tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71261914068228614802024-02-20T09:31:36.816-05:00public/private/mediaMapping interesting and inspiring views and experiments, by scholars and practitioners, that challenge big slogans about the media and the society, and that offer real alternatives.Minna Aslamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01948825486457269840noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126191406822861480.post-83635484633361603432010-01-11T06:51:00.003-05:002010-01-11T07:35:38.304-05:00Must Read #2<b><a href="http://kozinets.net/archives/357">Kozinets, R (2010): Netnography. Doing Ethnographic Research Online</a></b><div><br /></div><div>The importance of this book is, IMHO, comparable to the must read #1 by Hindman (2009): Perhaps not incredibly innovative but filling in a crucial gap regarding online research.</div><div><br /></div><div>Kozinets seems to be the pioneer in discussing ethnography done online, and his brand new book is a clear, simple, step-by-step manual that systematises the core characteristics and particularities of researching internet use/consumer behaviour (K comes from marketing research). Thank you! </div><div><br /></div><div>In one way, the book is a basic, general manual for empirical research:</div><div><br /></div><div><b>What is ethnography</b> -- a strand of anthropology, mix of methodologies to understand a culture or a social setting? </div><div><b>How to choose your method online</b> -- whether a survey, journal, interview, social network analysis? </div><div><b>What are the steps of an netnography project</b> -- Definitions of questions and social setting/topic to be researched; Community identification and selection; Community participant-observation, gathering of data; Analysis & interpretation; Writing up results, theoretical and/or policy implications?</div><div><b>What are the particularities of netnography</b> vis-a-vis ethnography -- alteration of communication by the particular media used; anonymity; access & participatory ethos of online communities; 'autmatic' archiving of communication?</div><div><b>What are the ethical considerations</b> and procedures -- are online communities public or private spaces; how to get consent for research (inform about the reseach, ; how to avoid harm for participants and how to portray data (degrees of concealment)?</div><div><b>What are the quality parameters </b>of netnography -- degrees of coherence, rigour, literacy, groundedness, innovation, resonance, verisimilitude, reflexivity, praxis, intermix?</div><div><br /></div><div>By being so basic, systematic and practical, the book demystifies online ethnography. Its wonderful core message is, really, that a lot of social science/ethnography data is mediated. Thus, online is just one -- albeit a very important, if not currently the most important -- domain, among others, with its particularities. But those special characteristics can and should be researched in a manner similar to any ethnographic project -- with ethical, reflective and contextual considerations.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Minna Aslamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01948825486457269840noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126191406822861480.post-66138447309154414762009-12-09T06:10:00.006-05:002009-12-09T07:10:35.161-05:00BB, policy & ethnography<div>Prof. Phil Napoli (Fordham) and I have moved a (BIG) step further in our investigation of Broadband Access: The Case of Finland.</div><div><br /></div><div>Last week, I interviewed key people at the <a href="http://www.lvm.fi/web/en/home">Ministry of Transport and Communications of Finland (MINTC)</a>, Ms. Maaret Suomi (Ministerial Adviser) and Mr. Juhapekka Rantala (Director of Communications Networks Unit).</div><div><br /></div><div>They told a fascinating story of the process of lawmaking (see the previous blog on <a href="http://publicprivatemedia.blogspot.com/2009/10/radicalism-la-finland-governing.html">Finnish radicalism</a>), paralleling the recent decision by Finland with the traditional system of universal primary education (kansakoulu): BB access is a similar, necessary component of today's (Finnish) society. (A core background document -- in English -- by the MINTC for the national BB strategy can be found <a href="http://www.lvm.fi/fileserver/national%20broadband%20strategy.pdf">here</a>.)</div><div><br /></div><div>But they also depicted a much broader policy-making philosophy and interconnected set of issues that, I suspect, Phil and I would not have been able to tease out from the law, public debates, or background reports. </div><div><br /></div><div>Interestingly, just a few days prior we had received some interesting emails forwarded from the <a href="http://giganet.igloogroups.org/">Giganet</a> list, debating which country, after all, is the first one to declare universal access (was it Estonia, as <a href="http://www.numerama.com/magazine/14231-la-finlande-fait-de-l-acces-au-haut-debit-un-droit-fondamental-et-opposable.html">this discussion</a> suggests? Or perhaps Ecuador? France? Switzerland?). Whatever the case, I'm sure that the background stories of the policy making would be partly similar, but surely also different, but that would be something revealed by discussions with those concretely involved in the respective processes.</div><div><br /></div><div>This just highlights to me how ethnography as a method needs to move to the realm of policy studies. One segment is, naturally, understanding changing audiencehood (see previous blog on <a href="http://publicprivatemedia.blogspot.com/2009/07/much-ado-about-participation.html">participation</a>) that can't be solely derived from statistics on blogging, tweeting, and facebooking. </div><div><br /></div><div>But in order for communication research to matter, we need to gain a much more in depth understanding of policy-making processes. In that realm, there are a couple of interesting recent works applying ethnography that real with activism/advocacy -- and Des Freedman's wonderful US-UK comparative analysis on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Politics-Media-Policy-Freedman/dp/0745628427">'Politics of Media Policy'</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, I hope that the work Phil and I are involved in will prove the importance of case studies and in depth analyses of specific policy decisions, and suggest their applicability and possibilities for modifications for other contexts. Only microlevel ethnography approaches can show the particularities, subtleties, and details that can, in turn, inform the possible lessons learned for other countries and policy forums.