1) For each panelist, outline his opening remarks.

2) You have been chosen as a moderator for the event. Critique two of the panelists’ remarks, drawing upon your own expertise and other perspectives on their topics.

Moderator:

Welcome everyone to Elon University and today’s media issues symposium, “The New Media Landscape: What Should We Be Most Concerned About?”  We are extremely honored today to have joining us a veritable pantheon of media analysts and visionaries, author of The Political Economy of Media:  Enduring issues, emerging dilemmas, Robert McChesney.  Ken Auletta, author of Googled:  The end of the world as we know it. Daniel Solove, international expert in privacy law and author of The Future of Reputation: Gossip, rumor, and privacy on the Internet. And lastly, Jonathan Zitirain, Harvard Law professor of Internet Law and author of The Future of the Interent:  And how to stop it.

The first panelist I would like to introduce is the author of dozens of books relating to the past, current, and future states of media.  He is a Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he has been concentrating his research and teaching in political economy of media and the role media plays influencing and shaping politics and capitalism.   Mr. Robert McChesney.

Robert McChesney:

Thank you, and thank you all for having us.  It’s a pleasure to be here and to meet and talk to some of the impressive students here at Elon’s School of Communications.

At the time of our country’s founding, two of the more prominent forefathers that sought succession from the British Empire, Thomas jefferson and James Madison wanted a country and a press that is free of inequality and militaristic control.  Unfortunately, the press has grown into something as far from these ideals as possible.

The media plays an important role in deciding the direction of our country goes in.  The media is in the politicians’ pockets and worse yet, the politicians are in the media’s pocket.  This is a relationship that has evolved over the years as a result of the increasing political coverage throughout the years.

It’s a relationship that favors monopolistic legacy media.  Large media companies cover and highlight the politicians who share the same ideals and interests as they do.   The media essentially control which politicians or candidates get exposed to the majority of the public.  The media enhances a politician’s image and defines who they are to the American citizens.  Hence, the image of politicians are made or broken by big media.

On the flip side to this, politicians help big media by signing into law, new policies and legislation that favor monopolistic organizations.  These policies tend to give legacy media more power and a larger share of the market leading to more profits.

Resulting from this collaboration is an information system that is biased, unequal, and, controlling in the way the work to influence the American citizenry.   What we are losing is the actual public voice, which takes the form of independent and small news organizations.  With these smaller and loyal news sources being choked out by big media money and policy that enhances big media success, the American public are becoming less informed and less knowledgeable about what is really happening in their country and more importantly their own communities.

This is a dangerous state of media that threatens to take away some of those inalienable rights that Jefferson and Madison fought for and envisioned as the backbone to making America the pinnacle of democracy.

Moderator:

Next we have highly acclaimed and award winning writer, journalist, and media analyst, Ken Auletta, author of Googled:  The end of the world as we know it.  Googled is an insightful and mind altering book as it points out that business may need to turn to what may be seen as odd and unorthodox methods to become successful.

Ken Auletta:

Thank you for that.  It’s a pleasure to be here.  As the moderator just mentioned, I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to look into the heart of Google.  The two pulses that are driving this heart are the two founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

Being that they are brilliant computer engineers, I found that they stumbled upon a model for success in business without understanding why.  Yet, in a way their interests and knowledge had led them to develop a search engine that was essentially simple.

A novel idea, right?  They were driven to find the most efficient solution to things and in turn tapped in to an energy and connection that digital media offers.  Users were presented with a search engine that was plain and simple in its appearance and produced results that would be more likely to contain the information they were looking for compared to prior search engines.

This simple act of bringing simplicity and ease of use to the user created a loyalty from customers that would drive the success of the company.  Their scientific and engineering ideals are what drive them to create the products they do.  These products in turn aid the user, making their lives easier.

Users have begun to wholeheartedly believe in the Google motto “do no evil”.   People are constantly clambering for the next greatest product to be released.  They have formed such a strong bond with the company that many almost worship it.

They then revolutionized the advertizing industry by auctioning off ad space on a per click basis as apposed to the traditional selling of time and space on pages of newspapers or commercial slots of network television.   The Internet ran a little more differently in that there were no commercials on the Internet and users don’t flip through pages of a website that way they do a newspaper.  So, Brin and Page discovered a new and much more efficient way of selling ads.

