Amazing Super Cool Awesome Fun Stellar Blog

K THX BAI!

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:19:52 GMT

в англоязычном сегменте ЖеЖе тоже волны эмоций:

Blogged with Flock

Paper abstract

Sun, 02 Dec 2007 18:20:20 GMT

The development of new internet-based technologies in the classroom has presented educators with both pedagogical challenges and promises as the role and nature of web-based modes of learning are implemented and contested. Since the internet is such a vast conceptual metaphor, encompassing everything from online gambling, to electronic commerce, to virtual global classroom learning exchanges, any investigation into its pedagogical merits needs to be focused in terms of specific component aspects of “the internet”. Through the lens of Freirean critical pedagogy, this paper will propose that an examination of the element of the internet known as the social web presents the possibility to promote the educational function of dialogue, in its inherent encouragement of social networking among users. In this manner, it is argued, the social web mediates the exchange of knowledge crucial to the promotion of increased understanding of others, and of one’s world, and empowers learners with a robust means of democratic social engagement consistent with the aims of critical pedagogy.

And here's a presentation about my paper:

Here's some links of interest (unrelated to my paper)
http://www.cbc.ca/searchengine/blog/2007/11/last_chance_to_ask_the_industr.html

http://www.buynlarge.com/

No more water cooler chats

Sun, 25 Nov 2007 22:23:27 GMT

Rob Cover’s article Audence inter/active really spoke to me and I found it to be one of the most interesting articles yet. He won me off the bat with his treatment of how interactivity has become a cliché; and how it is a term that is hard to capture and define.

The struggle between the author and the audience is a relatively new struggle and I like the play that is involved there. The primary reason I am interested in interactive story telling is that it is always a give and take between the content creator and the consumer. A good storyteller is a good storyteller ant I think that that alone needs to be respected; but the end user of the story also knows what they like and that too needs to be respected. Cover argues that it’s all about balance and I couldn’t agree more.

I appreciate how Cover separates technology from interactivity (well, he builds off of others to be fair) as it’s too often that people associated the too. New technology doesn’t inherently mean more interactivity; it’s how the technology is used that dictates its usefulness for interactive elements be they part of a conversation of a story, or even an idea.

When the person receiving the story can reedit the story it opens aspects of storytelling that were previously unknown before. What if after you saw a movie you could reedit it and then send it back to the director? It could be possible to take a awful movie like Godzilla and turn it into something the caliber of Eraser Head. This would be done entirely by using other people’s footage. This allows for entirely new stories, messages, narratives, and os on to be created (or manifested) to show other people their unique take on somebody else’s work.

How is that experience actually shared though? If people continually edit what they experience into something that they control, what common ground is there? What is boils down to is what commonality is there between people who are only exposed to what they want to be exposed to. Does remix end discourse if the discourse is only between the content producer and the remixer?

Race, Meetings, and First!

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:35:16 GMT

2nd life and race:
"Many of us have changed race today in honor of Martin Luther King Day
(also in honor of a Darfur/Sudanese rally happening in DC as we speak
that some of us have worked on)."

Top 10 Things Female Gamers Hear on Xbox Live - I was mistaken, this blogger made the comments about balls. Xbox Live is an online gaming network for Xbox users. As an aside, it's fair to say based on sales that Xbox = male and the Wii = female. I should also mention that I have a Wii.

What if meetings were like conversations on the internet

First:

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 00:01:06 GMT

I really enjoyed this weeks reading selections. The issues of gender and race identity is something that crosses my mind only occasionally while I’m online, but that may have to do with the fact that I am obviously a white male. That being said, I know that some of the sites I frequent online are visited more by males than females.

I’ve never been one for separating the body from the experience of going online no matter how you cut it, on the other end of the screen is a human being (unless you know that your actually playing/communicating with a bot). Boler’s exploration of the concept of the Cartesian self was rather an enjoyable read; marketers selling their ridiculous wares through their even more ridiculous ad campaigns has also bothered me. Boler’s article allowed me to actually explore why I feel that way. The fact that the marketers are openly discouraging face to face interaction is absolutely fascinating (especially since word of mouth advertising is still important) and the mock ads really highlighted how despondent marketers actually are to human interaction. Neoliberalism is based off of exploitation though, and the internet age as allowed people to exploit human interactions in a way never though possible before by selling the idea that conversations in themselves need to be made efficient, not relished.

