How has important has online social media become? This great amateur video provides food for thought on this question.
31 January, 2010
30 January, 2010
America hypocritical on Google vs China
News of Google’s threat to abandon ‘google.cn’ because of strict government censorship and interference, and privacy violations, brought Chinese government censorship to the forefront of political issues for a few weeks.
Because of a record of stringent human rights abuses and authoritarian control, China is often targeted as a textbook example of government manipulation of the media used to cover up or censor information that might threaten the stability of the state and society.
Americans and peoples across the world, along with their governments to a lesser degree, became highly vocal about internet freedom, privacy, and general government interference with media: related editorials, blogs, and tweets poured onto front pages and ‘the most popular’ sections of news and other forums.
The stench of mild hypocrisy or ignorance wafts from this outcry; in the name of the same goals of national security and stability, the rest of the world is also expanding its control over everything relating to the internet.
A CNN editorial turned this discussion around. Are America’s internet laws giving China the power to hack our email?
Google put in place “backdoor-access” to email accounts in order to comply with U.S. intercept orders and search warrants on user data. The editorial uses the idea that this feature is what the Chinese hackers exploited to gain access as the basis for its argument.
Western governments are giving themselves Internet surveillance powers, requiring internet “communications system providers to redesign products and services they sell”. The article mentions Sweden, Canada and the UK as examples.
Many are also passing data retention laws, forcing companies to retain information on their customers.
This happened with the phone system in the US when the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act from 1994 required phone companies to help the FBI eavesdrop.
Not only did they eavesdrop, but the whole system was supposedly abused by the federal government when the FBI illegally wiretapped and eavesdropped on Americans 3500 times between 2002 and 2006.
The editorial cites an instance in Greece where more than one hundred cell phones of Greek government officials were wiretapped for a year, including those of the prime minister and the ministers of defense, foreign affairs and justice. Nobody knows who manipulated the system, but we do know that it was Ericsson that created the wiretapping capability for governments that requested it or mandated it.
The experience of Google in China highlights a trend about internet products that Google designs: American companies building China's electronic police state.
The United States Congress debated bill S-773 of the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, introduced on April 1st. It gives the president the power to “"declare a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation and shutdown of internet traffic”, among other federal steps to intervene in the flow of internet traffic.
The bill was introduced by Democrat Senator Rockefeller, cosponsored by two Democrats from Indiana and Florida, and moderate Republican Olympia Snow from Maine and still in the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.
The bill will make the Department of Commerce collect information related on public and private infrastructures deemed critical by the President – information accessible to the department “without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access."
Technology and political blogs and videos have exploded in response to this bill, concerned with virtual martial law and suspension of the First Ammendement. However, somehow, this discussion about security is missing from political conversation. The mere existence of a few lines in this bill, especially those supported by more socially liberal representatives, highlights the shift in political thought about government control of the virtual world – its role in managing the framework of our cosmopolitan civilization, even if benevolently.
Internet control in Western nations is increasing as governments try to catch and stop terrorists, child pornographers and other criminals. As a people that ideologically values freedoms over control and security, we should be wary of delegating control of our expression and privacy to naturally self-enhancing bureaucracy. It is “bad civic hygiene” to build technologies or relinquish freedoms that could someday be used to facilitate a police state, even if it may our own.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/01/23/schneier.google.hacking/index.html
23 January, 2010
(R) vs. (D) on Health Care Reform
The ‘Affordable Health Care for America Act’ created a gaping partisan divide in both houses of Congress. Why? In class, we discussed one reason: the desire of Democrats to see Obama pursue his goals and be successful, and those of Republicans to derail his agenda and presidency.
The second reason for this partisan divide relates to the first reason, but is completely about the party base: the involvement of so many originally partisan issues within the bill. Redistribution, illegal aliens, abortion, federal spending and the deficit, taxation, market intervention, veterans’ care, lifestyle mandates, role of the federal government, are examples of some of the controversial issues within the bill itself or its principles that are dividing congress along party lines. These issues, as pointed out in class, have nothing to do with health care since the bill has made itself much less about actual cost reduction and insurance coverage expansion than about ideology and simply getting something inherently Democratic passed as seen through the methods it seeks to achieve its goals and ongoing media hype: not that the hype is a bad thing.
I agree that these issues may have been over emphasized and made more controversial, in order to derail the bill, but these issues have individually and collectively resonated deeply with the ideologies of each party’s core and have become important issues separate of the Obama presidency.
I will show that the media, appealing to conservative or liberal views on each separate issue, have generated support or resistance to the bill by tying it to these other non-health care related issues.
Taxation
Clips from different media outlets address the health care reform bill on questions of taxation, its impact on the economy, and government spending.
The following video highlights concerns about taxation and the resulting effect of the economy, here discussed specifically with regards to projected impact on Illinois.
Abortion
The question of abortion coverage highlights support and opposition to the bill that, while not entirely divided along party lines, comes from beliefs that were deeply rooted into the Republican base and liberal ideology years before an Obama presidency. The almost unanimous support by Republicans for a controversial amendment proposed by Rep. Stupak in debate, was one reason for party-line divisions.
Watch CBS News Videos Online
Illegal Immigration
President Obama has said that proposed health care subsidies and public option coverage (now dead) would not go to illegal immigrants. As this video discusses, and as mentioned elsewhere by the President, this statement is not entirely true.
Neil Cavuto, host of a FoxNews “Business News Show”, discusses the health care reform bill and illegal aliens.
The party line vote of an ammendement describing provisions to prevent illegals from abusing the system highlights a key political difference between the parties: the belief in the obligation of the US government to financially support all people within its jurisdiction.
This next video is an MSNBC discussion over the responsibility of Americans to provide health care insurance subsidies and coverage to all in the US including illegal immigrants. The response to a question raised by a town hall protester, do we turn away illegals who demand care, again highlights a political division between the two parties.
The question over illegal immigration is a highly partisan issue. The ties between partisan issues of social safety nets and illegals produce even larger divisions within Congress along party lines.
The question over illegal immigration ties into larger questions of principle about obligations of society to support others within it that are somewhat exclusive or alienated. The slide about states’ health spending on illegal immigrants ties in the separate issues of spending and overall cost.
Cost
Something as empirical as costs cannot be easily disputed by either party. However, the view about 'which cost is less worthy' is disputed and has led to a divide between R and D.
This CNN news clip of CNN anchors presenting CBO budget data to the Director of the Executive Office of Health Reform is my case in point. In response to CBO Director Elmendorf’s quote about increases in federal costs, the Health Reform Director mentioned the possible savings for individuals and families, and the possibility savings for the government in the long term. This highlights the partisan divide between the government cost increases emphasized by Republicans and possible personal savings for most Americans advocated by the bill’s Democratic proponents.
The media world is filled with radio chat shows, news clips, speeches, and commentary that support the claim about the different types of cost being a dividing factor in support for the bill.
Individual or Collective Responsibility
An ideological discussion of the role of society to support health care coverage (through the public option and federal insurance subsidies) has divided progressives from libertarians or conservatives, if I may be allowed to generalize here. The divide between individual responsibility and mandated collective responsibility
Fox news shows a clip from a town hall meeting where Senator Cardin (D) discusses collective responsibility in response to a question from meeting attendee Robert Broadus. On the Neil Cavuto Show, Broadus turns the discussion of the health care reform bill into a philosophical debate about the individual and choice, which he believes is threatened by universal health insurance and the health insurance mandate in the bill.
A CNBC show discusses this philosophy, phrased in the context of health care provision (which is what striving to achieve universal health insurance coverage will equate to) being a requirement of the public sector or not.
