Writing long essays under deadline is often a process of working out your thinking as you go. Here is one paragraph i can believe in…

Engaging theoretical explanation as method poses a danger of intellectual isolationism. Theory too far removed from lived experience becomes self-referential and loses its potency. Wheaton (2007) purposefully limits her analysis of Surfers Against Sewage to exclude the group’s “real impact in policy terms” (p. 284). Perhaps such examination of the ‘real’ is taken up by the author elsewhere, but material outcomes, especially those concerning systems of power such as policy and legislation, must not be cast aside as insignificant to theoretical analysis. A challenge for communications scholars moving forward is to continue to develop sensitized concepts, while at the same time exploring ways to make our work accessible and relevant to the world beyond academic publications. Like the junior scholars in Latina/o studies referenced in Valdivia’s article, we must “envision an expanding scholarship that leads to greater social justice” (p. 7). Taking this goal seriously, we would do well to follow Gramsci, whose “theoretical writing was developed out of [an] organic engagement with his own society and times and was always intended to serve, not an abstract academic purpose, but the aim of ‘informing political practice’” (Hall, 1986, p. 5).

Hall, S. (1986). Gramsci’s relevance for the study of race and ethnicity. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 10(2).

Valdivia, A. (2008). Is my butt your island? The myth of discovery and contemporary Latina/o communication studies. In A. Valdivia (Ed.), Latina/o communication studies today. New York: Peter Lang.

Wheaton, B. (2007). Identity, politics, and the beach: Environmental activism in Surfers Against Sewage. Leisure Studies, 26(3).

This is an interesting article from Clive Thompson in New York magazine that frames the billion dollar Viacom/YouTube copyright lawsuit in terms of a culture clash between institutions of new and old media. Thompson argues that Google (owner of YouTube) follows a “meritocratic nerd logic” that fundamentally contradicts Big Media’s traditional m.o. that relies on dog-eat-dog competition for ad revenue, acquisitions, and extreme copyright protection.

I think Thompson over simplifies some things, like the “pure” logic behind Google search results, but the overall approach of the article really speaks to the way digital media challenges certain conventions of how businesses operate. His prediction at the end of the piece seems astute as well.

Yet despite the culture clash, the odds are strong that Viacom’s case will never get to court. It is more likely a tactic designed merely to drive Google to abandon its high-minded talk about a win-win future and cough up real money for rights. This will probably work, because neither wants to risk a legal precedent that screws its business. Both Google and Viacom might actually benefit from keeping the legality of YouTube fuzzy and letting their negotiators hammer out a truce. They’ll learn to live together. But they’ll never understand each other.

Big Media is used to throwing its collective weight around to establish at least somewhat clear delineations between winners and losers, between content they own (and completely control) and content that belongs to someone else. Clearly this is much harder these days, but it can still be done (Napster anyone?). The trade-off now is that new media is a little less “new,” a lot richer, and a whole lot more pervasive. When YouTube gets a hundred million video views a day, do you really want to yank your content?

The other day my neighbor handed me this article from NYU Sociologist Eric Klinenberg in the March/April Mother Jones magazine. Here’s the headline/byline:

Breaking the News: It’s not the Internet that’s killing newspapers. It’s the equity-chasing investors and their friends at the FCC who have put outsize profits before a free press.

This piece is excellent – it most likely stems from Klinenberg’s new book Fighting For Air: The Battle to Control America’s Media. I haven’t read it yet, but it seems to encapsulate a topic I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, which is incorporating ethnographic research and media analysis to form a basis for institutional media critique. I need to find out who else is doing this, but clearly Klinenberg is a master in this area. I heard him interviewed on Bob McChesney’s Media Matters radio program, he described the goal of book is to

turn media consolidation from an abstraction into the kind of thing we recognize as affecting our lives. No matter how many times we see those charts of media ownership that show how 5 or 6 companies dominate the system and own lots and lots of subsidiaries, a key challenge for those who care about this issue is to tell human stories about it that really resonate, especially with people who aren’t already convinced that there’s a problem. The kind of media system that we have deprives us of these stories, so we need to find a way to get them told.

Here is where qualitative approaches – ethnographic works – get at the heart of issues like media ownership and telecom policy that can seem so far removed from everyday life.

This is a model to emulate…

This is an amazing video about technology and change. And it fits right in line with the ethnography I’m doing on YouTube vloggers, which is coming along. I’m planning to post a version of the study once I complete it.