Well, I can ramble on here, but I just want to point out that Google’s approach to the way they treat their employees, business partners, and customers are result from an “unorthodox” approach to life.   A “liasez-faire” way of living.    Keep it simple, do no evil and good will come.

Moderator:

Thank you Mr. Auletta and thank you for being here.  Next we have a law professor at George Washington University Law School who is most well known for his work and expertise in privacy and is the author of the 2007 McGannon Award winning book, The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor and Privacy on the Internet, Daniel Solove.

Daniel Solove:

Thank you everybody, it’s a pleasure to be here sharing this panel with such an esteemed group of media visionaries.    Today’s Internet has changed the way people think about their privacy and image.

The Internet has allowed us to reach the far ends of world meeting new people and discovering new cultures.  However, this ability to social network and sites such as Facebook we are opening ourselves up to invasions of our privacy and tarnishing of our reputations.

This is because of the anonymous nature of the Internet.  Generally most are more honest and open in their anonymity yet there are some who look to take advantage of their ambiguity and harm other users’ images or reputations.

In the digital world your reputation is easy to damage yet very difficult for its true owner to repair.  The chat room, discussion board, or social network for mysterious users to access and gain information about use whether true or false and spread it.  These attacks easily gain momentum with the support of other users and become too overwhelming with the speed-of-light connectivity.  Within mere moments, one’s character will be torn to shreds.

Typically the victim is on their own to rebuild their image.  Unlike the “cyber-bullies”, the victim usually has few supporters that can rally behind the victim to spread the truth in hopes of regaining some respect within the community.  Word will not travel nearly fast enough to do any good.

An unfortunate example of this is the Formspring.me case involving the young women who became a victim of false and accusatory remarks regarding her behavior.

As researchers Judith Donath and Dana Boyd have found that social networks only increase the number of weak bonds (Solove, pg. 27).  These mere acquaintances, the other users we really don’t know or trust, most likely are the ones that are able and willing to spread false information around about someone.

While social networks offer so much to society with the amount of information that is shared and the speed at which it is shared, they do open our selves up to invasions of privacy.

It’s difficult to predict the outcome regarding privacy and reputation on the Internet.  Currently, the majority of laws that protect us in the real world don’t hold up in instances that occur online.  We all must question whether laws should be altered or created to help protect users or can the Internet self regulate and rid it’s self of the users that only look to do harm to others?

Moderator:

Thank you Mr. Solove.  Very important issues we shall discuss momentarily.

Finally ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce the esteemed philosopher and Professor of Internet Law at Harvard Law School, former Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute of the University of Oxford, and author of The Future of the Interent:  And how to stop it.

Jonathan Zittrain

Thank you.  I’d like to thank you all for coming to hear a few nerds talk about the variety of issues involving the Internet, society, and economy.  Although I joke, what we are here to talk about today are issues that are very serious and affect us on a number of levels.

As Mr. Auletta pointed out ease of use and open sharing of information has allowed the world to connect and share knowledge like never before.   Yet this openness frees us up as users and societies to be exploited and harmed utilizing the same channels that were intended by its creators to be used for good.

Personally, I see the good overwhelming the evil as the years progress.  The generative nature of the Internet and plug-ins and applications, etc. that are found within will only be used for good to help the online society excel and grow as a whole.

This generative ability of the Internet and its open production and sharing of information relies on good faith alone.  The only way the system works is if information is freely shared.  A creator needs to be trusted by other users in order to pass on a piece of code or scripting language as the others may be weary of the code and its damaging potential.

In order to successfully promote one’s self and build their online reputation, and as Mr. Solove mentioned our real-life ones, we must be honest and noble in order for the Internet to succeed.

The online relationships we develop, as we all have mentioned are what drive the Internet.  We will all realize that we are all living in the same community and rely on each other to better our lives.   Much like Wikipedia, our interactive cooperation will build something grand and useful.  ”Wikipedia—with the cooperation of many Wikipedians—has developed a system of self-governance that has many indicia of the rule of law without heavy reliance on outside authority or boundary” (Zittrain, pg. 143).  Together we have the ability to make the Internet the utopia that it’s forefathers had envisioned.

Moderator:

Thank you Jonathan and thank you to all of the panelists for their perspective on the contemporary media issues that the Internet faces today and into the future.

Now, we will open the floor for some questions for the panel and perhaps some discussion regarding these important issues.  I’ll start things off with a couple of comments of my own.