On the side, the representative from the CATO Institute pointed out Medicare costs and included that monetary cost in the discussion of feasibility of practice. This philisophical question about role of the individual or government to provide for goods has a generally partisan division with progressives being more likely to support government intervention to provide or expand the range of public goods to address a percieved social injustice.
Role of Government
The size and role of the federal government in health care relates to the practical aspect of health care as a right or privilege. The bill is seen by its proponents as a necessary expansion of the government’s obligation to address a perceived social injustice.
Fox news was quick to jump on controversial clauses that would expand the role of government. This segment may be over-the-top, but the response by experts and the channel seems to highlight a valid concern or at least one that Fox believes is valid.
Constitutionality
There have been legal threats to challenge the health care mandates by legal and political groups if the bill is signed into law on the basis that the federal government cannot legislate the purchase of a good under the constitution. Many Republican representatives on the state level have moved to protect individual choice of health insurace due to a percieved threat from the reform bill. These attempts may seek to undermine the bill directly, but true constitutional originalists, which tend to be political conservatives, have raised opposition to the bill solely on these grounds; this ties into the ‘role of government’ idea but with regards to law and not political philosophy.
Misinformation
Yes, we do consider insurance premiums and the cost of Medicare in our debates, but controversy remains over how the bill will actually affect them. I've heard congressmen on C-Span allege that the bill WILL NOT decrease average premiums and does not effectively address the problem with existing government health care programs. Yet I hear another party leader, a day later, announce that it WILL lower household premiums and curb Medicare costs. CBO statistics have been selectively plucked from reports by both Republicans and Democrats to advocate for their ideas. Because of media politicization, we hear what we want to hear, further perpetuating our bias for or against policies in the current bill. Misinformation and data selectivity sends mixed messages to different kinds of Americans, distorting the truth, and futher dividing Americans. Secondly, logical debate about cost, government, and the bill's effects has almost faded from the media; what seems to fire up voters are emotion-tugging stories of American suffering, veterans' care, and Big Brother. Has mass media failed to become a medium for informative and relevant discourse about the bill and the future of the country? Another question for another post, another time.
Talk about 'death panels', 'pulling the plug on grandma', associated with big government and redistribution, have become powerful rhetoric in the debate about the bill. Issues unrelated to insurance premiums, coverage, and Medicare are creating the support and opposition to the bill. The party line division seen in health care reform reflects the greater rift in the American population about these issues.
.
The second reason for this partisan divide relates to the first reason, but is completely about the party base: the involvement of so many originally partisan issues within the bill. Redistribution, illegal aliens, abortion, federal spending and the deficit, taxation, market intervention, veterans’ care, lifestyle mandates, role of the federal government, are examples of some of the controversial issues within the bill itself or its principles that are dividing congress along party lines. These issues, as pointed out in class, have nothing to do with health care since the bill has made itself much less about actual cost reduction and insurance coverage expansion than about ideology and simply getting something inherently Democratic passed as seen through the methods it seeks to achieve its goals and ongoing media hype: not that the hype is a bad thing.
I agree that these issues may have been over emphasized and made more controversial, in order to derail the bill, but these issues have individually and collectively resonated deeply with the ideologies of each party’s core and have become important issues separate of the Obama presidency.
I will show that the media, appealing to conservative or liberal views on each separate issue, have generated support or resistance to the bill by tying it to these other non-health care related issues.
Taxation
Clips from different media outlets address the health care reform bill on questions of taxation, its impact on the economy, and government spending.
The following video highlights concerns about taxation and the resulting effect of the economy, here discussed specifically with regards to projected impact on Illinois.
Abortion
The question of abortion coverage highlights support and opposition to the bill that, while not entirely divided along party lines, comes from beliefs that were deeply rooted into the Republican base and liberal ideology years before an Obama presidency. The almost unanimous support by Republicans for a controversial amendment proposed by Rep. Stupak in debate, was one reason for party-line divisions.
Watch CBS News Videos Online
Illegal Immigration
President Obama has said that proposed health care subsidies and public option coverage (now dead) would not go to illegal immigrants. As this video discusses, and as mentioned elsewhere by the President, this statement is not entirely true.
Neil Cavuto, host of a FoxNews “Business News Show”, discusses the health care reform bill and illegal aliens.
The party line vote of an ammendement describing provisions to prevent illegals from abusing the system highlights a key political difference between the parties: the belief in the obligation of the US government to financially support all people within its jurisdiction.
This next video is an MSNBC discussion over the responsibility of Americans to provide health care insurance subsidies and coverage to all in the US including illegal immigrants. The response to a question raised by a town hall protester, do we turn away illegals who demand care, again highlights a political division between the two parties.
The question over illegal immigration is a highly partisan issue. The ties between partisan issues of social safety nets and illegals produce even larger divisions within Congress along party lines.
The question over illegal immigration ties into larger questions of principle about obligations of society to support others within it that are somewhat exclusive or alienated. The slide about states’ health spending on illegal immigrants ties in the separate issues of spending and overall cost.
Cost
Something as empirical as costs cannot be easily disputed by either party. However, the view about 'which cost is less worthy' is disputed and has led to a divide between R and D.
This CNN news clip of CNN anchors presenting CBO budget data to the Director of the Executive Office of Health Reform is my case in point. In response to CBO Director Elmendorf’s quote about increases in federal costs, the Health Reform Director mentioned the possible savings for individuals and families, and the possibility savings for the government in the long term. This highlights the partisan divide between the government cost increases emphasized by Republicans and possible personal savings for most Americans advocated by the bill’s Democratic proponents.
The media world is filled with radio chat shows, news clips, speeches, and commentary that support the claim about the different types of cost being a dividing factor in support for the bill.
Individual or Collective Responsibility
An ideological discussion of the role of society to support health care coverage (through the public option and federal insurance subsidies) has divided progressives from libertarians or conservatives, if I may be allowed to generalize here. The divide between individual responsibility and mandated collective responsibility
Fox news shows a clip from a town hall meeting where Senator Cardin (D) discusses collective responsibility in response to a question from meeting attendee Robert Broadus. On the Neil Cavuto Show, Broadus turns the discussion of the health care reform bill into a philosophical debate about the individual and choice, which he believes is threatened by universal health insurance and the health insurance mandate in the bill.
A CNBC show discusses this philosophy, phrased in the context of health care provision (which is what striving to achieve universal health insurance coverage will equate to) being a requirement of the public sector or not.
On the side, the representative from the CATO Institute pointed out Medicare costs and included that monetary cost in the discussion of feasibility of practice. This philisophical question about role of the individual or government to provide for goods has a generally partisan division with progressives being more likely to support government intervention to provide or expand the range of public goods to address a percieved social injustice.
Role of Government
The size and role of the federal government in health care relates to the practical aspect of health care as a right or privilege. The bill is seen by its proponents as a necessary expansion of the government’s obligation to address a perceived social injustice.
Fox news was quick to jump on controversial clauses that would expand the role of government. This segment may be over-the-top, but the response by experts and the channel seems to highlight a valid concern or at least one that Fox believes is valid.
Constitutionality
There have been legal threats to challenge the health care mandates by legal and political groups if the bill is signed into law on the basis that the federal government cannot legislate the purchase of a good under the constitution. Many Republican representatives on the state level have moved to protect individual choice of health insurace due to a percieved threat from the reform bill. These attempts may seek to undermine the bill directly, but true constitutional originalists, which tend to be political conservatives, have raised opposition to the bill solely on these grounds; this ties into the ‘role of government’ idea but with regards to law and not political philosophy.