The way that people were represented in those ads was rather disconcerting. I’ve previously brushed technology related ads into the same camp as all other ads; that is to say, I’d just try to ignore them. In the context of the cyber-champions, these ads are given a level of importance (and danger) that other ads do not contain. Concerns of normalization are present here in these ads, as they are when discussing race. The idea that “on the internet nobody knows you’re a dog” is not one to be as taken lightly as the New Yorker cartoon suggests. By stripping people of their identity online, it can actually inflict more harm, and this weeks readings really drove that home.

While reading Nolan’s piece I kept getting stuck in the construction of language. He derides computer technology because it was based on the English language – indeed, a form of neo-colonialism. Here’s an example of some perl code:

sub start {

my ( $expat, $element, %attrval ) = @_;

if ( $element eq 'Comp' and $element_stack[ -1 ] eq 'entities' ) {

print "$attrval{ id }\n";
}

push @element_stack, $element;
}

sub end {

my ( $expat, $element ) = @_;

pop @element_stack;
}

There are English words in there, but their context is impossible to decipher unless you know the language of Perl. Nolan also mentioned that the 26 letter alphabet frames how much information we can send, but perl, php, etc. all make use of every key on the keyboard including the seldom used ~. Computer code is constructed of multiple languages with new ones being created on a regular basis.

If Nolan went to the very etymological route of computer code he would end up with the above code sample in binary:
01110011 01110101 01100010 00100000 01110011 01110100 01100001 01110010 01110100 00100000 01111011 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 00100000 00100000 00100000 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 00101000 00100000 00100100 01100101 01111000 01110000 01100001 01110100 00101100 00100000 00100100 01100101 01101100 01100101 01101101 01100101 01101110 01110100 00101100 00100000 00100101 01100001 01110100 01110100 01110010 01110110 01100001 01101100 00100000 00101001 00100000 00111101 00100000 01000000 01011111 00111011 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 00100000 00100000 00100000 00100000 01101001 01100110 00100000 00101000 00100000 00100100 01100101 01101100 01100101 01101101 01100101 01101110 01110100 00100000 01100101 01110001 00100000 00100111 01000011 01101111 01101101 01110000 00100111 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 00100100 01100101 01101100 01100101 01101101 01100101 01101110 01110100 01011111 01110011 01110100 01100001 01100011 01101011 01011011 00100000 00101101 00110001 00100000 01011101 00100000 01100101 01110001 00100000 00100111 01100101 01101110 01110100 01101001 01110100 01101001 01100101 01110011 00100111 00100000 00101001 00100000 01111011 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 00100000 00100000 00100000 00100000 00100000 00100000 00100000 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101001 01101110 01110100 00100000 00100010 00100100 01100001 01110100 01110100 01110010 01110110 01100001 01101100 01111011 00100000 01101001 01100100 00100000 01111101 01011100 01101110 00100010 00111011 00001101 00001010 00100000 00100000 00100000 00100000 01111101 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 00100000 00100000 00100000 00100000 01110000 01110101 01110011 01101000 00100000 01000000 01100101 01101100 01100101 01101101 01100101 01101110 01110100 01011111 01110011 01110100 01100001 01100011 01101011 00101100 00100000 00100100 01100101 01101100 01100101 01101101 01100101 01101110 01110100 00111011 00001101 00001010 01111101 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 01110011 01110101 01100010 00100000 01100101 01101110 01100100 00100000 01111011 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 00100000 00100000 00100000 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 00101000 00100000 00100100 01100101 01111000 01110000 01100001 01110100 00101100 00100000 00100100 01100101 01101100 01100101 01101101 01100101 01101110 01110100 00100000 00101001 00100000 00111101 00100000 01000000 01011111 00111011 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 00100000 00100000 00100000 00100000 01110000 01101111 01110000 00100000 01000000 01100101 01101100 01100101 01101101 01100101 01101110 01110100 01011111 01110011 01110100 01100001 01100011 01101011 00111011 00001101 00001010 01111101

better late than never......

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 18:21:32 GMT

This week’s readings made me think that the fundamental thing that makes or breaks the effectiveness of tactical media is the content itself. The Daily Show was so successful because the content of the show is in itself good; it just happens that they are dealing with content that is not dealt with well anywhere else. The popular news doesn’t deliver any critical analysis of the topics they cover and when they do it tends to be patronizing. People aren’t stupid, when they see the same content mentioned in a competing program and they enjoy the delivery then they’ll not waste their time with the previous dull content delivery.

