In their book De-westernizing Media Studies, James Curran and Myung-Jin Park, have invited a number of media critics from around the world to comment on recent media developments in different countries and regions. The book is indeed an interesting read for anyone who’s interested in the relationship between mass media and society in a globalized world.

This book is part of a growing reaction against the self-absorbtion and parochialism of much Western media theory. […] Whether it be middle-range generalization about, for example, the influence of news sources on reporting […], the same few countries keep recurring as if they are a stand-in for the rest of the world.

I’ve looked at a few chapters dealing with the situation in the Middle East, Egypt and – for comparison – Sweden. A special emphasis is put on developments in satellite-distributed television, and how that technology changed the possibilities for regional governments to maintain control over its citizens’ consumption of media. Why is it that we in the western world tend to dismiss Middle East media, and claim moral superiority of our own?
(more…)

Ok, when I first set out to write this weblog a few weeks back, I promised myself that it would not be yet another blog about blogs. I don’t want to say anything bad about people who do so; I daily read a whole bunch of them with great interest, but I wanted my blog not to be a meta-blogblog. However, here’s another post on the subject. Sorry.

Washingon Post published quite an interesting read yesterday about how blogs “let the cat out of the bag” on election night exit polls and the implications of them doing so.

First of all: yes, I believe the blog-owners did wrong and should have known better than to relay dubious information. But that’s really not the issue.

It seems to me that the big media need to realize that blogs are soapboxes from where individuals express opinions, and they’re good at it. The big triumph of this year’s election is the increased participation and plethora of voices and opinions in the month and weeks before the election. This is, I believe, what media scholars will be analysing in a few years time. And this is what those big-media articles really should be about.

I do, however, have my doubts about weblogs as newscasters, in the sense that they report such things as exit polls. And you also seriously have to question the stability of the system if Wall Street reacted strongly to rumours circulating on the Internet, huh? I thought everybody knew that the Internet was nothing but rumours and porn? =)

Publicizing opinions online has become dramatically easier with the advent of weblogs, as I’m sure all j-turn readers are aware. What does this mean for a journalists in old-media? Journalists are getting more and more comments on their practices, The New York Times reports, and the comments are not always nice. But, please, you don’t think bloggers get their fair share of bashings too?

NY Times: Web Offers Hefty Voice to Critics of Mainstream Journalists

It’s not often that creators of software get into politics. But, in the case of DC++, a popular P2P file sharing program, this has indeed happened. At startup the program contact the creators server to look for updates, but what it displays is a message about the lock-out fom George W Bush’s website. This is not a first for DC++ however – an entire version of the program was called The Peace Version, in the weeks leading up to the Second Gulf War.

From Wired News: “President Bush’s official campaign website has blocked access to foreign surfers since Monday, an internet monitoring company said Wednesday.

Netcraft, based in Bath in western England, said the site ‘appears to be rejecting visitors from most points outside the United States, while allowing access from U.S. locations.’ ”

I wonder if there’s a technical reason for this (unlikely) or if excluding foreigners to read about the most powerful man on earth, was an actual decision from the campaign staff. I’m worried though, that this might backfire among those who are already suspicious about the policies practiced by the United States. Time will tell.

Wired News: Foreigners Blocked From Bush Site

The Internet was created to be a synchronous medium, just like Sturken and Cartwright point out. What that means in practice, is that whoever can receive also can transmit, unlike for example television. In effect – anybody with an Internet connection can become a reporter and publish news and articles without the hassle of printing and distributing atoms, or investing hugely in the infrastructure needed to broadcast television.

What’s in a Name
In Sweden, which will serve as my example here, the market for Internet broadband is moving away from empowering the users with the possibility to broadcast. There are two primary ways of getting broadband access today; first, through optical fiber which is a quite expensive solution since quite extensive modifications to the infrastructure is needed, both the building and the apartments; secondly, broadband access can be provided through the ordinary phone lines. The latter is by far the more common method, and most often utilize ADSL-technology to achieve its goal.

The design flaw, and the inconsistency to Sturken’s a Cartwright’s ideal, is actually right there in the name: ADSL is an acronym for Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line. What this mean is that the rate of which users can receive data is much higher than the rate they can send at. The ratio between the two can be as high as 30/1 (28 mbps downstream and 0,8 mbps upstream). However, there are alternative technologies (such as VDSL) that enable true synchronous transfers, but none of the Swedish Internet provides are offering such a service to the market, and those who did are gradually replacing the technology. This is, the providers’ claim, because that too few customers requested the feature.

Consequences
Without being overly conspiratory, I would like to raise the question whether is possible that there is indeed a strategy behind these choices of technology. The phone companies have since a few years stopped being just providers of an information service, to actually wanting to provide and sell content for the networks. Is it really in their best interest as content merchants, to enable others to easily distribute content on the net?

The Swedish market does not (yet) show the same degree of synergetic mergers of companies as in the US, so lets consider the American example for a while (2001:317). Road Runner, one of the world’s biggest broadband providers is owned by the Time Warner Inc., who in turn own dozens of newspaper, radio stations and movie studios.

In the rapidly changing landscape of digitalization, and as more and more services anticipated to be provided through the broadband connection; fixed line telephony, radio, television, pay-per-view movies and music to name but a few, the apparent risk is that the consumers will, one again, be turn in to passive receivers of information without possibility of a feedback-channel. The effects of increased democratization would evaporate in thin air.

References
» Sturken M. & Cartwright L. (2001) Practices of Looking – An Introduction to Visual Cultures, Oxford: Oxford University Press

The last decade has brought substantial change in the way newspapers are doing business. Barnhurst and Nerone (2001:283) cite the American journalist Jon Katz who in 1994, made the (now infamous) prediction that newspapers would be dead within ten years. Considering that ten years have passed, and many of us are still in fact starting the day with a cup of coffee and a copy of the local newspaper, one could say that Katz was wrong. Barnhurst et al seem to imply just that. However, let’s look at a couple of examples of what these ten years has brought us, and let us then again consider Katz’s prediction.
(more…)