrights and sell them to the major labels.
So she worked for the Washington Post for a few years and was asked to write about and MP3 jukebox early on, and thought this would be disruptive to the mainstream music economy. So she called all her friends in independent labels still struggling with it and began interviewing them and asking if they were using these technologies. They said they were too busy to think about it.
So she started going to these conferences with no artists there were professors say that artists would make all their money off t-shirts in the future. She thought they need artists in the conversation.
They knew early on that DRM would never be successful because of the analog hole -- if you can hear it, you can tape it.
They also knew that the law would not be on the side of the technologists. Like the MP3.com lawsuit, which sucked the momentum out of energy to use mp3 to create new music distribution methods.
All the people working on digital music started to consolidate, and the biggest one required artists to sign exclusive contracts, which got them back to the start of where major labels are.
So she knows that they had to have a different group. She didn't pay any attention to politics until she started the Coalition.
We need an artists middle class to find ways that musicians get paid. They need health insurance. Musicians quit music because they need this sort of resource.
They need access to an audience. That's why we started working with Common Cause, because they did a big radio consolidation move. We counted what happened with radio consolidation, and we had the resource to do this research.
All you have to do is say to an average american that Clear Channel went from 40 to 1200, and do you like what you hear in the radio, and they start to get it.
It's very hard to organize artists, they're individual, iconoclastic, and it's bred into them. They told their art isn't valuable. Media activists are a bit like that, too. One of the things they were able to bring to the process of the Media Bill of Rights is to work with people who don't generally want to work on these sorts of things.
Common Cause was very helpful in getting people to work together. This is a first step and she's very proud to be a part of it.
Danny Schechter, Mediachannel.org, the News Dissector
No matter where you go that's where you are. We're in St. Louis in the United States of America, the Land of Media. Conference started with Nichols invoking Joseph Pulitzer, and the next day the Post-Dispatch announces that they're being sold to Lee media. On page 16 there's a intesting story about people arguing about a driveway, and the news from Iraq is even deeper.
We can't have a democracy in american without a media that respects and promotes a democracy. Our media system has gone from an institution protected by our constitution to serve a watchdog role, to one that is conducive and colluded with the worst aspects of our political culture. Without the media the Iraq war wouldn't have happened the way it did.
The media is not just something students write papers about, that we complain about when we can't find anything we want to see.
As we go through that exercise it increasingly typifies american life. Maybe there's a problem here.
I worked for ABC, CNN, I worked for a company taken over by Infinity, they took over an announced that they were firing 19 people. They were surprised that we wouldn't go quiety, and had one of the few successful strikes and got a small victory. I know that media can matter in people's life that people care about media.
I know from a recent Pew study that we are not alone. We are not grumpy and cranky like people imagine us. In fact many people share our concerns. According to Pew 70% of people are dissatisfied with an industry that prides itself on a claim that they're only giving people what they want. Well, we don't want it, and we're not going to take it anymore.
Guess what, 70% of people working in the media are also dissatisfied. Our stories are spiked, we don't get to work on what we believe in. Days of work get shrunk down to a few minutes or seconds.
I became a refugee of network news. I started a company called Globalvision which tried to tell stories from the inside out. Did a series on South Africa starting with $200 a month that informed people about what was happening with Apartheid.
Went to PBS and said human rights was the key challenge they were facing, looked at their pilot and told him that human rights is an insufficient organizing principle for a program, unlike cooking, which is.
We worked station by station to get their programming seen. This was not a welcoming environment for a diversity of point of view. It was not living up to its mandate.
These issues brought us back to one place. One day they were in their Times Square office and they saw the porn theater get torn down and replaced by a big tower for an investment bank. Then we looked up the street and there was media consolidation in our face: FOX, MTV, NBC , Reuters. They're all there. We realized our world had changed.
We realized we had joined media to spotlight the problems of the world, but now media was one of the problems. It's pervasively invisible, but we look at like a piece of furniture, a toaster with picture, in the words of an FCC Chairman.
so I wrote the More You Watch the Less You Know. I was encouraged to be positive in the last chapter. So I proposed a media channel to watch all the other channels, but that would cost $100 million to get off the ground. So we went on-line and reached out to other groups, and 1300 organizations are now part of the network.
People said they needed a prominent person to bring people in. They told him to go to Noam Chomsky at MIT, but then he realized that Noam doesn't watch TV. So he went to Walter Cronkike, not only did agree, but he made a video on the website that makes him sound more radical than Danny.
We have allies in places we didn't realize we had. They're fed up.
This is a battle we can take on and win. There are many people who will join if we can just talk to them.
