Sunday 25 October 2009

Fortress Europe and Global Research


Recently, I've seen a couple of very attractive teaching and research job opportunities in something called "Global Media" or "Global Communication".  Also, my dear Alma Mater the University of Helsinki has just begun a new MA program on Media and Global Communication

Excellent. I'm sure no one can deny any longer that there's at least some transnational characteristics regarding most media -- not only in terms of production, content and consumption/participation, but in terms of ownership or even policy challenges and regulatory frameworks as well. Another curious phenomenon is that as I'm getting ready to teach a course on media and national identity there's really nothing very contemporary about written about it. The related books are dominated with titles that start with the G-word.

So it's great that scholars and universities are focusing on this. But.

I wonder how to put this diplomatically... A couple of years back, I was part of a team doing an overview study for the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation about communication research in the US. Having been used to the little clique that meets within the protective walls of the Fortress Europe I was amazed what a different research landscape emerged from our mapping of the situation the US.  No need for details here (well, the studies on media effects, you know... check out the report) but I also noted how US-centric the research is.

Wearing my European hat, easy for me say. Access to data (e.g., state-funded statistical bureaus, the European Audiovisual Observatory), to researchers/universities in other countries, cultural proximity, EU/European as a common topic... all make things easier on that side of the Atlantic. At the same time, the relative Anglo-American dominance in communication and media studies, at least for Northern Europe, had given me some glimpses of the US-based research. And thanks to America 'cultural imperialism' I felt I could analyse American talkshows and reality programmes fluidly, no problems.

But then today, here in Brooklyn, I realised what the European me had been missing... 

I just finished a part of a book review I'm coauthoring for a US-based academic journal. My task was to read a book by Danish scholars -- oh well: New Publics with/out Democracy.  A solid edited volume, interesting cases. But having become somewhat cross-Atlantic reading it I was suddenly transformed back to Finland, could even see in my mind's eye the seminar room where these texts and others would be presented and discussed. The point: I encountered something that I claim is the Nordic way of doing research and writing, and something in me recognised it immediately.  Can't deconstruct that in detail (yet), but will think about it more.

And I realised how culturally, well, narrow, my research competence is. It also dawned to me that we Europeans really lack analyses by North and South Americans colleagues, African, Asian and Oceanian researchers, about our contemporary media culture, structures, policy-making... The cultural competence is important, but oh how refreshing would it be to read analyses that looked at our fortress (and the national mini-fortresses within the big one) with a little bit of distance... We might learn tons! (Apologies to those scholars who are already working on this, but you are not many). 

So let's mix and match and get truly global -- Europeans (Westerners) have excelled in researching other cultures; it would be so important to learn more about ours through non-native ones, so much more possibilities for innovation. 

Thursday 15 October 2009

Radicalism a la Finland: Governing Broadband Access

Mark the date 10/14/09: Finland made history in broadband access. This is how the Finnish Broadcasting Company told the news in its website:

Starting next July, every person in Finland will have the right to a one-megabit broadband connection, says the Ministry of Transport and Communications. Finland is the world's first country to create laws guaranteeing broadband access.

The government had already decided to make a 100 Mb broadband connection a legal right by the end of 2015. On Wednesday, the Ministry announced the new goal as an intermediary step.

Some variation will be allowed, if connectivity can be arranged through mobile phone networks. 

This is a radical step, at least as in: the first in the world. However, to put things in context:

According to a recent poll by Statistics Finland, 82% of all Finns had used the Internet in the researched 3 month period last Spring. In that tiny country of 5.3 inhabitants 70% of Finnish households have already a broadband access

[A comparison to my other home country: According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, in Spring 2009 63% of adult Americans had broadband access at home. This means a 15% increase from 2008. ]

But it should be noted that the Finns have had their visions about Internet connectivity long before one could even dream about something like the Obama administration & FCC's national plan that is in the making. Finland has been busy since mid 1990s with creating national strategies to ensure it position as a leading 'Information Society'. The first action plan was envisioned in 1995, followed by one in 1998, and another in 2007. The latest plan exceeds until 2015 and had initially included  the 100 Mb vision cited above.   

A great research topic: How did the 2015/100Mb plan -- and now the speeded-up version of 2010/1 Mb law -- come about; how did the argumentation pro/con manifest and the policy-making process unfold? Prof. Phil Napoli, a colleague and mentor from Fordham University, and I will look into that in the near future.

However, the topic has spinoffs: when online, searching information in English  about the novel landmark law, I encountered quite interesting approaches to this piece of news. Alone the pictures used in some of the news items would make a fun cultural analysis of the Brand Finland and free image banks (a medieval castle in Turku in winter; a lake and red wooden cottages on a summer's day). 

But it was fascinating to read how different sources commented this act of Finnish radicalism. Here are some samples:

CNN had made a story out of it and interviewed a legislative counsellor of the Ministry of Communication, a certain Ms. Laura Vilkkonen. Bless her soul for saying this, plain and simple: "Universal service is every citizen's subjective right."  CNN also noted how Finnish are in accordance to the UN view of Internet access as human rights.