Mr. McChesney, in The Political Economy of Media you say, “Every theory of democracy worth the paper its written on recognizes that independent journalism is necessary to provide the informed participating citizenry that is the foundation of self-government” (pg 234).

As you pointed out in your prior remarks, which I agree with, big media and it’s political influences are forcing out the independent journalist and force feeding the public a select few viewpoints and beliefs that sway citizen to make decisions that may not be in their best interests whether they know it or not.

This will just lead to one giant media organization that controls information and how that information is disseminated throughout the world.  In essence this would make the corporation the most powerful entity around the world.  They would even control the political arena as political candidates would be bowing to the giant company in attempts of being promoted on their network. As already stated, this is the opposite of what a free press is supposed to be.

Media needs to get back to the many voices for many people way of operating that gave the audience a multitude of opinions and viewpoints in which to make decisions.  On page 347 of The Political Economy of Media, you write that “the first ally”, in the battle to reduce monopolistic media “is found in the hundreds of departments and schools of journalism and communications that have sprung up over the past few generations in colleges and universities across the nation.”

If that is true, then apparently all they are teaching students is how to make money, get bigger, more powerful, and offer less diversity.  Because that’s the only thing big media has been doing over the past few generation.  Fed by the education journalism and communication students are getting from said institutions.

In addition to your faith in the colleges and universities education to produce honest and noble journalists and media producers, there is hardly a mention of the Internet and the countless number of platforms for people speak from.  These forms of interactive media are the future or the Internet as I’m sure Mr. Zittrain would agree with, and require the attention today to examine what can and needs to be done in the future to ensure the growth of the human race.  You barely mention any of these platforms.  The word blog only appears once in your book (McChesney, pg. 119).

I’m not sure you are giving enough credit to the potential of these networks.  The issues that involve privacy, pirating, sharing, and net neutrality require more than one chapter that you reserved for the topic.

Nevertheless, I would agree with Mr Zittrain in that the Internet is organic.  It’s a living and breathing thing who’s pulse is generated by the users connected within.   The users are in charge of the content and it’s distribution.  No matter how hard they may try to buy out one another or choke out seemingly insignificant independent networks, audiences will always demand more variety and diversity of their information whether it be music, news, and the like.

In one way or another, the balance within the media world will be reached yet again.  The users in my opinion will always bring balance to the media.  We will eventually control the majority of content and how it will be disseminated.  We will be our own media corporations.

As Mr. Zittrain pointed out the generativity must continue to grow and evolve.  Being able to openly and freely share information, applications, plug-ins, etc. and then alter and improve these products is the perfect atmosphere for creation and innovation.  These innovations could lead to discoveries in computer science, health science, economics, or a better understanding of where we come from and our reason for being in this universe.

The only way the full power of the Internet will be revealed is if the complete honesty and good will of all users is unconditional.  Any actions that may be deemed to be harmful to the group can be detrimental to the system.  Much like viruses and worms always threaten to put enough fear into users that could shock the system and ruin the flow of information.

I believe we are all beginning to realize the true potential interactive media has to create and share knowledge we will all realize the importance of honesty.  In turn everyone will have a greater respect for their own online reputation as well as the reputation of others.  The anonymous bashing of others’ characters that Mr. Solove expressed concern over, may cease to exist all together.

The same ecological principles that have led our species’ existence and evolution to where we are today are the exact same principles that will drive the growth and innovation of digital media, the most important of those being altruism.

In order for all of us to benefit from the power of the Internet we must all cooperate and help each other.  We must all trust one another.   This was a realism that the two founders of Google might have taken for granted.

Brin and Page believed that their engineering ideals could “do no evil”, that people will always want to use their products.  Sheryl Sandsberg even says on page 197 of Google, “We’re an engineering company in that products come first.”  They didn’t realize that the products don’t come first, the user does.  The user structure determines the digital product’s function.

The founders’ arrogance, as Mr. Auletta alluded to in his book, let to the company seeking endeavors that threatened the trust they had built with their audience and users.  Their venture to digitize all of the world’s books without permission from copyright orders was one example of Google practices that raised the eyebrows and questions from users about their true intentions.

Another example of Brin and Page’s superciliousness is highlighted with Page, saying “We want them to start thinking differently” (Auletta, pg. 100), as he referred to users needing to realize that they have no need for a delete button in Google’s Gmail.  People began to wonder what the company was doing with all the information it stored.  They started to accuse Google of violating privacy laws and civil liberties.  Eventually Gmail was forced to add a delete button.