Look at This Hour Has 22 Minutes, it’s pretty lame and it deals with news as content as well. They use satire, but it’s not nearly as cutting or effective as its American counterparts. Same goes with The Mercer Report, it too fails to tell us anything that is interesting and engaging despite the fact that it is also dealing with topical issues. Satire isn’t the only thing that needs to be interesting in order to be effective; indeed, advertisers have known this little fact for years.

Graham Meikle’s idea of play really speaks to me as I agree that the idea of play is very important. Not only can taking tactical media as play help people engaged with it to better deal with the trials and tribulations, but it can, as Miekle writes provoke “creative engagement with media texts” in a culture based on participatory acts. Satire is play, and I’d argue that this is yet another reason that it has become so successful lately. Mainstream news sources try to cover things “seriously” or “objectively” or “fair and balanced” which is quite clearly all bullshit. The Daily Show celebrates this, it’s playing with the ideas that media pretends to be cannot ever achieve. If TDS portrayed themselves seriously the whole project would fail as the tone of the way the content is delivered would be changed.

Ideally, all news coverage would allow us to play, be challenged, and inspire us to act.

Tactical media?

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 21:08:19 GMT

I couldn’t help but notice that Alessandra Renzi mentioned the telecentres movement. This really resonated with me as I have also contributed to the same movement, and independently have seemed to reach the same conclusions despite the fact that we lead very different lives. The message I got from her chapter was that technology is a good tool to empower people if they know how to use, have access to it, can change it, and can benefit from the technology in the first place. Telecentres embrace that idea and this inherently leads to tactical media.

I didn’t think about how well telecentres capture a lot of what we’ve discussed in class until now, and the more I think about the more telecentres are a prefect exemplar for showing how many abstract issues in media studies are played out on the ground. Renzi mentioned that in Brazil the use of recycled computers and open source software brought people together in a way that was not previously envisioned. That is, that they helped poor people improve their lives by empowering them with information.

Telecentres around the world use tactical media tactics like pirate radio stations, cheap equipment, a DIY attitude and a participating community. In some cases podcasts were downloaded on a computer and then transferred to analog tape cassettes so that illiterate farmers could learn new skills while they are working their fields on tractors. When I was working with the telecentre movement I never viewed this sort of thing as an action that was incorporated with media.

That being said, I was in charge of operating the English telecentre.org site – itslef a media outlet. I was more concerned with ensuring that the community was growing than with ideas of tactical media. That being said, like Renzi, we encouraged the use of free and open source software to lower startup costs. Open source software is important to the telecenters because it allows for the code to be edited and most importantly translated from one language to next. Computers are useless unless you can understand what is being communicated through the screen.

Some seemingly random rambling for kicks:

Before taking this course I had never heard of “tactical media” and for whatever reason (maybe because I play video games and don’t watch TV or something) the first image that came to my mind was a small group of people in camouflage running around with a DV camera, a boom mic, and a notepad. Essentially, a guerilla warfare-esque image of attacking the enemy. When reading Renzi’s overview of TM I felt that my initial reaction wasn’t that far off. In war, guerilla fighters make use of their immediate resources in creative ways, which is exactly what Renzi’s TM fighters do too. To me that is where the likeness begins and ends though: some fighters are trained to kill to fight (for or against) power and TM fighters are self-taught to inform others about power relationships.

Her obsession with looking at power relationships was nice to see as others seem to be missing that, or if they are aware of some power dynamics they brush them aside with unsatisfactory answers. I noticed that Deena posted about the lack of concern about race; I’d say the same is true when it comes to class and other pertinent issues of power. In this vein, Renzi said that she’s from the educated Indian middle class in a powerful economic centre, that is to say for her she arguably benefited from established power structures. (I then forgot where I was going with this so I stopped writing).

Andrew Keen is a joke

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 01:41:44 GMT

I lol'd when I read this:

"First of all, I'm not sure what Keen is talking about when he says we aim to replace news organizations. He's been reading too much Pajamas Media propaganda. But more importantly, it's really too bad that this non-amateur, non-blogger, expert technologists doesn't know how to use Google. Or a web browser."

From here -> http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/10/30/112741/51

Ibrahim, Goodman, and Fernandes

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 17:32:36 GMT

In the collection of interviews we read this week I found some similar themes throughout all of them. The culture and language barrier, access barrier, ignorance of the audience, and that they all were very optimistic about their own cause.