The story in the Guardian started with a slightly negative tone (the Ministry 'pushed' through the law that will 'force' telecoms to offer high speed access) but really focused on the reasons for such decision (sparsely populated country, business opportunities) as compared to the UK where the issue is a very concrete digital divide between those who're ITC savvy and those who never go online.

It was not so much the short news item but the related heated comments that, admittedly, startled me when reading Business Week's take on the matter. How about these world views:

Rainer: (...) It's just like needing a car to get to work. If you don't have one, you move to a place that's close to work, or has access to public transportation. Would you have the government of Finland also state that everyone has a right to a car? (...)

Mike J: (...) Welcome to "Robin Hood" socialism where we steal from the rich (who pay the majority of taxes) and give to the poor (who don't pay taxes or pay much less of a percentage). Then when the rich have no money left, their employees will get laid off and the government will have not have a money source. (...)

Dave: (...) There are only three ways that the Finnish government can guarantee this right to all of its people. They can:

A)Use the threat of force to mandate ISPs to provide service to all of its people without being paid (aka slavery)

B)Use the threat of force to mandate that all Finn's must pay some type of tax to subsidize internet service to all people whether they want to or not (aka slavery)

C)A mix of the two via some type of scheme of forcing people into plans, price capping and subsidies (aka slavery)

Whichever of these three paths they take, the Finn's are putting a gun to the head's of innocent vicitms in their own citizenry and forcing them to provide this service to its people. (...)

OK. We all know how online commentaries may sometimes be in style and way of argumentation. And the thread included positive feedback to the Finnish policy-makers, as well.  

Still... perhaps most interesting observation for me, as a Finn, was how relatively little attention the law  received in Finnish online media. One way to look at it is that we are too jaded with our Info Soc and other social/cultural/industrial policies that characterise a social welfare state, so we don't see what kind of radicalism this decision signifies to some audiences, countries... To be sure, there exist claims and increasing evidence of dismantling several aspects of that welfare society -- as we've known it in the past. 

But the Finnish decision on broadband access is radical in its 'old-fashioned' approach:  it views Finnish citizens as, well, citizens, even in the context of the new networked information economy. 

Friday 2 October 2009

Ecumenical Media

On 9/30 I had the honour of attending  the annual Everett C. Parker lecture on ethics and telecommunications and awards reception, organised by the United Church of Christ, to honour the courageous pioneer of the US Media Reform Movement.

I had initially met Rev.  Dr. Parker at Fordham University a few years ago -- where he used to teach until recently. His legacy, however, goes way back. For those not familiar with the US media reform in its early days, consider this:

In 1954 Dr. Parker founded the Office of Communications of the United  Church of Christ, the main goal of which was to use media for the public good in education. However, the Office ended up playing a key role in the 1960s civil rights movement in terms of addressing the issue form the perspective of media policy making. 

Regarding unfair representation of people of colour on TV, and backed with empirical evidence, the UCC was the first organization to demand that those holding Federal Communications Commission licenses and authorizations act on behalf of the public interest. Thanks to its efforts, organizations and individual citizens were granted the legal standing to  address these issues, e.g., to participate in TV licence proceedings. 

The Parker award and lecture event was now organized 27th time (27!) The main lecturer was Rev. Michael Kinnamon, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches in the U.S.A.. Listening to this engaging speaker, I was once more reminded of how useful it is to hear perspectives outside of one's own field / even comfort zone...

Rev. Kinnamon, a major figure in World Council of Churches, discussed the issue of diversity in unity, paralleling the ecumenical movement with the media. 

Recognizing that the media are not included in his field of expertise, he started with what is: he gave serious, and seriously humorous, examples of how, within current Christian ecumenical encounters, different views flourish. The problem, he argued, is no longer the lack of the expression of diversity. The recognition of marginal, formerly neglected voices and their specific contributions to the Church is becoming more and more mainstream. 

But while every fragment/movement is looking out for its right to be heard, safeguarding its position, the common language and unity may be forgotten in that process.

Let me be clear: Rev. Kinnamon did not in any way argue that the alternative, diverse voices should be silenced. He simply asked: how can these segments, groups, ideas speak with one another to realise unity in diversity?

Is that the case with the media? Is there anything in media contents that truly unifies us as communities (beyond the one formed by tweets and Facebook statuses of your 11 most active virtual friends)? And, I was thinking, is this fragmentation in some ways also reflected in today's media justice and reform movements? As Phil Napoli has argued in his excellent review of the academic literature on the movement, based on the analyses it might be a big part of the truth. 

So are we so issue-driven, segmented and specialised as audiences, prosumers, advocates, activists and/or researchers, that we lose the ecumenical ideal; the one that, in a way, is the underlying normative hope and promise of the media in support of a functioning democratic society / community.