Their idealistic beliefs in engineering nearly lost all the support from the people who led to their success.  Fortunately for Google and its founders, they eventually realized the need to for some management that wasn’t so invasive on their “liasez-faire” work atmosphere yet still help the two Stanford dropouts how to always keep the user in mind when coming out with a product.

All we have discussed today and read in the books by these most brilliant minds in media that join us today, the success of the Internet all comes down to one end product.  The user.

We, the user will eventually create, share, and control media.  We will decide what becomes popular and what we want to see as well as when.  This is evident in the way shocking, funny, or overall amazing videos spread like wildfire through, social networks, blogs, and email.

These forms of interactive media will be at the forefront of the new political economy that Mr. McChesney speaks of in many of his books.  As long as we continue to fight for net neutrality, maintain honesty when online, and openly share content we can make this world a better place in ways that go beyond the lone field of communication.  This shared knowledge could literally save our planet and possibly returning it to the Eden like qualities it once possessed.

Come on, really?!  Why are they wasting my time?  I’m sorry but celebrities and their lives is not news.  Or at least the way it is presented in modern media with sites like TMZ, Yahoo News, etc.  Those types of outlets and the people they talk about give me nothing of value.

A few of my classmates did some “research” about celebrities and the entertainment industry in the news.  They tried to convince us that there was some value to stories about actors, athletes, and other celebrities around the world.  Please!

If one is to define news in the basic sense as the delivering of information that was previously unknown, then one could say celebrity gossip is news.  However, if that’s the case then Mr. Webster really needs to take a hard look at the word and come up with a much better definition.

Personally I define news as information that is meaningful, influential, and having an effect.  Generally, celebs and what they do is  neither meaningful, influencing, or affecting my life in any way.  In fact I am constantly trying to avoid it.  “Trying” being the key word.

It’s near impossible to avoid it.  It’s everywhere.  And I cannot for the life of me figure out why.  I’m sure it’s a result of tweeners and immature people in their early twenties (I know, I was in my twenties once).  I just don’t care.  Besides the majority of these celebs don’t know what they’re talking about.  Here is a perfect example from some famous teenage kid I’ve never heard of until one of my professors, of all people brought up in class a couple of months ago:

I don’t know about you but I’m pretty sure that was English the host was speaking.  If you’re not you might want to log off of TMZ right now.  How do you not know what Germany is?  That’s just ignorant and ignorance is exactly what news is suppose to rid society of, not bring more of it.

Also, I don’t care that Bradgelina (I can’t believe I just wrote that) just adopted their 11th baby.  What are they doing, building a world cup soccer team?  To me, the real news in that story that is never mentioned is why they are adopting children from foreign countries when there are thousand of children in our country that are in need of a good home.  Although I’m not so sure Angelina Jolie provides a “good” home.  She did make out with her brother at one point.  Really good influence (sarcasm).

What is important and influential, is science which is extremely lacking in new unless there is some catastrophe like the current oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  However, even this story has quickly changed into a story about politics and economics, which are important but they are masking the larger issue that we are still reliant on fossil fuels after all these years and all the knowledge regarding the effects of drilling.

BP is spending (or was spending) $500,000 a day to rent our the $365 million oil rig, Deepwater Horizon and is now spending millions more to clean all this up.  Why isn’t anyone questioning why these oil companies aren’t instead using these millions of dollars in R&D of alternative and sustainable energy sources instead of just talking about doing it?  Or, why are these companies and the government so willing to allow the use of “chemical dispersants” which may be doing as much harm to the environment as the oil itself?

These are issues that matter and influence our daily lives.  If you don’t think so, ask the fishermen who are volunteering their boats and services to help clean up their local ecosystems.

Game theory plays a large role in the field of ecology in that relationships with in a community revolve around this theory, which in the biological world is more commonly referred to as altruism.  Coincidentally, altruism has something I’ve been thinking about and relating to the Internet and interactive media throughout this past semester of graduate school.

Altruism is the enhancement of the fitness of an unrelated individual by acts that reduce the evolutionary fitness of the altruistic individual.  Examples of altruism include individuals of the same  species preening one another (removes parasites from another), hunting cooperatively (helps to provide food with no guarantee they will get food of their own) , or giving warning signals to each other in the presence of danger (one individual attracts the attention of the predator by warning others).  All this behavior benefits the species as a whole.