Who? Parents, who are worried about what children watch on TV. Teachers, because the TV is competing with the classroom.
People in TV and the media industry but who are having doubts.
We have to figure out a way to cross the partisan divide. He knows it's a drag, but look at the media consolidation fight. Half from progressives, and the other half from the NRA. It was that combination that got Congress to vote for reexamining media rules.
We don't have enough people here to enforce our agenda, but we can talk to other people who don't know what's going on. The last thing the media wants you to know about is it's interest. We need to build common ground with other people
It's unfashionable. I went to Moveon.org, and he has great respect for them. He has a film on media and war, and asked about getting media issues on the agenda, their members say media is #2. If you look at their priorities media is not even on the list.
Look at the foundation side, it's changing, but the ones on the right have been ahead of us on investment. Not just grants, but 3 to 5 years of funding to create institutions. On the left they often have more money, but media isn't even on the list.
he found that people want to talk about these issues and get out side the box, and to think about new ways to build support for our concerns, values, hopes and dreams. I hope this is a sign that people want to get involved in the process. Not just hear from great thinkers, but be great thinkers.
I've heard some great projects from people doing interesting stuff. We need to hear their stuff. But with so little funding everyone's scrambling for crumbs.
Has to give credit to Common Cause. They got started with campaign finance reform. But what are politicians raising all the money, to buy media time. So they've taken a leadership role on media as an issue. They're willing to work with others and they want to make it work.
We need to fight for what we want, not just what we're against. This is everybody's issue, not just our issue. We can win our democracy back.
Moderator Lauren Coletta:
One thing the ACLU did around the Patriot Act was to get local city councils to pass resolutions on it. It helped to raise consciousness and get people involved against it. If you have any ideas like this, or any other ideas we'd like to hear them.
Comment:
Coming from outside the States, he's struck by one thing: that the focus is on diversity and localism, and local ownership. But his fear is that if you don't focus globally you won't get progressive voices to the rest of the world, they'll get CNN and FOX, and you won't get progressive voices from places like the Middle East. How does the Bill of Rights address that.
Schechter answers: this visioning exercise has a long history going back into the 70s and the roundtables that were held and the UNESCO meetings on the new info order. In a way we're drawing on the past. I'm working on a book called the Media Manifesto, and he's researching a very rich history of media criticism around the world. He went to Doha for the AlJazeera festival. They couldn't be nicer and more willing to connect with us. They know the Bush Admin doesn't speak for all of us.
Al Jazeera is launching an international channel with documentaries about the whole world. They're attempting to become a global broadcaster, can they get on the air here? Who knows, but we hope we can work with them and people in other countries.
We are not alone. Berlusconi in Italy is already ahead of Murdoch. In Eastern Europe they replaced public state broadcasters with American-based commercial media.
Comment:
He studied mass comm up to Masters degree, gave up during the Gulf War. Now he's getting back. His vision is radical, maybe stupid, he would like to see everyone get together to initiate legislation to make it illegal to own a radiostation newspaper or tv station outside the area it serves. It's big, so he throws it out there.
Comment:
This whole things reminds him of how the Encyclopedia Brittanica got together. In Scotland scientist and mathematicians got together and this reminds me of it. I had a bar and booked a lot of bands and became familiar with how musicians weren't given access to their music, and how difficulty it is to crack into the industry. The idea he had was to harness the energy of people who dissented, and to change the distribution of the music so that we divorced it from the RIAA and redistributed the money to promote free media, something self-supportive. Could the structure be changed?
Jenny Toomey answers: if you're going to redistribute music, it should go to the artists. 99% of artists are in debt to their label. The contracts have an audit deal, but the record companies don't have to say how many records they made.
We wanted to remove the middle man. One of the big hurdles is the existing control of the promotion distribution, the airwaves. One area where we doing a better job at building international movements is copyright -- it's one area where artists and producers are able to retain control, and therefore have the final say on the structure around new technologies.
There's a lot of parallels with patent laws, patenting seeds. It's one place where the world justice movement comes together.
Comment:
She went to school to become a DJ and learned about FCC and media issues, and now doesn't want to work for corporate media. She went to one conference where she wanted to create a statewide organization to help get media literacy out -- about the landscape of media reform. She wants all of Colorado to understand that media reform affects them at a local and state level. She needs to know if anyone is working specifically to do that, or if there are other statewide models they can follow.
She does interviews all over the state to talk about media reform on community radio and public access. She talks about these issues all the time, she can take cartons of the Bill and get the word out.
Lauren coletta responds: They are working with groups all over the country trying to work on good outreach strategies. The work they're doing with the Coalition they hope will just reinforce what is already out there.