Misinformation
Yes, we do consider insurance premiums and the cost of Medicare in our debates, but controversy remains over how the bill will actually affect them. I've heard congressmen on C-Span allege that the bill WILL NOT decrease average premiums and does not effectively address the problem with existing government health care programs. Yet I hear another party leader, a day later, announce that it WILL lower household premiums and curb Medicare costs. CBO statistics have been selectively plucked from reports by both Republicans and Democrats to advocate for their ideas. Because of media politicization, we hear what we want to hear, further perpetuating our bias for or against policies in the current bill. Misinformation and data selectivity sends mixed messages to different kinds of Americans, distorting the truth, and futher dividing Americans. Secondly, logical debate about cost, government, and the bill's effects has almost faded from the media; what seems to fire up voters are emotion-tugging stories of American suffering, veterans' care, and Big Brother. Has mass media failed to become a medium for informative and relevant discourse about the bill and the future of the country? Another question for another post, another time.
Talk about 'death panels', 'pulling the plug on grandma', associated with big government and redistribution, have become powerful rhetoric in the debate about the bill. Issues unrelated to insurance premiums, coverage, and Medicare are creating the support and opposition to the bill. The party line division seen in health care reform reflects the greater rift in the American population about these issues.
.
18 January, 2010
Just a hint of spin
In this post, I want to discuss the media bias surrounding the hundreds of Tea Party protests across the country in 2009. If I wanted to go in depth, the stories are plentiful, the examples are rich, and the political conclusions are varied; all I will do today is point out examples of bias, and not conclude anything about the news media and the increase in commentary and poor journalism.
As one blog put it: “Like a pair of 13-year-old boys who just learned a dirty word”, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and Marie Cox repeatedly used an offensive oral sex slang term to describe the protesters, using the sexual pun of “teabag” 51 times in 13 minutes. MSNBC’s Rachel Garofalo then called protesters racists and “a bunch of tea-bagging rednecks” as “Keith Olbermann smiled approvingly”.
I recognize that these broadcasters are commentators - they do not have any responsibility to tell the truth, just their opinion, even if it involves verbal sexual obscenity. But by ANY journalistic standard, what is wrong is the use of such terms in hard news reporting – when journalists abandon neutrality and become commentators trying to spin the news.
David Shuster is no commentator, but a daily newscaster for MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews which is “a syndicated weekly news program” according to MSNBC. Here, he offers an opinion on the tax day protests across America in the news program in a video in which he intentionally uses sexual metaphors to discredit the subjects of his news report.
The host of Hardball during interviews blasts this opposition to Obama's policies as a racist movement by gun-toting Americans.
Or how about Anderson Cooper, the respected newscaster from CNN?
Bad journalism? OUTRAGEOUS journalism.
ABC's Dan Harris in a news report reports that the protests were "cheered on by Fox News", "designed", "not a real grassroots phenomenon", and "orchestrated by people fronting for corporate interests". How can a news agency pretend to report the news while effectively only launching political allegations based on opinion? The video continues to undermine the protests by discrediting the protest's cause, using statistics completely unreated to the protests themselves, and using strong, emotional language to create bias.
Much criticism of the biased-coverage of the protest was based around CNN’s poor Susan Roegsen who just happened to let go of any journalistic professional ethics in her interviews with Tea Party protesters in Chicago.
Once good journalism, now gone bad. Roesgen becomes a propoganda arm for her own liberal affiliations by trying to sell the Stimulus during a report, confronting and debating with her news story. Instead of reporting the news, she tries to influence it and ends up becoming the story.
Again, she verbally confronts a protester in the second half of this clip at the same rally.
The fact that she obviously harbors a politically-motivated double standard, by implying that Bush is a satanic Adolf Hitler while defending Obama against criticism, is not important. The issue that should upset any consumer of the news media is journalists abandoning their code of ethics and aggressively trying to undermine her subjects in debates to create a political message. Her bellicose attitude did not stop on air. She continued to debate with demonstrators after the interviews.
As a representative of credible news agency that supposedly honors journalism’s sacred values, she could not be more of a disgrace to herself, to CNN, and to the American news media.
The infiltration of opinion into actual news reporting is what will create the misleading bias and politicization of news so that news no longer becomes truth. We have seen that with some news channels that intentionally blur the line between commentary and journalism. The three arms of news media - news, opinion, advertising - must be completely separate for the truth to be unadultered. Other networks such as ABC, CBS, or Fox are not exempt from this sort of bias. This failure of neutral coverage of any, even slightly, political event reflects the greater failure of news media to function as an agent of empowering citizens in a democracy. Instead, the politicization and dichotomization of news media into liberal and conservative will only breed ignorance, intolerance, and misinformation.
Recognizing that news in China is heavily politicized to create a bias, the dangers of such bias to democracy, even if neutral from government control, should obviously be as dangerous as state-media is to freedom. It would be a sad era in history when the time-tested great American democracy fails only because of its news corporations.
The following clip is not quite related to the tea party movement, but it is relevant to the issue of manipulation of news. Yes, the source is Fox News, but that does not at all detract from the logical argument presented here.
As one blog put it: “Like a pair of 13-year-old boys who just learned a dirty word”, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and Marie Cox repeatedly used an offensive oral sex slang term to describe the protesters, using the sexual pun of “teabag” 51 times in 13 minutes. MSNBC’s Rachel Garofalo then called protesters racists and “a bunch of tea-bagging rednecks” as “Keith Olbermann smiled approvingly”.
I recognize that these broadcasters are commentators - they do not have any responsibility to tell the truth, just their opinion, even if it involves verbal sexual obscenity. But by ANY journalistic standard, what is wrong is the use of such terms in hard news reporting – when journalists abandon neutrality and become commentators trying to spin the news.
David Shuster is no commentator, but a daily newscaster for MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews which is “a syndicated weekly news program” according to MSNBC. Here, he offers an opinion on the tax day protests across America in the news program in a video in which he intentionally uses sexual metaphors to discredit the subjects of his news report.
The host of Hardball during interviews blasts this opposition to Obama's policies as a racist movement by gun-toting Americans.
Or how about Anderson Cooper, the respected newscaster from CNN?
Bad journalism? OUTRAGEOUS journalism.
ABC's Dan Harris in a news report reports that the protests were "cheered on by Fox News", "designed", "not a real grassroots phenomenon", and "orchestrated by people fronting for corporate interests". How can a news agency pretend to report the news while effectively only launching political allegations based on opinion? The video continues to undermine the protests by discrediting the protest's cause, using statistics completely unreated to the protests themselves, and using strong, emotional language to create bias.
Much criticism of the biased-coverage of the protest was based around CNN’s poor Susan Roegsen who just happened to let go of any journalistic professional ethics in her interviews with Tea Party protesters in Chicago.
Once good journalism, now gone bad. Roesgen becomes a propoganda arm for her own liberal affiliations by trying to sell the Stimulus during a report, confronting and debating with her news story. Instead of reporting the news, she tries to influence it and ends up becoming the story.
Again, she verbally confronts a protester in the second half of this clip at the same rally.
The fact that she obviously harbors a politically-motivated double standard, by implying that Bush is a satanic Adolf Hitler while defending Obama against criticism, is not important. The issue that should upset any consumer of the news media is journalists abandoning their code of ethics and aggressively trying to undermine her subjects in debates to create a political message. Her bellicose attitude did not stop on air. She continued to debate with demonstrators after the interviews.
As a representative of credible news agency that supposedly honors journalism’s sacred values, she could not be more of a disgrace to herself, to CNN, and to the American news media.
The infiltration of opinion into actual news reporting is what will create the misleading bias and politicization of news so that news no longer becomes truth. We have seen that with some news channels that intentionally blur the line between commentary and journalism. The three arms of news media - news, opinion, advertising - must be completely separate for the truth to be unadultered. Other networks such as ABC, CBS, or Fox are not exempt from this sort of bias. This failure of neutral coverage of any, even slightly, political event reflects the greater failure of news media to function as an agent of empowering citizens in a democracy. Instead, the politicization and dichotomization of news media into liberal and conservative will only breed ignorance, intolerance, and misinformation.