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Minna Aslamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01948825486457269840noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126191406822861480.post-13708636737536369712009-11-09T07:15:00.009-05:002009-11-23T02:30:20.524-05:00Citizen 2.0: cross Arabian Sea<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I</span><span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">'m preparing for a lecture/data gathering trip in India.<br />One stop will be in Bangalore, in this wonderful institute that combines research and advocacy re: the Internet: </span><a href="http://www.cis-india.org/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">CIS</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">.</span></span></span><div><span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />In search for some possible research partners for the future, I compiled this short abstract that was meant to outline my interest in the question of participation:</span></span></span><div><span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The early and mid 1990s witnessed a surge of academic thinking and public debates around the democratizing power of the Internet. The most hopeful utopias of deliberative online communication and formation of active ‘subaltern counter-publics’ (Fraser 1992/1997) were countered with fears ranging from trivialization, fragmentation, even disappearance of widely and commonly shared issues, to viral distribution of non-democratic, ‘harmful’ content. Now the same debates are re-emerging once again in era that is witnessing the explosion of ‘social production’ in a multitude of digital platforms.The recent examples of the elections in two very different societies, the United States and Iran, provide just two cases where information production by non-professional individuals and loose associations, distributed via informal networks including social networking sites and microblogging, has played a major role in democratic processes.</span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />A question remains: do social networks facilitate platforms for democratic debate and participation in our ‘post-broadcast’ democracies characterized by ‘a networked information economy’? And further, is or can there exist such a phenomenon as a ‘Citizen 2.0’ who actively participates in democratic processes (issue driven and/or local, regional, national, transnational) via digital media? So far academic scholarship has focused on theorization rather than empirical analyses, has tended to emphasise activities of social justice movements that are by default networked and proactive, and thus have ‘romanticised’ the participatory and democratizing nature of the Internet, web 2.0 and mobile communications (while most quantitative indicators tend to point towards concentrated and elite communication, and while digital divide still clearly exists). Needless to say, much of the hopeful theorization is European / Anglo-American, and there seems to be relatively little cultural sensitivity in grand visions of global public spheres.<br /><br /></span></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">My talk will not claim to provide answers to these paramount questions. Instead, I wish to raise more questions about (1) what should be researched about mediated democracy and citizenry in our time; what should we know? (2) How could we frame that research theoretically and conceptually? And (3) what kinds of methodological solutions might be useful in this context. Rather than presenting a comprehensive research agenda, I will suggest some ideas that would broadly connect to macro, meso and micro-level view of media, power and citizenship (c.f. Clegg 1989), and I will illustrate those ideas with some empirical examples of my current pilot work for a planned multi-country study on the theme. I hope to provoke a lively discussion, or, rather, a brainstorming session amongst us who care about the possibility of Citizen 2.0.</span></blockquote></span></span><div><span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />Ouch. I should have been more specific, articulate, all that. Some magazine from Bangalore contacted me with a blunt question: You'll lecture here but are you seriously advocating the concept of "Citizen 2.0" in a country where 3.7% of the population uses the Internet?</span></span></span></div><div><span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />So I restate my research aim and interest here: I dislike utopias and big slogans (some described above). I'm interested in re-introducing the concept of citizenship in these debates, and the idea that it embeds the notion of participation. I'm interested in the totally different structural, socio-economic as well as policy contexts of the US, India and Finland that have to do with people, emdia and participation vis-a-vis people's experiences of participation. <br />Crazy or what, but I want policy studies to meet media ethnography, in a comparative context. <br />I love policy studies but we know many of the (quantitative) constraints. At the same time, as convincingly argued in </span><a href="http://chronicle.com/article/Whats-the-Matter-With/48334/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">this online essay</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> in the Chronicle of Higher Education, pol economy scholars look down on cult studies, often for a reason (every CS analysis seems to conclude that everything is a consequence of neo-liberal regime, as the sarcastic comment by, author of the essay </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 21px; "><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_B%C3%A9rub%C3%A9"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Michael Bérubé</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, reads.) </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And we surely need to descriptively document practices of both "people" and different kinds of media organisations, to see the choices, and to reflect what might work and in which contexts.</span></span></span></span></span></div> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I believe we need a multi-method, multi-theory approach if we want to theorise as well as impact the way we all see ourselves, and are seen, as citizens. When I've presented my research manifesto @CIS, in a few hours, I'll share the actual lecture & reactions.