The culture and language barrier was an issue for each person because they are working in one cultural are while wanting to reach a wider audience. Ibrahim was concerned about reaching an English-speaking audience because it is predominately the English speakers that need to be exposed to other points of view when it comes to news. Media concentration in the west has caused one point of view to be prominent and, as a result, all but silenced the opposition. All the interviewees mentioned that getting their causes known about was problematic not just because of media concentration but also because some (if not all) issues need to be communicated in a culturally sensitive way. Conveying the cultural differences can be challenging in itself, capturing the culture and communicating a heavy news piece to another is even more of a challenge. (This issue of course was the least of Goodman’s concerns.)

Access to different viewpoints is something that has become easier thanks to the internet, but access on “old” media is still a challenge. What kind of access I’m talking about is the availability of different channels like Al Jazeera and CNN, and even community run stations. Again, the issue of media ownership concentration is brought up. According to the interviewees, this hinders the ability to broadcast differing opinions to viewers. They make the assumption that greater access equals greater knowledge.

Related to the inability to broadcast to those viewers is that the viewers themselves seem to be unaware of their options. As much as Goodman was going on about the greatness of the internet for dissemination, I can’t help but think about the fact that awareness of these new sources of news may not be high. Granted, some blogs get more readers than major newspapers, it still doesn’t mean that the caliber of the news is any better or worse. Just because there are more venues for spreading information doesn’t mean that there will be more people exploring all of these venues. There is still a reason why The New York Times and New Yorker are regarded as having more prestige than The Drudge Report – it’s because the first two are brands that are widely known. Not only is it important to have different news sources, it’s also important to make sure that people are aware of them.

Reading Ibrahim and Goodman left me feeling very optimistic about the future of journalism. I have to say that after reading them I felt that things are going to be alright, but I can’t help but be a little cynical about the power they say the media hass can be used for good more than it has as

Here are some links for your entertainment

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 14:16:39 GMT

This is perhaps the best article on second life ever written:

"Yesterday I downloaded something called Second Life. It is like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, except you can't shoot anyone, and you can't hit people. You just walk around. There are no prostitutes, and everything costs real money, and you can't rob anyone to get money. You have to use your credit card, with real money, to buy fake money to use in the game. It's not actually like Grand Theft Auto at all."

Web-headlines benefit from passive voice

Research on Social Network Sites

Blogging wants to be open

Sun, 21 Oct 2007 22:11:55 GMT

“A weblog written by a journalist does not necessarily qualify as journalism for the same reason a novel written by a journalist does not: it is the practice that defines the practitioner, not the other way around.”
-Rebecca Blood

I agree with Blood’s statement about journalism and bloggers and that “the vast majority of bloggers will continue to have a very different mandate from journalists.” Being a blogger on multiple sites (one that delivers news) I don’t regard myself as a journalist at all; and if someone tried to criticize me on the grounds that I ought to act like a journalist I’d be rather confused. Blogging as a medium lends itself to a more informal style of writing, and this, I think, has more to do with blogs that capture the inane and banal than the tools provided to blog. One of the beauty of blogs is that one blog can be dedicated to absolutely wonderful pictures of cats while another can be dedicated to ground breaking science. It's also very important to note that writing for an online reader is fundamentally different than writing for a newspaper reader. This post is an example of how not to write for the web, nor a good example of how to write for paper.

Blood’s claim that transparency is the key to ethical blogging is also something that I hold true myself. As long as the blogger is putting as much as possible out there I am happy. Look at the last blog I linked to, did you notice that it’s owned by GE? The GE aspect of the site is not hidden, but it doesn't scream GE. Boing Boing, on the other hand, fully discloses their private interests whenever what they are linking to is something that they are associated with. Being open also makes sense for maintaining readership to provide as much about yourself as a blogger as reasonable. Look how many readers “Kaycee Style” got.

To make a sweeping generalization: in the “new” economy openness will be more valuable than the secrets one keeps. Trust is essential; even if it’s “old” media or “new” media.

I wonder if openness is inherently a part of what Travers Scott calls for in his idea of suprational blogging. I believe it is because if one ought to take into account more than what is traditionally considered rational, one ought to disclose things like how they feel, where their idea comes from and so on; which is similar to Boing Boing (among most other good blogs). This maybe pushing it though, and I’m fine with that.

Some disjointed thoughts that still need to be examined by me:
After reading the PEW studies I can’t help but wonder what affect new internet users will have in the future as some recent studies (can’t recall where the links are) suggest that internet adoption rates have leveled off in North America. How will the web look when non-english bloggers rule the blogs?