Recognizing that news in China is heavily politicized to create a bias, the dangers of such bias to democracy, even if neutral from government control, should obviously be as dangerous as state-media is to freedom. It would be a sad era in history when the time-tested great American democracy fails only because of its news corporations.
The following clip is not quite related to the tea party movement, but it is relevant to the issue of manipulation of news. Yes, the source is Fox News, but that does not at all detract from the logical argument presented here.
Scott Brown on Youtube
Scott Brown is gassing the campaign machine with one day left until elections, running ads on Youtube like no other candidate ever has in history, or at least in my experience. I can't go anywhere online without seeing him. I can only imagine how this omnipresence may cause opponents to pull their hair out and refuse to go online. Like a parent nagging you about something after months of constant reminders, this tactic may either turn off voters or do wonders in getting his base aware and fired up for tomorrow.
Coakley's alternative campaign approach - bringing out the big Democratic players (Clinton, Obama) at rallies last week - may just be enough to counterbalance Brown's rampant advertising.
I guess the polls will determine which strategy won.
.
Coakley's alternative campaign approach - bringing out the big Democratic players (Clinton, Obama) at rallies last week - may just be enough to counterbalance Brown's rampant advertising.
I guess the polls will determine which strategy won.
.
17 January, 2010
Nobody cared, until the media appeared.
I’m new to Massachusetts; I’m new to living in America. Massachusetts politics? Huh?
It's a typical weekday: sitting in the library after class, before sports, internet open, trying to catch up on the world that jogged by as I sat in class.
I logged into Facebook today to see Scott Brown’s smiling photo. I browsed Youtube, Fox News, and CNN to see Scott Brown calling on ME to Volunteer Today! Me the unregistered, out-of-state student?
My eyes gleamed gazing at the ad; it was late at night, I felt motivated, daring, adventurous and clicked the ad. Next thing I knew I was whizzing along the virtual highway, pictures and colors forming before my eyes (because dorm internet is slow), straight to a volunteer’s form asking me for my name and email. “We need your help!” it says.
I’m curious about this guy. Does he have anything to do with the open senate seat? I pull up Youtube and, three seconds later, I’m watching him engage in intense debate with his opponents Coakley and Kennedy. His charisma is powerful, his views are well presented, and I search for Scott Brown on google. I read the Wikipedia page that springs before me. He will be the vote to break a Democrat cloture on the health care reform bill? I click the footnote at the bottom of the page, linking me to the Boston Globe senate race site.
From there on forth, through links to articles, pictures, interviews, more debates, advertisements, rebuttal-ads, and video bloggers, I let myself loose on this wild goose chase of information through the virtual landscape in the early morning, becoming as informed about his record, his policy, the issues, his opponents, and the polls as any Massachusetts voter could be. I’m on Twitter and Facebook talking about the senate race; people respond and we debate. I’m up writing a blog and posting videos about Scott Brown. I get an email alert about breaking news: Obama will be speaking with Coakley. I see a picture of Brown with Juliani on Boston Streets. I feel like I’m involved with the campaign, becoming more aware, knowledgeable. The campaign and all its drama is unfolding before me, on a screen, in my dorm room, late at night.
In such a short time, I came to feel like a part of a great story; I realize the tremendous power of links, of videos, of online radio, of online recruiting. Other ordinary people, not just the news or film crews, are involved just like me. I saw a creative advertisement against Brown created by ordinary citizens under name of ‘Democrats united against the Evil Empire’.
An unaffiliated joke attack ad. The quote at the end is great too.
Blogs have poured their energy and focus into the race, ranging from conservative political blogs, The Hope For America, to news and trivia blogs like WizBang.
On Google, the automatic constantly updates Twitter posts about Coakley, presenting a chain of links as hundreds of tweets by Americans fly by as new tweets appear on the screen. Ordinary people are just as fired up about a drama, an election as the candidates themselves, and they too have created a means to express and rally audiences, becoming as great a part of the political process as any.
The political machine, enhanced by the internet, is frightening in its volume and awesome in its power (‘awesome’ in its original meaning). I had never heard of Scott Brown or Coakley until last week, and I had never been in Massachusetts until this summer, let alone thought about it; somehow, today, I know more about the issues and am more involved in a Massachusetts campaign than I have been for any school leadership campaign or club election even though in school I was directly affected and immediately surrounded by the issues, and friends with candidates. The power of the media in spreading a message, inspiring a political base, and rallying support to the most distanced or ignorant of audiences is greater than what most direct human interaction can achieve.
To me, as an American, this empowerment and force in motion, just days before an election, makes me more excited and proud to be part of this democracy than any movement or phenomenon – this represents an indisputably true American spirit.
It's a typical weekday: sitting in the library after class, before sports, internet open, trying to catch up on the world that jogged by as I sat in class.
I logged into Facebook today to see Scott Brown’s smiling photo. I browsed Youtube, Fox News, and CNN to see Scott Brown calling on ME to Volunteer Today! Me the unregistered, out-of-state student?
My eyes gleamed gazing at the ad; it was late at night, I felt motivated, daring, adventurous and clicked the ad. Next thing I knew I was whizzing along the virtual highway, pictures and colors forming before my eyes (because dorm internet is slow), straight to a volunteer’s form asking me for my name and email. “We need your help!” it says.
I’m curious about this guy. Does he have anything to do with the open senate seat? I pull up Youtube and, three seconds later, I’m watching him engage in intense debate with his opponents Coakley and Kennedy. His charisma is powerful, his views are well presented, and I search for Scott Brown on google. I read the Wikipedia page that springs before me. He will be the vote to break a Democrat cloture on the health care reform bill? I click the footnote at the bottom of the page, linking me to the Boston Globe senate race site.
From there on forth, through links to articles, pictures, interviews, more debates, advertisements, rebuttal-ads, and video bloggers, I let myself loose on this wild goose chase of information through the virtual landscape in the early morning, becoming as informed about his record, his policy, the issues, his opponents, and the polls as any Massachusetts voter could be. I’m on Twitter and Facebook talking about the senate race; people respond and we debate. I’m up writing a blog and posting videos about Scott Brown. I get an email alert about breaking news: Obama will be speaking with Coakley. I see a picture of Brown with Juliani on Boston Streets. I feel like I’m involved with the campaign, becoming more aware, knowledgeable. The campaign and all its drama is unfolding before me, on a screen, in my dorm room, late at night.
In such a short time, I came to feel like a part of a great story; I realize the tremendous power of links, of videos, of online radio, of online recruiting. Other ordinary people, not just the news or film crews, are involved just like me. I saw a creative advertisement against Brown created by ordinary citizens under name of ‘Democrats united against the Evil Empire’.
An unaffiliated joke attack ad. The quote at the end is great too.
Blogs have poured their energy and focus into the race, ranging from conservative political blogs, The Hope For America, to news and trivia blogs like WizBang.
On Google, the automatic constantly updates Twitter posts about Coakley, presenting a chain of links as hundreds of tweets by Americans fly by as new tweets appear on the screen. Ordinary people are just as fired up about a drama, an election as the candidates themselves, and they too have created a means to express and rally audiences, becoming as great a part of the political process as any.
The political machine, enhanced by the internet, is frightening in its volume and awesome in its power (‘awesome’ in its original meaning). I had never heard of Scott Brown or Coakley until last week, and I had never been in Massachusetts until this summer, let alone thought about it; somehow, today, I know more about the issues and am more involved in a Massachusetts campaign than I have been for any school leadership campaign or club election even though in school I was directly affected and immediately surrounded by the issues, and friends with candidates. The power of the media in spreading a message, inspiring a political base, and rallying support to the most distanced or ignorant of audiences is greater than what most direct human interaction can achieve.