Comment:
What about John McCain's media reform bill he heard about in another panel? Are you trying to introduce this to Congress?
Jonathan answers: Things in terms of policy are converging, like the indecency question, the digital transition, a rewrite of the Telecom Act, which is many ways in 1996 was the predicate for all the consolidation that's happened since then. It was hoped that the Bill is not the legislation itself, but would form the foundation of a piece of legislation that would be a model for legislation.
Jenny Toomey answers: on McCain's LPFM bill, it's great. It's a small solution, but it's a good one. The bill would allow more LPFM in urban areas.
]]>NCMR suckiness/concerns included: lack of any focus on Indymedia & access to answers to questions people had about Indymedia; banging of heads between Indymedia & Free Press -- because Indymedia is subversive and Free Press is reform-oriented; expectations that conference would be different (than the last NCMR in Madison) because local media _were_ contacted; lack of an open media lab; framing of actionable items (in caucuses) as "how can you amplify Free Press' message"; closing of registration, cost of registration & attending, and general feeling of inaccessibility; the non-democracy of caucuses; lack of discussion about how capitalism is intertwined with the issues of the NCMR; and the lack of centering of media justice issues at the conference.
Actionable items include creating an IMC at next year's NCMR; creating an intervention at this year's NCMR; a possible intervention during the rest of the conference.
He wrote about Day Two, "The areas of interest here are across the board. Cable access, low-power FM radio stations, peer-to-peer file sharing, media ownership, FCC regulations, newspaper ownership and on and on."
Note to Changing Words: The first conference was in Madison, Wisconsin, November 2003.
The writer concluded, "The one message I take away from today's sessions is that there is so much more happening in the world -- and specifically Iraq -- that we're not being told. This is nothing new to many people here at the DCP, but it was amazing and enlightening to hear in a public venue from notable people/jounalists/reporters who have been there and have seen what's happening, only to return to the US and find out how they're being silenced by corporate media."
More blogging about the NCMR can be found in this Technorati search.
]]>Though the room was pretty quiet yesterday, as most of the attendees were getting settled into the opening of the conference, traffic is up significantly today. About a third of the tables are staffed currently, with this number gradually increasing in anticipation of the Media Democracy Showcase. This Showcase is a two hour block of time this evening during the dinner period in which conference attendees are encouraged to visit all of the participating organizations. In other words, it's a chance for on the ground media groups - working on creating independent media, media literacy, media justice, and media policy, among other efforts, to share their work with media activists.
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]]>I'm glad I showed up to the Globalizing session, it exceeded my expectations. However, I shouldn't be surprised since it was one of the International media reform sessions at the 2003 NCMR that I also learned the most from.
In this year's version the global south and non-Western perspective is much more emphasized. This is vital information for us in the US, given how little we get in the mainstream media about the rest of the world, especially places where we're not fighting wars.
I knew that there was some state repression of community radio in Brazil, but I did not know the frightening extent, nor that the government is stepping up efforts, not ratcheting down, even though a left-leaning government is in power.
Myoungjoon Kim from Korea gave the most rousing talk outlining the amazing media access and reform victories they've had there, and how they are aligned with Korea's more militant labor movement. He emphasized clear long-term goals and charting progress towards those goals, along with the unification of media reform with other movements.
This last point was also emphasized by Joćo Brant from Intervozes, Brazil, who also emphasized framing the movement and goals.
It's funny, but I don't recall such clear calls to framing and goal setting in any other talks, which perhaps fleshes out some of the differences between American activism and movements elsewhere in the world. It seems like the media reform movement in the US is not quite unified around particular and well-defined goals, understandable given how multivariate the constituencies are, even if the movement is largely left-leaning and/or liberal.
Read on to get more specifics from my session notes:
]]> Des Freedman, Goldmith College, University of London:How is British movement linked to US. There is not yet a Global Media Policy -- it's largely made at national level. The difference is that national policy is increasingly influenced by transnational agreements, like GATT, copyright agreements, etc. Agreements are there to police American intellectual property around the world.
Movements are linked because we face the same neoliberal institutions that have given us deregulation, stolen our water. In Britian they don't have a media reform movement as big as the US. But they do have a large energetic anti-war movement, where media has remained a big issue. The key is link up media issues with other social justice movements.
The campaign for broadcasting freedom held sessions at the European Social Forum, where people connected. This is how we globalize media reform, not by pretending that we have one global media policy. Acknowledge that we already have global movements against war, against World Bank debt payments. Put media democracy on the global map and inside these issues. Recognize that mainstream media converage helped Britain and the US go to war in Iraq. They don't question the right of drug companies to exploit the poor.