</span></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> </div></div>Minna Aslamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01948825486457269840noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126191406822861480.post-77458109447432066742009-10-25T08:57:00.007-04:002009-10-29T18:00:12.764-04:00Fortress Europe and Global Research<div><br /></div><div>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 <a href="http://www.helsinki.fi/globalmedia/">MA program on Media and Global Communication</a>. </div><div><br /></div><div>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.</div><div><br /></div><div>So it's great that scholars and universities are focusing on this. But.</div><div><br /></div>I wonder how to put this diplomatically... A couple of years back, I was part of a team doing an <a href="http://www.hssaatio.fi/pdf/US.pdf">overview study for the Helsingin Sanomat Foundation about communication research in the US</a>. 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.<div><br /></div><div>Wearing my European hat, easy for me say. Access to data (e.g., state-funded statistical bureaus, the <a href="http://www.obs.coe.int/">European Audiovisual Observatory</a>), 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.</div><div><br /></div><div>But then today, here in Brooklyn, I realised what the European me had been missing... </div><div><br /></div><div>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: <a href="http://www.samfundslitteratur.dk/Visning-af-titel.242.0.html?&cHash=a5050500e4&ean=9788759311493">New Publics with/out Democracy</a>. 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.</div><div><br /></div><div>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). </div><div><br /></div><div>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. </div>Minna Aslamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01948825486457269840noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126191406822861480.post-52266143719053585972009-10-15T20:35:00.014-04:002009-10-15T23:13:46.032-04:00Radicalism a la Finland: Governing Broadband Access<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Mark the date 10/14/09: Finland made history in broadband access. </span><a href="http://yle.fi/uutiset/news/2009/10/1mb_broadband_access_becomes_legal_right_1080940.html?origin=rss"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">This is how the Finnish Broadcasting Company told the news in its website</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">:</span><div><div class="ingress"> <p></p></div><blockquote><div class="ingress"><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">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. </span></p> </div> <div class="body"> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> 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. </span></p> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> Some variation will be allowed, if connectivity can be arranged through mobile phone networks. </span></p></div></blockquote><div class="body"><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">This is a radical step, at least as in: the first in the world. However, to put things in context:</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">According to a recent poll by Statistics Finland, </span><a href="http://www.findikaattori.fi/84/?show=teema"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">82% of all Finns had used the Internet</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> in the researched 3 month period last Spring. In that tiny country of 5.3 inhabitants </span><a href="http://www.laajakaistainfo.fi/laajakaista_tanaan/index.php"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">70% of Finnish households have already a broadband access</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">. </span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">[A comparison to my other home country: According t</span><a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/10-Home-Broadband-Adoption-2009.aspx"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">o 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. ]</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">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. </span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">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.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">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). </span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">But it was fascinating to read how different sources commented this act of Finnish radicalism. Here are some samples:<br /></span></p><p><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/15/finland.internet.rights/index.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">CNN had made a story</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> 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.</span></p><p><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/oct/14/finland-broadband"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The story in the Guardian</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> 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.</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">It was not so much the short news item but the related heated comments that, admittedly, startled me when reading </span><a href="http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2009/10/finland_broadba.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Business Week's take on the matter</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">. How about these world views:</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span></p><blockquote><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Rainer:</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> (...) 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? (...)</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Mike J: </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">(...)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">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. (...)</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Dave:</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> (...) There are only three ways that the Finnish government can guarantee this right to all of its people. They can:</span></p> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">A)Use the threat of force to mandate ISPs to provide service to all of its people without being paid (aka slavery)</span></p> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">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)</span></p> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">C)A mix of the two via some type of scheme of forcing people into plans, price capping and subsidies (aka slavery)</span></p> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">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. (...)