To me, as an American, this empowerment and force in motion, just days before an election, makes me more excited and proud to be part of this democracy than any movement or phenomenon – this represents an indisputably true American spirit.
My experience with Chinese censorship
Run-ins with censorship and a Sinified propaganda model in China may be worthy of several blog posts, but my encounters with internet and TV censorship are by far the most profound and worthy of today's discussion.
The most obvious form of censorship is when the government blocks a website outright. I remember the years of painful research in tenth and eleventh grade when Wikipedia was blocked, and the days that entertainment and social lives mourned when YouTube and Facebook died to all of us behind the Great Firewall. Self-censorship required for Google, Wikipedia, and Yahoo to remain viewable in China did not really affect the content any of us viewed. Very little other than items we rarely browsed for, such as Tiananmen Massacre, Free Tibet, and Amnesty International, were censored if we used the ‘.com’ and not ‘.cn’ Chinese versions of search engines.
None of theis censorships hit home until my last few months in China when Facebook and Youtube were blocked. Atthat time, there were dozens of unconventional means of viewing a video or Facebook photo: Proxy server websites, downloadable programs, and the uncensored internet connections of my parent’s office or US embassy affiliated school.
Today, my brothers in China are finding it increasingly difficult to find any proxy servers or firewall-bypassing programs that the government hasn’t found and learned to block. BBC, Twitter, and even my iTunes store were blocked in following months. I believe the ridiculous justification given for closing off iTunes and its heavenly gateway to all that is media on earth related to a Free Tibet group posting a free single among the millions of media files available for sale that Chinese do not even use. The intensified constriction of approved media was too little, too late for there to be any profound impact on my life. However, now that I am in the US, chatting on Facebook and downloading on iTunes, I can never imagine crawling back behind the iron curtain of media that is China.
TV censorship had its own impact on my life. Chinese authorities regulate public television media exposure through state-controlled media stations and easily censored satellite TV. I lived in a gated compound populated almost exclusively by wealthy Chinese and foreigners, almost reminiscent of a nice suburban American neighborhood with gleaming lawns, broad driveways, and trampolines in backyards. It was here that we were privileged to receive satellite TV - a luxury granted by the law to only the homes or offices of the wealthy or expatriates of China.
An illegal satellite on a Shanghai apartment.
A company driver, quite close to our family, bought and installed a satellite dish on his balcony on a Thursday in 2008. He enjoyed HBO and Cinemax for the whole weekend before the Police showed up at his front door and ripped the dish from his railings, slapping him with a moderate fine - nothing more than a thousand dollars. The government recognizes the dangers of having an informed, critical, West-envying local population that could someday undermine its authority. Censors on TV, are an effective way to keep that kind of population from developing.
All we received from the satellite were a few English-speaking channels: HBO, CNN, BBC, Discovery, National Geographic, and Star World (where we watch all our TV shows: American Idol, LOST, etc.) on top of all the local or national Chinese state-run channels. Even with a satellite dish run by our compound manager, the whole selection of eight or so channels were lightly censored because they received signals from a government satellite with the purpose of creating a foreigner-friendly network – apparently our American eyes needed to be censored too. Only one villa near my US embassy school, the official residence of US diplomatic families, received the US Armed Forces Network and all the uncensored news and shows that come with it as part of international diplomatic agreements.
It was a lazy Beijing Sunday afternoon in March, and all the news stations were blasting news of the riots in Tibet. CNN was covering the military lockdown, martial law, and riots through a reporter in the nearby province of Sichuan during the media lockdown of Tibet. The reporter, standing in front of a brick home, hears locals yelling at him from behind calling him a liar, he feels a little threatened and says the locals are reacting to news reports of Chinese media lying about the riots. The screen of my TV goes black with only the sound of static to go with it. I flip to BBC, and it too is blacked out. A day later, I go online to CNN.com and see a video of an anchorman reporting CNN being blacked out in China. The last part of this video shows the blacked out screens.
I was a little scared to know that all times in past years when I thought the satellite connection was bad, may actually have been government censors pushing buttons to cut me off from something important. This was censorship in its most visible form.
To put this into perspective, vertical integration of media companies in the US seems like the Great Plains compared to the state-influenced national media in China that practically owns and displaces any provincial or local reporting. In my ten years in China, it seems that all meaningful international coverage for Chinese people comes from the national channel CCTV - both heavily regulated and heavily aligned with government interests.
While I did not watch Obama’s inauguration on a local Chinese channel, I have seen instances on CCTV where speeches and interviews were cut off as such.
After Obama mentioned 'facing down fascism and communism' in his address, the address stops, the translator fades, and the anchor awkwardly calls out to an analyst on standby, stuttering as she asks "what difficulties Obama will face with regards to the US economy?” in her attempt to fill air time. What is most surprising is that she, instead of being suprised at the censorhip cut off, recognizes the censorship and moves to make the censorship more effective by switching topics to take attention off the topics.
A certain level of self-censorship based on a nationally recognized ‘code of appropriate reporting’ is most evident here – it is similar to any unwritten code of professionalism ingrained into any businesses and individual: A respect for authority and to report what is only appropriate. There are consequences for falling out of line with such a code – losing a job or right to broadcast – but there is almost support instead of mere compliance among the media for such reporting modesty. Perhaps they feel responsible to the people for keeping the media appropriate? All media companies are still somewhat privately owned, but the highly effective combination of fear of government and respect for this code seem to maintain high levels of self-censorship within all outlets.
With movies, because the government has some control over their official distribution - to be separated from the widely and cheaply available pirated market – they too can be censored. Politically sensitive movies such as Seven Years in Tibet or 100 Days in Peking will never be found at local cinemas alongside other Hollywood creations. American movies make up more than half of the shows found at cinemas in China, so censorship is taken very serious. The most hilarious and annoying instance of movie censorship I encountered was visiting the cinema to watch Pirates of the Caribbean 3. I had seen the movie previously so I knew the characters and the plot. I also remembered Chow-Yun-Fat’s role in the movie as an Asian Pirate.
Chow Yun Fat in Pirates of the Caribbean
In the middle of a dialogue with Chow Yun Fat, the movie jumps almost ten minutes ahead, completely skipping the rest of his scene. I noticed a few awkward side-glances from people further down in the audience at the huge skip in the plot. Chow is not even portrayed as a Chinese citizen, nor does he say anything slanderous, even slightly, toward Chinese. Apparently to the authorities, it seemed that the notion of a dirty, immoral, law-evading Asian pirate was just too inappropriate for the Chinese people to even consider for two hours in a tale of fiction.
All in all, the various forms of censorship seem to stem directly from government control and mandates to limit the type and content of media distribution available to the Chinese public. While blacking out channels and banning websites is a much more visible form of censorship, the physical limitation of available channels and media content through self-censorship present the most effective means of limiting the “dangerous and inappropriate” media exposure of the Chinese people.
To constantly censor and control the media is one of China’s greatest domestic policy goals. Authorities recognize the power that the media has in fostering ideas of freedom of expression, government accountability, and the truth, and all the changes that such ideas will cause. I resent the nationalization of local media, increased government powers to regulate the media - even if only benevolently - and any media moral code or conformity, because in China, these are all that keep the population silenced to the oppression and injustices of their own government.
The most obvious form of censorship is when the government blocks a website outright. I remember the years of painful research in tenth and eleventh grade when Wikipedia was blocked, and the days that entertainment and social lives mourned when YouTube and Facebook died to all of us behind the Great Firewall. Self-censorship required for Google, Wikipedia, and Yahoo to remain viewable in China did not really affect the content any of us viewed. Very little other than items we rarely browsed for, such as Tiananmen Massacre, Free Tibet, and Amnesty International, were censored if we used the ‘.com’ and not ‘.cn’ Chinese versions of search engines.