We all know that most of us are willing to lay down our lives to save the live of one of our relatives.  This is a basic form of altruism.  However, altruism plays a large role in communities of unrelated individuals.  For example, in olive baboon (Papio anubis) communities when a female comes into heat a male will form a consort relationship with her, following her around await an opportunity to mate with her.  Sometimes an unattached male will enlist the help of another male to fight with the consort male so that he may attempt to mate with the female.  This behavior would then be reciprocated in turn at a future time.

I’m not going to go into the more specific theories of altruism in that they can be rather complicated and mind blowing in understanding relationships within a society.  I only want to point out that this type of behavior is mimicked in interactive media.

Generally, if a user needs an add-on, plug-in, or application to accomplish a goal, they can easily find a free version online.  There are thousands of people out there that are creating these applications which they make openly available to society as a whole without gaining any benefit, in this case money.

Although, these individuals may be seen a parasitic to large media companies who are hell-bent on protecting their own – their own content and delivery of said content- they are helping society and the communities they exist in by providing free information and knowledge to the group.  They are essentially aiding the evolution of interactive media through generativity which is explained in Jonathan Zittrain‘s book, The Future of the Internet.

This behavior should be embraced by large media companies as they too may benefit from this generativity.  Just as in many species of ants in which sterile females exist only as workers who’s sole existence is to help the queen and the colony as a whole, those developing free applications and content, with no financial benefit may be the workers that create the newest technology that would aid media companies in creating better content and delivering that content to larger audiences or groups of consumers.

All this is just another example of digital media mimicking biology and proof that by doing so, interactive media will evolve into a greater entity that will make our communities and society as a whole stronger and more survivable.

As I’ve been reading the “The Future of the Internet:  And How to Stop It”, by Jonathan Zittrain I’ve again returned to the repeating realization that the Internet has become and will remain successful because it is us who control it.

The Internet is organic.  We, the users create and maintain the content that is displayed online while also developing the plug-ins and applications that make the online experience more entertaining and engaging.

Zittrain believes that the Internet has been so successful because of its generative characteristics.  Generative systems are those that have the ability to be reprogrammed and thus repurposed.

A lot of the content found online can be altered or interacted with by others and ultimately changed.  In addition, applications and programs can be created by almost anyone that improve browser capabilities, offer new sets of tools to users, and ultimately diversifying the content.

This is not unlike nature.  Much like natural selection, minor mutations or alterations in a system such as genetic code or the Internet, allow parts of the systems to adapt to change and survive.

In order for users to keep up with the changing online environment they must continually add plug-ins that are openly shared so they can continue to ingest the endless experience and knowledge than can be found on the World Wide Web.   For example one must continually download the latest version of Flash Player to be able to watch the ever-advancing online videos that are generated on a daily basis.

In nature, females, when searching for mates look for the strongest most attractive males with whom to procreate.  The fitness of the male shows the female that he possesses the latest and greatest genes (plug-ins) found in their species, increasing her and their offspring’s chance of survival.

I’ve come to realize that my belief that the Internet’s biomimicry is shared by others.  Recently at SXSW 2010, one of the keynote speakers was Valerie Casey of the consulting firm, Designers Accord.  Her address touched on the idea that interactive media will be at the heart of environmental change.

The Designers Accord believes that manufacturers in various industries would benefit by looking to nature and mimicking in the way it designs, constructs, and evolves in order to produce more ecologically friendly devices.  Nature comes up with ingenious ways of ensuring the survival of species and companies and new technology can do the same.

Casey also believes that multimedia is the pathway in which information and knowledge about the conservation and sustainable development of our planet will be shared with the masses.  Sharing this knowledge in more efficient ways increases the chance for change in how we all look at the environment.

I believe Zittrain would feel the same.  On page 43 of his book he says, “generative systems are built on the notion that they are never fully complete, they have many uses yet to be conceived of, and that the public can be trusted to invent and share good uses.”  Like nature these systems are constantly evolving and offering opportunity to their users.

I’m sure Zittrain’s fellow former Oxford University professor Stephen Hawking, would understand how the social and technological adaptation of the Internet is occurring in that it is entropy in full effect.