Article from The Raw Story

“Media reform is the most important issue confronting our democratic republic and the people of our country,” Representative Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) said at the Free Press National Media Reform Conference held in Memphis, Tennessee last weekend.

Hinchey told RAW STORY he plans to reintroduce the Media Ownership Reform Act (MORA) that would break up media monopolies and restore the Fairness Doctrine, which was eliminated by the Federal Communications Commission under the Reagan administration.

So what exactly is the Fairness Doctrine?

The Fairness Doctrine required that broadcasters give equal time to people who wished to express an opposing viewpoint. “Under the Reagan administration, the FCC wiped out that rule and said only businesses that operate stations can express their view,” Hinchey noted. Congress passed a bill that would have required the FCC to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, but that bill was vetoed by Reagan.

This all sounds amazing. But a sea change bill like MORA will never pass. Here’s why. In addition to reinstating the Fairness Doctrine, the bill would also:

… reinstate a national cap on ownership of radio stations, lower the number of radio stations that one company can own in a local market, and reinstate the 25 percent national cap on television ownership, among other restrictions. The bill’s no-grandfathering provision would compel media conglomerates to divest to comply with new ownership limitations.

Big Media has worked the lobby circuit for decades to get where they are, and they’ve done so in the cradle of neoliberal economic ideologies that are much larger than any one industry. The idea that they would agree to this is insane and the power they exude in Washington is real.

Taken out of context, this bill seems great. But we live in a country that fully subscribes to, and greatly benefits from, the world capitalist economy. We need to think about realistic media reform initiatives or else we’re wasting resources and momentum.

Josh Silver on The Huffington Post news/opinion site gives a great, if affective, wrap-up of the recent National Conference for Media Reform here. I especially like his definition of media reform:

Media reform isn’t just about winning better policies in Washington — though that’s a key part of it. It’s not just about holding the mainstream accountable. And it’s not just about creating our own better media, though we need that, too. Media reform is about all of these goals and a diversity tactics that ultimately will advance every issue we care about: civil rights, education, the environment, the economy, health care, fair elections.

This definition is great because it is so inclusive. The communications media, old and new, impact every aspect of political and civic life in complex, dynamic ways. Recognizing that social issues must also be considered as media issues is a big win to those who seek change in any sphere of public life. This seems simple, but it’s really a big idea that I hope to be able to study with more depth in the future…

One of the telecommunications companies’ major arguments against net neutrality legislation has been the supposed haziness of the term itself. In a debate facilitated by the Wall Street Journal, industry lobbyist Michael McCurry asked “what exactly is the definition of ‘network neutrality’ anyhow?” This sentiment has been expressed throughout the life of the discussion. “How can we possibly legislate if we cannot clearly define the concept,” has been a mantra of the telcos, and rightfully so.

Now it seems as though the industry has answered its own question and in the process, possibly aided their pro-neutrality opponents. By expressing in writing, under contractual agreement, exactly how they define and plan to uphold net neutrality (for two years), AT&T and BellSouth have seemingly removed a leg of their own arguement against legislation.

In advance of that brewing battle in Congress, the very words to which AT&T agreed negated one argument that telephone and cable companies had used against their Internet opponents last year — that net neutrality is so vague, it could not even be defined.

“This language is crafted as a practical implementation of neutrality,” Columbia University law Professor Tim Wu wrote about AT&T’s concessions. “As the first working rule, it may serve as a model and an experiment for what follows.”

Read Full Article from Tom Abate, San Francisco Chronicle, 1-7-07

From the same article, a decent overview of the net neutrality issue:

Most people may find it difficult to understand what all the fuss, is about given that net neutrality raises issues as big and complex as, well, the Internet.

Blair Levin, ex-aide to former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt and now a telecommunications adviser for the Stifel Nicolaus investment bank, offered this primer:

Until recently, the telephone and cable companies that own the two wires leading to the American home also pretty much controlled what services were delivered over those wires. They essentially controlled both the transport layer — the wire — and the service layer that traveled over the wires, be it a television show or a telephone call.

But broadband — or high-speed — Internet changed this. Now the same wire — whether the phone company’s DSL or the cable company’s modem — can carry any service from e-mail to a movie from any vendor in the world.

The crux of the debate is that wire owners want a free hand to charge Internet companies a bit extra for speedier service. Creating preferential delivery deals would make the new broadband world more like the old world, in which the wire-owner had greater control over what flowed through its lines, Levin said. Conversely, net neutrality advocates fear this pricing power will allow phone and cable companies to pick which Internet services get the fastest and best delivery.