None of theis censorships hit home until my last few months in China when Facebook and Youtube were blocked. Atthat time, there were dozens of unconventional means of viewing a video or Facebook photo: Proxy server websites, downloadable programs, and the uncensored internet connections of my parent’s office or US embassy affiliated school.
Today, my brothers in China are finding it increasingly difficult to find any proxy servers or firewall-bypassing programs that the government hasn’t found and learned to block. BBC, Twitter, and even my iTunes store were blocked in following months. I believe the ridiculous justification given for closing off iTunes and its heavenly gateway to all that is media on earth related to a Free Tibet group posting a free single among the millions of media files available for sale that Chinese do not even use. The intensified constriction of approved media was too little, too late for there to be any profound impact on my life. However, now that I am in the US, chatting on Facebook and downloading on iTunes, I can never imagine crawling back behind the iron curtain of media that is China.
TV censorship had its own impact on my life. Chinese authorities regulate public television media exposure through state-controlled media stations and easily censored satellite TV. I lived in a gated compound populated almost exclusively by wealthy Chinese and foreigners, almost reminiscent of a nice suburban American neighborhood with gleaming lawns, broad driveways, and trampolines in backyards. It was here that we were privileged to receive satellite TV - a luxury granted by the law to only the homes or offices of the wealthy or expatriates of China.
An illegal satellite on a Shanghai apartment.
A company driver, quite close to our family, bought and installed a satellite dish on his balcony on a Thursday in 2008. He enjoyed HBO and Cinemax for the whole weekend before the Police showed up at his front door and ripped the dish from his railings, slapping him with a moderate fine - nothing more than a thousand dollars. The government recognizes the dangers of having an informed, critical, West-envying local population that could someday undermine its authority. Censors on TV, are an effective way to keep that kind of population from developing.
All we received from the satellite were a few English-speaking channels: HBO, CNN, BBC, Discovery, National Geographic, and Star World (where we watch all our TV shows: American Idol, LOST, etc.) on top of all the local or national Chinese state-run channels. Even with a satellite dish run by our compound manager, the whole selection of eight or so channels were lightly censored because they received signals from a government satellite with the purpose of creating a foreigner-friendly network – apparently our American eyes needed to be censored too. Only one villa near my US embassy school, the official residence of US diplomatic families, received the US Armed Forces Network and all the uncensored news and shows that come with it as part of international diplomatic agreements.
It was a lazy Beijing Sunday afternoon in March, and all the news stations were blasting news of the riots in Tibet. CNN was covering the military lockdown, martial law, and riots through a reporter in the nearby province of Sichuan during the media lockdown of Tibet. The reporter, standing in front of a brick home, hears locals yelling at him from behind calling him a liar, he feels a little threatened and says the locals are reacting to news reports of Chinese media lying about the riots. The screen of my TV goes black with only the sound of static to go with it. I flip to BBC, and it too is blacked out. A day later, I go online to CNN.com and see a video of an anchorman reporting CNN being blacked out in China. The last part of this video shows the blacked out screens.
I was a little scared to know that all times in past years when I thought the satellite connection was bad, may actually have been government censors pushing buttons to cut me off from something important. This was censorship in its most visible form.
To put this into perspective, vertical integration of media companies in the US seems like the Great Plains compared to the state-influenced national media in China that practically owns and displaces any provincial or local reporting. In my ten years in China, it seems that all meaningful international coverage for Chinese people comes from the national channel CCTV - both heavily regulated and heavily aligned with government interests.
While I did not watch Obama’s inauguration on a local Chinese channel, I have seen instances on CCTV where speeches and interviews were cut off as such.
After Obama mentioned 'facing down fascism and communism' in his address, the address stops, the translator fades, and the anchor awkwardly calls out to an analyst on standby, stuttering as she asks "what difficulties Obama will face with regards to the US economy?” in her attempt to fill air time. What is most surprising is that she, instead of being suprised at the censorhip cut off, recognizes the censorship and moves to make the censorship more effective by switching topics to take attention off the topics.
A certain level of self-censorship based on a nationally recognized ‘code of appropriate reporting’ is most evident here – it is similar to any unwritten code of professionalism ingrained into any businesses and individual: A respect for authority and to report what is only appropriate. There are consequences for falling out of line with such a code – losing a job or right to broadcast – but there is almost support instead of mere compliance among the media for such reporting modesty. Perhaps they feel responsible to the people for keeping the media appropriate? All media companies are still somewhat privately owned, but the highly effective combination of fear of government and respect for this code seem to maintain high levels of self-censorship within all outlets.
With movies, because the government has some control over their official distribution - to be separated from the widely and cheaply available pirated market – they too can be censored. Politically sensitive movies such as Seven Years in Tibet or 100 Days in Peking will never be found at local cinemas alongside other Hollywood creations. American movies make up more than half of the shows found at cinemas in China, so censorship is taken very serious. The most hilarious and annoying instance of movie censorship I encountered was visiting the cinema to watch Pirates of the Caribbean 3. I had seen the movie previously so I knew the characters and the plot. I also remembered Chow-Yun-Fat’s role in the movie as an Asian Pirate.
Chow Yun Fat in Pirates of the Caribbean
In the middle of a dialogue with Chow Yun Fat, the movie jumps almost ten minutes ahead, completely skipping the rest of his scene. I noticed a few awkward side-glances from people further down in the audience at the huge skip in the plot. Chow is not even portrayed as a Chinese citizen, nor does he say anything slanderous, even slightly, toward Chinese. Apparently to the authorities, it seemed that the notion of a dirty, immoral, law-evading Asian pirate was just too inappropriate for the Chinese people to even consider for two hours in a tale of fiction.
All in all, the various forms of censorship seem to stem directly from government control and mandates to limit the type and content of media distribution available to the Chinese public. While blacking out channels and banning websites is a much more visible form of censorship, the physical limitation of available channels and media content through self-censorship present the most effective means of limiting the “dangerous and inappropriate” media exposure of the Chinese people.
To constantly censor and control the media is one of China’s greatest domestic policy goals. Authorities recognize the power that the media has in fostering ideas of freedom of expression, government accountability, and the truth, and all the changes that such ideas will cause. I resent the nationalization of local media, increased government powers to regulate the media - even if only benevolently - and any media moral code or conformity, because in China, these are all that keep the population silenced to the oppression and injustices of their own government.
09 January, 2010
Idaho Wolf Hunt and Media Involvement
Last semester when I was investigating for an article I was writing about the Idaho Grey Wolf open season, I encountered a shocking variety of media relating specifically to the hunt.
The issue was related to the delisting of the Grey Wolf from the Endangered Species Act, and then the start of an open season on the wolf by Idaho.
There were websites detailing the legal proceedings of the lawsuits that followed the delisting. There was a website posting a letter to the Secretary of State from a non-profit environmentalist group. There were even more articles and pages detailing the factual aspects of the delisting and wolf hunt. But what I was most surprised by was firstly, the government’s usage of the internet to deliver information, and the public’s use of the internet as a means of expressing an emotional response.
Idaho has a population of 1.5 million people – slightly more than the Bronx Borough of New York City – yet the state has a range of online information services that has almost become essential to my own life when in and outside of Idaho.
The Idaho Fish and Game agency within its already minimal government is able to manage an extensive website that provides huge amounts of information.
Specifically relating to the hunting of the grey wolf, Idaho Fish and Game provides hunt information ranging from wolf hunting regulations, a map and chart of updated wolf kills by region, and even specific hunting tips. Since there is a limit to the number of wolves that can be killed in each region, the updated map allows hunters to check up in real time if the season has been closed or not in their area. Considering that the wolf hunt, because of its sensitivity, is heavily regulated and monitored, the regulations page contains the myriad of mandatory legal information for any person who is in a wolf hunting zone.
