Funferal

Meditations on media reform

A rant of a different sort now. A relatively harmless list of ’10 steps to a more democratic media’ does go somewhat beyond the standard list of controls on corporate media, but not enough.
Although community WiFi is listed – it’s managed to attract support from ‘official’ media criticism quarters recently, mainly due to the legislative attacks on it – the concentration is on “affordable Internet access” which could equally be achieved through price caps or other regulatory moves. Community WiFi is interesting because it is community based. Yes it can be cheaper because it’s non-profit, but the potential for community-centred media systems, with the multi-directional, participatory models that that implies: that is what’s interesting and tranformative.
Similarly, copyright and spectrum are referenced as issues, but not in a manner that gives me confidence in their commitment to truly participatory models. Similarly, their reference to Open-Source and Free Software displays not so much an ignorance of the difference (they reference the debate) as a conclusion that the ‘free beer’ sense of free is what matters. Finally when it comes to alternative media they reference the professional groups, such as Alternet and the Independent Press Association, while ignoring Indymedia and even blogs.
Maybe I’m just in a ranting mood (see my previous post) but while I’m all for less media concentration and cheaper internet access, that’s not’s important. A tryle participatory model with an active polity – now that’s something worth fighting for. I don’t know if people in the ‘reform’ camp understand that, or, if they do understand, they actually dislike the idea. These are intelligent, informed people, so I’m leaning towards the latter. So if so wouldn’t it be useful to have an open debate on why they’re in the liberal rather than radical camp, and why they presume we’ll fall in behind their vision?