The Internet is merely controlled chaos.  Much like in the field of astrophysics, the Internet is like the universe in that it is randomness that is somewhat controlled and directed by puny forces such as gravity in a physics sense and norms in an online social sense.

We oversee and filter the use of the Internet of not only our own friends and family but that of all other users we encounter online.  As I’ve discussed in a prior blog regarding the Solove reading and online anonymity, users construct norms by deciding what gets heard or seen and what doesn’t.

A case that Zittrain brings up in his book to support this is the “verkeersbordvrij” experiment in the Dutch town of Drachten.  The town decided to remove all it traffic signals and signage with the result of less accidents and overall safer driving by its citizens.

One would think that this would be complete chaos with people doing what they will and a moving in all directions.  However, when the signs are taken away the only option drivers on the road has is to conform to societal norms regarding the way people drive.  Drivers or “users”, must rely on each other to follow these same norms in order to coexist and operate the vehicles in a safe and efficient manner.

Norms that are the formed by the online majority dictate what devices are used and which voices are heard online.  Like Harvard University’s Berkman Center and the Oxford Internet Institute’s StopBadware project, users pick out the bad content and either block it and redirect other users away or alter it to reuse it for good.

It is us, and our natural “instincts” that are transforming the way we interact online and what the Internet can provide us.  The Internet and its technology is ours, we keep it healthy and clean and as Valerie Casey has suggested, we can use this technology to keep out planet the same.

The majority of my contemplation has been directed towards trust and honesty in digital communities such as discussion boards, blogs, and social networks.  How do we really know who we’re communicating with or who are we are friend requesting when participating in discussions online?

One particular topic of interest is the technique of anonymous posting that some people employ in an attempt to hide their identity.   There have been some instances where in the past when people’s privacy and reputation were invaded or harmed.

A good number of these attacks were started by dishonest comments on blog or shaming someone for asocial behavior by spreading their private photos or information.  Many of the agitators spreading this dishonest or private information were doing so anonymously for one reason or another.

There are a number reasons why someone would feel the need to be anonymous in the Internet forum.  In Daniel J. Solove’s book, The Future of Reputation he points out that some may feel the need to hide information about themselves that may do harm to their reputation or some just have need to disturb societal norms in an attempt to be rebellious or harm others.

When those that use the Internet anonymously expect the same courtesy and privacy as anyone else, which I agree with.  Any private information about a person in theirs and should be spread only by themselves if they chose to do so.  Yet the way an online society operates there will be those that be suspicious of anonymous users.

The Clutetrain Manifesto’s fourth thesis states that the online public voice is honest, pure, and natural.  When one works within a community anonymously they can lose their credibility because they are in a way, being dishonest by not disclosing their true identity.  Other users may be more likely to assume that unidentified users are hiding within the community for one reason or another.

I believe that the public voice will eventually eradicate anonymous online users.  The unknown users will soon be ignored, as most will feel there voice has no validity.  I simply avoid anonymous posts.  I assume the aforementioned notions and tend not to find those users trustworthy.  If someone has something to say and they want to be heard and trusted then nameless users will have to reveal their basic identity.

In the “real” world one can be known within a society while maintaining their secrets or private information.  The same can be true in an online community.  If users are honest and pure in their comments and behavior online, others will be more likely and willing to hear their voice.

When all are known and familiar within an online community, much like in a small village there will be more trust and confidence within it as those who attempt to disturb the norm will be shamed and reminded of the way of things.

I’ve been reading the book Googled:  The End of the World as We Know It, by Ken Auletta, a somewhat objective view of the past, present, and future of Google and I as a result I find myself being more suspicious of the information giant.

Auletta does a good job of taking a look at Google and it’s founders from multiple viewpoints including those of it’s employees, investors, and competitors and it has raised some questions from me regarding the motive of Sergey Brin and Larry Page in developing the world’s most popular search engine.

As Aultetta explains, Brin and Page are two brilliant computer engineers who have been basically bred to be geniuses and question the norm.  The came together to develop an algorithm that catalogs every search, and links associated with that site and determine a hits location on the list be how relevant it is to similar searches.

The two founders say that they wanted to provide a free service to the public that provided endless amounts of information to users.  They wanted to do things differently than their IT predecessors such as Microsoft and IBM.  They even decided that Google’s company motto or mission statement, as they called it, was don’t be evil, which is how they saw these predecessors.