All the readings we looked at this week are focused on North America, particularly the USA; it would be great to get more opinions from outside NA. For example, how do people use blogs in China, or Korea? Are Africans more active in political blogging than Canadians?

Another collection of links

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 19:33:51 GMT

Some links from my daily wandering of "teh interwebs"

Some editorial cartoons from the blog "my right wing dad":
1
2
3

Wal-Mart Canada to get narrowcasting digital displays

Reportedly, EK3 Technologies' subsidiary company ShopCast "has signed an exclusive agreement to install EK3 digital merchandising solutions in Wal-Mart Canada stores," which could mean that spots would air based on current buying trends or inventory levels. This dynamic approach to filling customers' heads with ideas of what to purchase will supposedly "enable [Wal-Mart] to strategically reach out to guests in-store to inform, entertain and help save them money."

Bush 'planted fake news stories on American TV' - Sometimes when I've been suspecting something and I'm proven right, I don't like it.

The ICHIM Program - Happening here in Toronto

This year we will again examine major trends, novel research frontiers, and possible futures. Best practices, innovative policies, disruptive technologies and radical business plans will be promoted and critiqued. And as always, economics, law, and public policy will be visited afresh.

When viewer participation goes too far :)

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 14:50:51 GMT

A fun laugh.

Viewer Voices: Where We Respond To The Opinions Of Our Uninformed Viewers

Via Wero! Creative

Some more analysis please....

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 23:09:53 GMT

This week I’d like to look at Moeller’s article and Atton’s.

Atton opened my eyes up to thinking about alternative media in a way that have not done before and I really appreciated this article. I enjoyed how he argued that alternative media is “not as independent of mainstream media ideologies and practices as we might think.” (296) After reading his paper I agree with this conclusion. Still, there is one thing that I think he missed that ought to be addressed (if even in passing) and that is that the structure of some of the alternative media are also subject to at least one of the filters that Herman and Chomsky raise. Money is the biggest filter there is in our capitalistic society and even alternative media needs money to spread its ‘alternative’ view. Because theses news sources rely on donations then won’t they too be subject to providing articles (or videos) that donators want to read?

Imagine that FAIR came out and said that all media reporting is fair and that they no longer have to exist. Personally, I’ve only run into one project that would be pleased to announce itself obsolete.

Susan Moeller’s article Media and Democracy had me at the title, then I had trouble trying to figure out what she was getting at. I feel that I maybe missing the key point in her article as I’m not waling away from reading it with any insights or deep thoughts. There is no doubt that the word democracy has lost a lot of significance due to its continued use by the Bush administration (among others who look to shape public opinion); her analysis of exactly how and why this has happened is no doubt thorough. To me, what Moeller has written seems like more of a look at the way media currently interacts with democracy and not why we should care about this issue.

She is obviously passionate about her subject matter, but more analysis into what she has written would be nice. For example, on page 214 after she quotes Justice Stewart she says that the press needs the freedom to question the government, but based on the rest of the paper the press dose not exercise this freedom because of self-interest. The disconnect between the need for freedom and the reaction of it is not adequately addressed as far as I’m concerned. Moeller does not go into why this is an issue; she’s working with the assumption that people want (or need) an institution to question the more powerful institutions and that this questioning institution needs to be able to maintain a mass audience. The list she gives in the “What are the problems” section is the best part of this paper as it does a great job of categorizing the problems with media today.

Sorry about the wordiness of this post.

Webby Connect Day 1

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 01:52:27 GMT

Hi everyone, here's a draft of something that I'll probably post on the Digital Divide Network (or not).

The Webby Connect conference has a lot of smart people attending it, and that's putting it mildly.

Today's lineup of events started with looking at commercially generated content to increase brand exposure and ended with Ariannia Hufifington expressing her views on the sad state of American journalism. Don't worry she has hope for the future - and rightly so!

As far as the digital divide and today went, there was some interesting things said. When discussing online brand strategies there was a lot of talk of using online video. The popularity of YouTube and other video sites has clearly shown that people want to watch streaming videos (particularly user-generated videos). After the talk, I went up to ask a few of the panelists if they ever thought about broadband constraints.

"I haven't heard anyone bring up broadband concerns in like two years" was one reply. Indeed, it marked the attitudes for the rest of the day - to those in the industry broadband access is not a concern anymore. I suppose those with enough money have broadband access to make it worthwhile.

Huffington didn't speak to broadband issues, but she did tell me after her talk that at least having access to the internet is a concern. Sure enough, broadband is not such a concern for The Huffington Post as their content is text. Huffington is a fan of the OLPC and told me that we shouldn't be thinking it has a device only for the 3rd world as it can be equally as useful in the USA.

