Does Media Reform Have a Chance in the Digital Age?

By Don Hazen, AlterNet. Posted January 11, 2007.

The timing is terrific for the New Press' publication of Jeffrey Chester's new book, Digital Destiny: New Media and the Future of Democracy.

The book comes out just as a new Democratic majority in Congress is getting seated in Washington after a long absence and a large gaggle of media reformers are headed to Memphis, Tennessee, for a big gathering on January 13th and 14th. Hopefully both the Democrats and the reformers will hear Chester's very loud wake-up call about a rapidly changing digital media system that shreds consumer rights as it " uses the Internet as a personal information collection system."

My goals here are two-fold: One, provide the reader with a good sense of Chester's terrific book and what it means for our media future. And, two, challenge the media reform movement to revisit their priorities, especially their disproportionately large focus on "net neutrality."

It is becoming increasingly clear that we need to focus more attention on the content and tools of the powerful new interactive digital landscape -- a place where Chester says "brand washing" has become the new model for manipulating consumer behavior and undermining democracy -- and less attention on the delivery pipes. Here, huge media companies like Yahoo and Google are fighting that battle with us.

Making sure all citizens have access to information and the Internet is crucial, and of course we should be on the side on the content providers against the telephone and cable titans. But as has been true for decades, only scant attention and investments are being made toward building an independent media that can produce compelling content and deliver it broadly. No matter what happens with net neutrality, the same corporate media and right wing forces will be dominating our air waves, and now increasingly the Internet, while the opportunities for growing progressive media capacity essentially remain stalled.

Keeping up with Super Rapid Media Change

You would have to be living under a rock to not notice the widespread changes the digital media revolution has swept into the 21st century. There are tens of millions of bloggers. Murdoch's News Corporation and the expanding colossus Google have gobbled up mega social networking sites like My Space and YouTube, with millions of daily users, for billions of dollars. And, as the Internet becomes increasingly dominant, the "old" media forms -- network TV, newspapers, and terrestrial radio -- are feeling the vise of their shrinking audiences and advertising dollars.

So Chester's book is a helpful aid for keeping up with the rapidly changing technology world. But to really stay up-to-speed, you might also need a bunch of RSS feeds, social network updates; hourly checks of Technorati top blogs; Google alerts for breaking headlines; an instant messenger that logs into AOL, Yahoo, GoogleTalk and MSN simultaneously; and some widgets for your friends' Web sites to spread the word about what you think is important. And, of course, you will need a Crackberry so you don't miss any of it while you're driving to work in the morning. And I'm only half kidding. Technological change in our media world is happening at breakneck speed, and Congress, media reformers and aging baby boomers are all having a tough time keeping up.

What's Happening Below the Radar

The essential message of Chester's book is this: While we may know that new social networking sites are attracting huge audiences, we don't have a clue as to what is operating behind closed doors. "The ad and marketing industries have been engaged in a largely behind-the-scenes role ensuring that the federal government doesn't protect our on-line privacy." As Chester warns, "We are being shadowed online by a slew of software-driven digital gumshoes working for Madison Avenue. Our movements in cyberspace are closely tracked and analyzed."

Powerful interactive video and animated images beckon us to become emotionally involved with the advertising as talking animated ad bots float across our computer screens. "We all should be alarmed about how interactive advertising is shaping the kind of programming and content available to us in the future," Chester writes.

This scenario is not new. In the 1950s, Vance Packard authored the book Hidden Persuaders, showing how ad campaigns are designed to exploit consumer vulnerabilities. Fifty years later, Chester is on the same track: The efforts, motivations and secrecy of advertisers haven't changed -- only their venues have.

After infiltrating the corporate media world by studying trade journals and reports and attending conferences below-the-radar, Chester has learned many of the tricks of the new electronic trade. This knowledge is especially disconcerting when faced with the fact that public interest groups and progressive media makers and funders are pretty much in the dark when it comes to developing strategies for competing with the "rich" media of the future.

See more stories tagged with: net neutrality, corporate media, new media, media reform, online media

Don Hazen is the executive editor of AlterNet.

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