Purely through the use of the internet, any novice hunter can be prepared with wolf hunting skills, season information and legal regulations needed to be a responsible outdoor gamesman. Any such situation, especially for backcountry residents who do not rely on the internet, would be unimaginable just ten years ago.
The public has been able to use the internet to, with little or no coordination, effectively create a strong emotional response to the hunt. Environmentalist groups have paved the way with an established forum and base support group to provide a backlash against the hunt. The Defenders of Wildlife video below is just one example of the ways in which an organization is able to utilize media and the internet to rally for a cause completely free from any traditional media spaces such as the radio talk shows, television stations, newspaper editorials.
Social networking and blogging sites have been the central medium through which responses to the wolf hunts was rallied.
Facebook opposition groups such as ‘Call off the Guns’, ‘Stop the Wolf Hunts in Idaho’, and ‘Wolf Massacre’, and even anti-wolf groups ‘Anti-Wolf Idaho’ and ‘Transplant Idaho’s wolves to Central Park’, have rallied a few thousand people to their causes. Separate Facebook groups supporting some legendary individual wolf packs even exist! Proclaimed environmentalist blogs such as The Alternative Consumer or Ralph Maghaun’s Wildlife News (interesting photo) have provided a new forum for wolf related comments and debates, all outside the confines of any financially or physically restrictive media establishment.
The issue was related to the delisting of the Grey Wolf from the Endangered Species Act, and then the start of an open season on the wolf by Idaho.
There were websites detailing the legal proceedings of the lawsuits that followed the delisting. There was a website posting a letter to the Secretary of State from a non-profit environmentalist group. There were even more articles and pages detailing the factual aspects of the delisting and wolf hunt. But what I was most surprised by was firstly, the government’s usage of the internet to deliver information, and the public’s use of the internet as a means of expressing an emotional response.
Idaho has a population of 1.5 million people – slightly more than the Bronx Borough of New York City – yet the state has a range of online information services that has almost become essential to my own life when in and outside of Idaho.
The Idaho Fish and Game agency within its already minimal government is able to manage an extensive website that provides huge amounts of information.
Specifically relating to the hunting of the grey wolf, Idaho Fish and Game provides hunt information ranging from wolf hunting regulations, a map and chart of updated wolf kills by region, and even specific hunting tips. Since there is a limit to the number of wolves that can be killed in each region, the updated map allows hunters to check up in real time if the season has been closed or not in their area. Considering that the wolf hunt, because of its sensitivity, is heavily regulated and monitored, the regulations page contains the myriad of mandatory legal information for any person who is in a wolf hunting zone.
Purely through the use of the internet, any novice hunter can be prepared with wolf hunting skills, season information and legal regulations needed to be a responsible outdoor gamesman. Any such situation, especially for backcountry residents who do not rely on the internet, would be unimaginable just ten years ago.
The public has been able to use the internet to, with little or no coordination, effectively create a strong emotional response to the hunt. Environmentalist groups have paved the way with an established forum and base support group to provide a backlash against the hunt. The Defenders of Wildlife video below is just one example of the ways in which an organization is able to utilize media and the internet to rally for a cause completely free from any traditional media spaces such as the radio talk shows, television stations, newspaper editorials.
Social networking and blogging sites have been the central medium through which responses to the wolf hunts was rallied.
Facebook opposition groups such as ‘Call off the Guns’, ‘Stop the Wolf Hunts in Idaho’, and ‘Wolf Massacre’, and even anti-wolf groups ‘Anti-Wolf Idaho’ and ‘Transplant Idaho’s wolves to Central Park’, have rallied a few thousand people to their causes. Separate Facebook groups supporting some legendary individual wolf packs even exist! Proclaimed environmentalist blogs such as The Alternative Consumer or Ralph Maghaun’s Wildlife News (interesting photo) have provided a new forum for wolf related comments and debates, all outside the confines of any financially or physically restrictive media establishment.
Facebook Privacy Concerns: PR
Relating to in class discussion: Facebook has apparently recognized the privacy concerns with regards to indexing for search engines. Whether or not the following explanation addresses all of these concerns or includes certain loopholes, I am not sure.
2012 has already arrived for print newspapers
My central Idaho hometown newspaper serves only the tiniest of high-alpine, rural valley towns. Surrounded by cattle ranches and miles of untouched mountain forests, the local source of news has not changed since the first family-owned presses went into being in the region. As I discovered on New Year’s Day, seeing it on the screen of an iPhone, like so many other newspapers in America, the Idaho Mountain Express has gone online.
The media’s most dramatic trend is the decline in print newspaper readership and advertising revenues, and the response of newspaper companies publishing content online. The effect of the declining readership has been devastating, and the decline of print news will forever change the media landscape.
Nationwide online newspaper readership has grown 11 percent year over year, faster than the increase the growth in total active Internet users which was 3 percent, according to research by Nielsen/NetRatings. According to the study, one out of four American Internet users consumes their news from online sources.
The rise of internet news production relates to its convenience of access, immediate reporting, and selectivity by readers. Internet sites also offer interactivity such as article forwarding, blogging, comments, streaming video and audio clips which make the experience all the more enjoyable online. Readers today also receive news almost instantly upon any amount of engagement with the internet on their handheld devices or email.
Just four decades ago, all consumers of news relied on print media or radio broadcasts. The growth of a new source of news has reduced traditional print newspaper readership. The Audit Bureau of Circulations reported that newspaper circulation fell 2.6 percent among the top 20 largest newspapers in the U.S. in just six months, the largest drop recorded in two decades.
The rise in alternate sources of news and demise of newspaper readership has, in turn, caused advertising revenues to fall so low so that they can longer support the print publication and original gathering of news. Traditionally, print publication was the favorite medium for advertisers to effectively reach target audiences.
Today, with the decline in readership, and increase of alternate advertising mediums, companies are not willing to pay large sums of money for advertisements, if they choose to do so at all. Since their peak in 2005, nationwide advertising revenues have fallen by one third and see no end. In 2009, revenues continued to decline by 21 per cent according to the Financial Times. As a result, some of the largest newspapers in the country such as the LA Times and Chicago Tribune, all part of Tribune, are joining the ranks of more than a dozen local newspapers that are folding all over the country every year. Oversupply, in combination with declining newspaper readership, is killing any demand for advertising.
As people turn to online sources of information, the biggest online newspapers will attract the bulk of new readership with near instantaneous reporting and greater selection of news articles, editorials, blogs, videos and pictures. With the playing field no longer equalized by the quality of the product that rolls off the presses every morning, the biggest losers will most clearly be local newspapers.
Presently all solutions to the problem seem to breed government dependence or require the abolition of highly localized news reporting. French government authorities have injected $776 million over three years, doubling government advertising and offering tax breaks for the investments of newspaper publishers. Local publishers have lobbied the British Parliament to reduce anti-trust legislation and allow newspaper consolidation to increase newspaper size and monopoly power. It is not that large newspapers don’t already exist, but both of these potential solutions require a dangerous dependence on government – dangerous because the newspaper plays the central role in holding all levels of government accountable. Also, unless economic utility is completely disregarded by government policy, larger newspapers will be favored and smaller newspapers will grow in size, ultimately destroying localized news reporting.
This is just a brief overview of the declining readership, advertising revenues, and circulation – all part of a phenomenon that is reshaping the American media landscape – an example of 21st century change that may not be for the best.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d00f013a-1261-11de-b816-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
http://news.cnet.com/Study-Online-newspapers-flourish/2100-1025_3-5953393.html
The media’s most dramatic trend is the decline in print newspaper readership and advertising revenues, and the response of newspaper companies publishing content online. The effect of the declining readership has been devastating, and the decline of print news will forever change the media landscape.