Graciela Baroni Selaimen, RITS (Information Network for the Third Sector), Brazil:
In 2001 when the first world social forum was held in porto allegre, communication was the subject of just one session. In 2003 proposed that there would be a whole axis of activies about media democratization. In that year the organizing committee realized that communication should be a central issue, it is immediate and central to every political debate.
Last January the 5th WSF happened, bringing together over 6000 media professional. The theme Communications, Counter-Hegemonic Practices was the focus of a whole day. Never before were so many different communication activists brought together.
In her opinion this evolution of the communication scenario reflects a growing global movement where civil society is understanding communication rights as fundament to democracy. The creation and strengthening of things like the free and open source movement against closed intellectual property is important to confront market-driven policies about communication, culture and knowledge.
It's no longer feasible to tackle local needs and challenges without knowing what's going on at the local level. Globalizing media reform and democratizing communication is important for people to express their voices. Communications rights should find ways to put local experiences and needs in the global perspective. We need to find ways to put the concepts we believe in into practice.
Some data and information about Brazil. Consolidation there is amazing, 277 media channels are owned by the largest corporation, including all forms of media. More than half of the daily news production in just a few hands. NTT Globo reaches more than 99% of the population.
Community radio are under a restrictive law that limits them to broadcasting 25 watts, in the cities this doesn't even reach an entire block. There is no state support and they may not carry advertising. They are often violently rerpressed and shut down by police. This year the number of stations closed by police increased 37%.
There are many challenges in Brazil -- they must be faced while recognizing what is global and working with the US, Europe and the whole world. We must understand what are common goals and what are differences. It is quite different for people in the North and the South.
In the South it means fighting for cultural identity, and the lingering effects of colonization. A sort of colonization that imposes every day how they should behave, consume and look like. Telling them that fitting into these patterns makes them fit into the world.
We need hands from all countries to come together, network and strategize, keeping in mind that our richness and strength is our diversity.
Joćo Brant, Intervozes, Brazil:
Organization deals with activism and policy, bringing communications into the agenda, supporting common coverage of social movements. We try to do everything, and we can't, but we try to go on.
The point he would like to addres is: What is our common goal as a Global movement? What's our agenda for linking movements, especially in terms of long term actions and goals?
If we could define an ideal scenario, what would it be in 10 years time? If we keep our minds only on the present we lose our main goals, we're always trying to catch up, and we don't know how far we stray.
His group working with people from other countries to work on a generic framework around issues like freedom of expression, plurality, cultural rights and intellectual property rights. This leads to policies where communications rights are central.
It's not a state's role to create communications, to facilitate their creation. There should be a public system, neither private nor public.
Five objectives that we should try to have as goals:
1. access to means of productions
2. Technical and material conditions to listen and communicate
3. Autonymous relation to media
4. Active participation to creating policies to create and sustain
5. Balanced conditions and regime to participate in the public sphere
How to finance these things?
Imagine if part of commercial funds could be used to fund this sort of public/community media.
Participatory democracy means that representative democracy is not enough. Mechanisms like local councils, consults can be means to look after civil and human rights in the media. Not control over content. We can't look a freedom of expression without other freedoms from repression.
Four goals and principles:
Plurality and diversity of means and content.
Participatory democracy with citizen participation in policies.
have to get the public sector as the reference of our policy. Private sector should the exception not the rule. We've been brought up with the private reference, but profit does not match with public interest.
Information is not a commodity. Material commodity is not as easily reproduced as information. This principle shows us that information as a commodity is a distortion that the private sector is trying to force on us.
There will be a meeting of WIPO where the US is playing a prominent role, in private interest, not ours. Trying to put cultural communication under WTO rule. We're talking about global strategies and goals which we can deepen in the debate.
Emanuel Njenga Njuguna, Africa Policy Monitor Project, Association for Progressive Communications, Kenya/S. Africa:
They monitor communication and info policy development in Africa with goals around civil society, equal public participation against what private interest is pushing.
A few issues in terms of Africa, Kenya and South Africa are two cases.
In Africa, most people depend on radio, about 80% of households have radio, whereas with internet it's only 2%. In the last few years there's been a move towards liberalization.
In Kenya the colonial history had one state broadcasters to push gov't propaganda on TV, and several radio stations in different language. In the last few years there have been more actors, private broadcasters.
In 1992 with the advent of multiparty politics they've seen more objective reporting in the media. The government has turned to new and subtler ways to censor and control the press.
As a result the media suffers an everpresent threat of being censored or stifled.
Most of the private broadcasters are in the urban areas, because that is where they can generate advertising revenues. In the rural areas they only get the public state broadcaster.