At first, Google was just that, a public service that did no evil.  However, as they became pressured by their investors to find a way to monetize the search engine, there seemed to have been a shift in the way they did things.

They came up with AdWords which is a rather democratic advertisement model that .was originally the idea of Google competitor Overture, that allowed companies to bid on keywords and consumers who view the adds to determine which adds are most relevant and therefore higher on the list.

This model was so honest and successful that it made Brin and Page billionaires virtually over night.  Google was now a big business and suddenly the founders wanted to branch out and do more than just search.   They started developing applications and programs to just seemingly compete with and agitate Microsoft.

They also brashly attempted endeavors such as GoogleNews in which they sought to digitize and catalog every book ever written without the thought of copyright infringement, which became a problem as publishers began to sue them for these activities.

I can’t believe that Brin and Page were ignorant to the consequences of trying to obtain all the information found in all the world’s books without permission, as some maintain in the book.  They knew exactly what they were doing and I believe they understood what the reaction might be but they didn’t really care about what other people thought.

Page himself said that the software they develop for “the greater good” had to be designed in a way as to build a bond and trust with users.  He understands the social implications of interactivity and how effective it can be at influencing people.

In a way this is no different that how traditional big media has influenced viewers, readers, and listens politically and economically.   Knowing how social and interactive media can affect people it can become a powerful tool in which one could brainwash the public.

Google now has the power to do exactly this if they want.  With their recent acquisitions of media outlets such as YouTube and agreements with TiVo, Google can become the latest and largest media giant that could monopolize the Internet and control all the world’s information if it so chose.

It’s hard to believe that Brin and Page have the same motives now as they did when there were just Stanford graduate students.  It seems as if the power and money has fueled their already existent arrogance and is driving them to possibly change the way we think about media.

There are many current and future media concerns that require looking into the past and identifying the success and mistakes that were made and how they can be replicated or avoided respectively.  The FCC hopes to work with station owners and to determine what chances, if any are needed and what effects any changes in policy will mean to the markets of television radio.

In chapter 15 of his book he explains how there has been very little public debate about the topic of control of radio.   and would be very supportive of this workshop as public participation is encouraged.  Local citizens are going to have a voice is what is done with their local programming and help unsure that what is broadcast is kept in their best interest.

One of the top issues that will be discussed at the workshop is the idea of the FCC to reduce the amount of regulations on duopolies within a single market.  They want to see how duopolies would affect diversity of voices and programming of a local market.

In broadcasting, the term duopoly refers to a single company owning two outlets or stations in the same city.  Many industry analysts, as well as McChesney, feel that duopolies will homogenize programming, diluting the diversity of programming and limiting the variety of audiences which results from the stations expressing the same interests, viewpoints, and politics of the one owner.

The FCC has experimented with the idea of incorporating duopolies and other oligopolies in some larger markets such Los Angeles, and is looking to reduce the amount of regulation when it comes to these duopolies.

To many observers, as stated above, duopolies can lead to the decrease in program and audience diversity as well as have various secondary effects on the industry.  In addition to the above concerns, there is a real fear that the formation of duopolies could lead to massive lay-offs and pay cuts among station employees.[1] As large televisions are allowed to acquire other, smaller stations, there is little need to keep the employs of these new acquisitions, as the programming of these stations will most likely be similar and broadcast with minimal staff.

Conversely however, McChesney neglects to point out any of the potential benefits to duopolies within a market.   There are those that oversee the industry who see some good in duopolies in markets.  In one way, duopolies are a way of maintaining diversity by keeping financially strapped and failing stations running under a larger, well-established station.  The FCC sees this type of duopoly as a way of keeping an additional voice on the air that would no longer exist if it were not able to be acquired by an already existing station of the same market[2].

Moreover, duopolies have the ability to reach more audiences in that they can provide a type of synergy among stations owed by the same media company.  With the occurrence of nationally broadcast events, such as football games, station owners would have the ability to air previously scheduled or local programming in small markets that would be preempted on the one station, by airing them on other station it owns in the market[3].  This results in creating more than one audience.  Both the football fans and the viewers of the originally scheduled programming can still receive the content they desire.  In addition, localism can still remain as programming that serves local needs and interests, would have been preempted and unaired in a market without duopolies, can now be viewed and serve the local community.