Nationwide online newspaper readership has grown 11 percent year over year, faster than the increase the growth in total active Internet users which was 3 percent, according to research by Nielsen/NetRatings. According to the study, one out of four American Internet users consumes their news from online sources.
The rise of internet news production relates to its convenience of access, immediate reporting, and selectivity by readers. Internet sites also offer interactivity such as article forwarding, blogging, comments, streaming video and audio clips which make the experience all the more enjoyable online. Readers today also receive news almost instantly upon any amount of engagement with the internet on their handheld devices or email.
Just four decades ago, all consumers of news relied on print media or radio broadcasts. The growth of a new source of news has reduced traditional print newspaper readership. The Audit Bureau of Circulations reported that newspaper circulation fell 2.6 percent among the top 20 largest newspapers in the U.S. in just six months, the largest drop recorded in two decades.
The rise in alternate sources of news and demise of newspaper readership has, in turn, caused advertising revenues to fall so low so that they can longer support the print publication and original gathering of news. Traditionally, print publication was the favorite medium for advertisers to effectively reach target audiences.
Today, with the decline in readership, and increase of alternate advertising mediums, companies are not willing to pay large sums of money for advertisements, if they choose to do so at all. Since their peak in 2005, nationwide advertising revenues have fallen by one third and see no end. In 2009, revenues continued to decline by 21 per cent according to the Financial Times. As a result, some of the largest newspapers in the country such as the LA Times and Chicago Tribune, all part of Tribune, are joining the ranks of more than a dozen local newspapers that are folding all over the country every year. Oversupply, in combination with declining newspaper readership, is killing any demand for advertising.
As people turn to online sources of information, the biggest online newspapers will attract the bulk of new readership with near instantaneous reporting and greater selection of news articles, editorials, blogs, videos and pictures. With the playing field no longer equalized by the quality of the product that rolls off the presses every morning, the biggest losers will most clearly be local newspapers.
Presently all solutions to the problem seem to breed government dependence or require the abolition of highly localized news reporting. French government authorities have injected $776 million over three years, doubling government advertising and offering tax breaks for the investments of newspaper publishers. Local publishers have lobbied the British Parliament to reduce anti-trust legislation and allow newspaper consolidation to increase newspaper size and monopoly power. It is not that large newspapers don’t already exist, but both of these potential solutions require a dangerous dependence on government – dangerous because the newspaper plays the central role in holding all levels of government accountable. Also, unless economic utility is completely disregarded by government policy, larger newspapers will be favored and smaller newspapers will grow in size, ultimately destroying localized news reporting.
This is just a brief overview of the declining readership, advertising revenues, and circulation – all part of a phenomenon that is reshaping the American media landscape – an example of 21st century change that may not be for the best.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d00f013a-1261-11de-b816-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
http://news.cnet.com/Study-Online-newspapers-flourish/2100-1025_3-5953393.html
06 January, 2010
My Media Meal
Everyday I consume a variety of media, ranging from healthy news, well-done articles, loaves of shows and videos, and a bit of sweet music to top it off. This healthy diet of media consumption also comes hand in hand with social media consumption.
My healthy portion of news consumption happens usually only twice a day, once after or between classes, and late at night. I make it a daily habit of screening CNN, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. I do not rule out Foxnews as a source of news, which I check the most often, because many of Foxnews' exclusive stories. Other news agencies often have overlapping headlines and stories, but the stories chosen by Foxnews are often of little interest to non-conservative audiences, and thus often not reported. Foxnews often has the most political headlines of any agency, especially in the recent year, which allows me to get my daily dose of exclusive political, conservative-interest stories. I do not take any reporting at face value, and I am very careful about differentiating hard news from opinion stories and articles with unreliable sources or a biased angle.
My consumption of music is much like the consumption of sweets: always done in moderation, suited to the occasion, pleasing for the mind, and of high taste. However, the music that I have collected over the years, has not always come from the most legal of sources. Growing up in China, purchasing real, imported CDs (with huge import duties) is especially hard to do - they are hard to find, selection is poor, they are incredibly expensive, and many of the real CDs end up being really good fakes. Online options, such as iTunes are mostly blocked by the government. It becomes impossible to wait until you to leave the country in a years time just to download that song you heard on the radio.
Videos make up the fiber and energy of my media consumption. Before this year when I lived in China, my daily routine consisted of one hour of some fascinating Discovery Channel show and one more hour of some miscellaneous TV show; most likely a 'House' or 'Grey's Anatomy'. In winter months, there was of course the biweekly 'American Idol' appointment. All of these shows were, of course, imported to China for Americans only and occasionally interrupted by government censors. For favorite family shows, we would always buy complete TV show series on DVD, usually pirated in China, complete with Chinese subtitles for my aunt, just a week after the season finale for typically less than five dollars a season.
After arriving at boarding school, my video consumption slowed almost to a standstill. Aside from watching news clips online and the once-weekly roommate video night, I don't consume videos at all.
My consumption of well-done articles, as opposed to raw or medium rare, mainly comes from subscriptions to the financial times online, or an intriguing The Economist that a friend may scan for me on the weekends.
Facebook, Twitter, other networking sites, and email helps me absorb social information. I do receive news and articles through this, but through this, I become a producer of media. Aside from posting political cartoons, news links, and interesting pictures on my home page, I write messages to friends, but most importantly, little political quotes or news blips as statuses, just to keep friends up to date with issues I care about.
My healthy portion of news consumption happens usually only twice a day, once after or between classes, and late at night. I make it a daily habit of screening CNN, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. I do not rule out Foxnews as a source of news, which I check the most often, because many of Foxnews' exclusive stories. Other news agencies often have overlapping headlines and stories, but the stories chosen by Foxnews are often of little interest to non-conservative audiences, and thus often not reported. Foxnews often has the most political headlines of any agency, especially in the recent year, which allows me to get my daily dose of exclusive political, conservative-interest stories. I do not take any reporting at face value, and I am very careful about differentiating hard news from opinion stories and articles with unreliable sources or a biased angle.
My consumption of music is much like the consumption of sweets: always done in moderation, suited to the occasion, pleasing for the mind, and of high taste. However, the music that I have collected over the years, has not always come from the most legal of sources. Growing up in China, purchasing real, imported CDs (with huge import duties) is especially hard to do - they are hard to find, selection is poor, they are incredibly expensive, and many of the real CDs end up being really good fakes. Online options, such as iTunes are mostly blocked by the government. It becomes impossible to wait until you to leave the country in a years time just to download that song you heard on the radio.
Videos make up the fiber and energy of my media consumption. Before this year when I lived in China, my daily routine consisted of one hour of some fascinating Discovery Channel show and one more hour of some miscellaneous TV show; most likely a 'House' or 'Grey's Anatomy'. In winter months, there was of course the biweekly 'American Idol' appointment. All of these shows were, of course, imported to China for Americans only and occasionally interrupted by government censors. For favorite family shows, we would always buy complete TV show series on DVD, usually pirated in China, complete with Chinese subtitles for my aunt, just a week after the season finale for typically less than five dollars a season.
After arriving at boarding school, my video consumption slowed almost to a standstill. Aside from watching news clips online and the once-weekly roommate video night, I don't consume videos at all.
My consumption of well-done articles, as opposed to raw or medium rare, mainly comes from subscriptions to the financial times online, or an intriguing The Economist that a friend may scan for me on the weekends.
Facebook, Twitter, other networking sites, and email helps me absorb social information. I do receive news and articles through this, but through this, I become a producer of media. Aside from posting political cartoons, news links, and interesting pictures on my home page, I write messages to friends, but most importantly, little political quotes or news blips as statuses, just to keep friends up to date with issues I care about.
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