Another key are is local content. Kenya has no regulation on foreign broadcasts and programming. Not enough has been done to encourage the growth of local content, especially in the local area.
By 2004 private and gov't broadcasters have 75-80% foreign content. In 2002 there was a change in gov't after 24 years. They're hoping by next year local content can go to 60%.
The content being produced in America is going all the way to Africa, and people think what they see is true -- they see the US view on the war in Iraq. It's all linked to financing and donor dependency. There is also the lack of resource and facility to create content.
With regard to the Alternative media, there's a lack of clarity and vision on what kind of independent broadcasts they want.
South Africa is making up most of the foreign content, and is becoming the first world part of Africa.
People have been focusing on access to information. The gov't has been working hard to ensure control over media by controlling access to gov't information.
Some victories in Kenya. Some community media are trying to create room in the rural areas, though limited in funding.
In South Africa it's a similar situation, so he will skip forward. However, the Internet has started to have an impact there. In 2004 there were presidential elections, and the current president used the Internet very well.
Legislation development -- in Zimbabwe they have used laws to control what is transmitted in the media. There have been a few victories here and there. They've created some awareness that people don't need to believe everything the media tells them.
Myoungjoon Kim, MediACT, S. Korea
Making labor news documentaries and getting workers to make their own videos in trade unions. They have a media center that is funded by the media board, but they have autonomy in running the center to support public access and indpendent filmmaking.
Start with media literacy. It's true that we have a strong tradition of a militant labor movement, but it is a superficial impression you get from the media. You get the impression that Korean laborers are born fighters and US laborers are born losers. That is incorrect. Korea has a lot problems, with bureaucracy in unions, etc. But we do have militancy. It's not natural, but it's built on media literacy and activism.
Before this session was organized, he was asked by organizer what he thinks of US media activsm. He thinks it's important effective to many countries. The victory with the FCC and fighting back was important. It was covered in Korea as a top storty when the FCC was announcing deregulation. When it was struck down, there was no coverage. So, congratulations.
At the same time the US is playing an important role to push a neoliberal agenda against the public interest. Because of that other social movements in other countries should support the US. You should learn from other countries to strengthen your movement.
Applause.
I will emphasize the Korean cases. Some of the gains we've had were made possible by your gains. The basic media situation is similar, with monopoly and consolidation. We have some public broadcaster. Korea is #1 in broadband connection, which gives us opportunity and problems.
We have a strong tradition of alternative and independent activism, which has been linked with the labor movement. IN the past 25 years there has been a lot of progress. In the labor movement there are a lot of web sites, and lots of laborers producing videos. The Hyundai union is the most left of the labor unions, and they have 3 full time staff making videos. By contract there is a closed-circuit TV system at the factory that workers can watch during lunch, one day every week, where they broadcast programs from the workers' video collective.
They asked his group to make a video once a week that the workers' collective can learn from.
Based on this legacy, the past 5 - 10 years they have been partically successful in the realm of the public sphere and public policy. Based on our media experiment now many local media centers are being established by the ministry of culture. We got legislation in 1999 to establish public access. Now we have 30 minutes every week for public access on the public broadcaster, and we have public access on cable. You can get access to $1000 to create a 30 minute program for public access.
They have a satellite channel that is 24-hour public access also funded by the communiations commission, $20 million. We got this by researching different cases around the globe, including free speech TV and the public access structure in the US.
Based upon our expreiences and research we could create our own perspective and action, which should be done around the world. The conclusion was that we should have a framing perspective on media activism.
Should have a clear position for different media areas, mainstream, public and the public sphere. Activism should come from alternative area. Use public resources for activism and to push issues in the mainstream media.
This should be done offensively rather than defensively. It's important to defend against censorship and deregulation. How can we set an agenda in the name of the people and working class, not in reaction to the corporations and the ruling class. We should trap them into being defensive. Applause.
One important point is how we can have a close link between areas like policy research and activism. Strategy research is important, too. At the same time this kind of research should be closely linked to training people in the fight. There should be a close link with other social movements, and how they can have media activism as their own agenda and we can interact. One way we got policies like public access is due to change of the government in Korea. We have neoliberal gov't but the people know they must move and can exert force. In a way we bluff, the gov't worries that they can mobilize the whole labor movement to defend public access.
He hopes the issue is how we can share the strategies and gains, just like they do at the WTO. How can we grow a regional or bilateral network? We should have a very specific plan. After this we should talk about how to implement a structure to improve the movement in different countries. Maybe someday we can have a big march for media refrom here or in Korea.
Maybe a goal can be addressed in this kind of conference.
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