Those such as professor Matthew Spitzer or Cal Tech/USC believe that duopolies can be useful in smaller markets by positing that station viewpoints are a matter of attracting an audience[4].  If owners of duopolies are smart, they will vary the type of content on each of their station in order to draw the most diverse audience and potential customers as possible.

These are just a few of the current thoughts on duopolies and how they could benefit or harm a given market and its community, but it is a given that there will be many more arguments for and against duopolies in the future.

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/L.A.+duopolies+grapple+with+changes+at+TV+stations:+futures+of+highly…-a091093766

[2] FCC waives through Amarillo TV duopoly

http://www.rbr.com/tv-cable/tv_deals/20647.html

[3] Synergies Emerge in TV Duopolies

http://articles.latimes.com/2003/may/30/business/fi-duo30

[4] Television Duopoly in Small Markets: The Effect on Diversity

http://uchicagolaw.typepad.com/faculty/2009/04/television-duopoly-in-small-markets-the-effect-on-diversity.html

I used to read the newspaper when I was younger and had the time to do so.  It was a good source of information, but of course but the options of papers was limited and the news found within them was sometimes outdated.

On the other hand, I didn’t watch the news on TV, there was always something better on.  It wasn’t until the events of September 11, 2001 occurred when I began to watch the news religiously.  The second I got home I would turn on the TV and flipped to the first news network (usually CNN) that I could find.  I was trying to get as much information as possible and as quickly as possible.  I would switch back and forth between CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and others to get all the facts.

Looking back, I feel that the time following September 11 offered the best coverage of news on television.  There was neither the time nor a place for biased reporting.  Delivering the facts to the American public was focus.

As time passed I started to notice how different the news coverage was between networks.  Some networks reporting leaned to left while others leaned to the right.  I realized that this is how television news really was.  Each organization has their own agenda and feels the need to put their twist on stories and try to shove their beliefs down your throat.

This is what frustrates me about news today.  It’s so hard to find an honest coverage of news for those of us who want just that, news, not political propaganda.  I don’t think a majority of viewers realize that when watch one network or another that their getting brainwashed.  I believe if they realized what I have, there would be much more of a public revolution that would force a change in how news is covered.

In the meantime as we wait for this news revolution to occur, because I feel it eventually will, I’ll just rely on my resourcefulness and watch the new coverage from both sides of the political agenda and interpret the news the way I want, not the way the networks want.  And I suggest everyone does the same.

I remember at age six or seven, sitting in front of the television and like most Canadians, wishing I didn’t have to sit through boring commercials.  I regularly dreamt about inventing a machine that resembled our BETA, which would allow me to fast forward through commercials.  Of course at age six, I had neither the means nor the knowhow to design and patent such an idea.  The dream never came to reality, at least for me.

At that young age, my only reason for wanting to invent such a machine was to rid my life of these television annoyances.  There was never any thought towards the economic and social implications this idea would have.  Now that I’m older, wiser, and understand what a great idea I back then, I’ve missed out on my opportunity.  In the late nineties, someone else had the same idea I did and was able to execute it’s development.  The first commercial DVR was born and the television industry was about to be turned on its head.

The DVR has revolutionized both the television and marketing industries.  Now that TV viewers can eliminate commercials by fast forwarding through them, advertisers have been forced to find new ways and new media to market products and brands.

This can be seen as a negative thing or one can also see it as a way of forcing advertisers to be more creative and inventive in how they introduce new and existing products or brands to consumers.  This need to find new means of advertising is not only changing the television industry, it’s also having an effect on all media in general, especially new, interactive multimedia.

Advertisers are now reluctantly looking to the Internet and other interactive media to sell products.  Many corporations and marketing agencies have had a hard time grasping the idea of the Internet and how it can benefit them.  Yet, some companies have embraced the Internet and have taken full advantage of its capabilities to earn and create customer loyalty like they never could have with television.

These companies have come up with ingenious and innovative ways to get potential customers involved in the advertising themselves.  The interactivity in newer media allows consumers to have an actual say or affect how a product or brand is advertised.  This helps to form a bond or loyalty between customer and brand, which could never have been obtained by advertising on television.

Ironically, this shift in advertising may be the downfall of TV and as a result, the DVR.  Some analysts believe television could become obsolete within the coming decade since there will no longer be the advertising dollars coming in to sustain it.  So, the DVR may have had it run in just a 20-year span and not necessary for the survival of our civilization, but I still wish I invented it.