This, in a roundabout way, brings us back to why we should have faith in American journalism because it is actually related to the digital divide. Huffington believes that the future of journalism lies in blogging. She cited cases that bloggers have ousted mistakes in the more acclaimed old media. Bloggers allow for a more diverse group of people speaking "the truth" that they gather from "evidence". First though, Huffington admits, there is a need to increase media literacy so more people can be included with the conversation. Her faith in blogging as a panacea seems idealistic (and that's not a bad thing) which means that she inherently supports more access and increased media literacy on the internet.

Frankfurt School no longer hip?

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 18:22:33 GMT

Last year I took a course with Prof. Dieter Misgeld's that studied some of the thinkers from the Frankfurt School and was quite impressed with what they had to say. I was not even aware that there was a name for some of what they theorized. I enjoyed how this week's readings challenged some of the assumptions that the Frankfurt school was working with: effect theory.

Gauntlett was the most upfront about his disdain for effect theory. His list of ten things was all fine and dandy, but I can't help but see an underlying want for an improved way to measure the influence the media has. The world of semiotics does not appear to have a viable solution for us (nor does Nielsen). How can we even measure the influence media has if we don't know where the interpretations of the message are happening?

We can't even look to the audience for help according to Hanes:

"The limitations of focusing on audience in media studies can clearly be seen in the mode of address made by the media. Different audiences use different media; both the audience that is assumed to be using the media and the particular type of media that is being consumed determines the mode of address."

Where does this lead us? If we have no way to measure what influence and impact the media actually has then how can we adequately discuss it? After reading this week's authors I feel that media studies is lacking a common ground to work from. There are no rules because previously the rules have been essentially wrong. This leads my brain to the cliche: change the rules of game and you have a new game.

What are the rules of the game of media studies?

Commodification of culture itself

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 23:35:07 GMT

From this s week's selections of readings what really stuck out for me was the commodification of culture itself and how that impacts the idea of the public sphere.

As Boeder puts it:
The character of the public sphere is increasingly restricted; the media serve as vehicles for generating and managing consensus and promoting capitalist culture rather than fulfill their original function as organs of public debate.
...
Earlier, Rheingold (1994) argued that the ICT industry is a business like any other, viewed primarily as an economic player: "Telecommunications gives certain people access to means of influencing certain other people’s thoughts and perceptions, and that access — who has it and who doesn’t have it — is intimately connected with political power.

I like how Kellner (as did the other authors) explicitly mention Adorno and Horkheimer when looking at the state of media, capitalism, and the public realm:

"This historical transformation is grounded, as noted, in Horkheimer and Adorno's analysis of the culture industry, in which giant corporations have taken over the public sphere and transformed it from a sphere of rational debate into one of manipulative consumption and passivity."

When reading all of these articles for the week the Dialectic of Enlightenment kept popping into mind. The overt propaganda put into the media is something that Adorno and Horkheimer were concerned about, and it seems that the authors this week are concerned about that too. With concentrated media ownership, and the fact the media itself, benefits from the status quo there is no urging to question it openly and earnestly.

Pay for Content Model Dying

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 17:26:17 GMT

The very proud New York Times has long fought against the idea of giving away their content for free. They assumed that no matter what consumers would pay for the privilege to read newswire stories they could pretty much read elsewhere. As of midnight tonight the New York Times will be giving content away for free.

I have always thought that the very notion that people would pay for content in this manner as ludicrous. For a few reasons I have thought this, and this transition to free content from the Times does not shock me in the slightest. Still, the fact that such a stalwart of old media has made this shift marks a turning point I'm sure.

That being said, I am kinda shocked that they have opened part of their archive:

"In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain.

The newspaper said the TimesSelect project had met expectations, drawing 227,000 paying subscribers — out of 787,000 over all — and generating about $10 million a year in revenue."

links, links, and more links

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 13:23:52 GMT

MediaReform.ca
Neutrality.ca
Google Trend look at coverage of June 2006 CRTC report. A total lack of caring.

Some news stories I chanced across

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 18:14:06 GMT

Are you connected?
Does talk of Prince William joining Facebook, or Lily Allen blogging on MySpace, leave you baffled? Fear not! Here's our late adopter's guide to the social networking revolution

State of Play: The game of love
People play games for many reasons, but increasing numbers are finding that they are a great way to size up potential partners.