</span></p></blockquote><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">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. </span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">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. </span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">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. </span></p></div></div>Minna Aslamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01948825486457269840noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126191406822861480.post-79914779070351352542009-10-02T08:04:00.012-04:002009-10-05T14:10:05.785-04:00Ecumenical Media<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">On 9/30 I had the honour of attending </span><a href="http://www.ucc.org/media-justice/parker-lecture/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> the annual </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Everett C. Parker</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> lecture on ethics and telecommunications and awards reception</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, organised by the </span><a href="http://www.ucc.org/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">United Church of Chris</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">t, to honour the courageous pioneer of the US Media Reform Movement.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">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:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">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. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">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 </span><a href="http://www.fcc.gov/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Federal Communications Commission</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> 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. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The Parker award and lecture event was now organized 27th time (27!) The main lecturer was Rev. </span><a href="http://www.ncccusa.org/news/BIOmkinnamon.htm"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Michael Kinnamon</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, 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...</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Rev. Kinnamon, a major figure in World Council of Churches, discussed the issue of diversity in unity, paralleling the ecumenical movement with the media. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">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. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">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.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">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?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">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 </span><a href="http://www.fordham.edu/images/undergraduate/communications/public%20interest%20media%20activism%20and%20advocacy%20as%20social%20movement.pdf"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">his excellent review of the academic literature on the movement</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, based on the analyses it might be a big part of the truth. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">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.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Minna Aslamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01948825486457269840noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126191406822861480.post-6741166927035084142009-09-28T19:42:00.013-04:002009-09-29T12:28:42.440-04:00fast food publishing?<div><blockquote></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">It is no news that Internet not only changing news journalism but also publishing business in more generally. Not only are </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/mar/25/ben-okri-poem-twitter"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">poets publishing their work as Tweets (The Guardian 3/25/09)</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">, but it seems that conventional books must step up to meet the online schedules.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/books/29beas.html?ref=media"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">New York Times article of 9/28/09 on a new fast-paced publishing company</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> chrystallises the issue. A popular blog - journalism site </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 22px; "><a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The Daily Beast</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> that features (often expose-style) political commentary as well as human interest posts (speculations on Travolta's faith on scientology, or an analysis of Brigitte Bardot's influence on sex, 9/29) will extend its operations to </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Beast Books. </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">BB will become a publishing company for Daily Beast writers. They will have 1-3 months to write their manuscripts that will first be published online, and then quickly as paperbacks. </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 22px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The rationale behind the m</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">ove, according to the BB: magazines can no longer cater to people's needs and interests in current affairs issues; while traditional book publishing often takes too long and will thus miss its true momentum. Says the founder of the Daily Beast, Tina Brown, in the NYT article:</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><blockquote></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 22px; "><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">“There is a real window of interest when people want to know something,” (...) “And that window slams shut pretty quickly in the media cycle.”</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "></span></span></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><div><br /></div>Oh, that vicious media cycle! Now real time and 'liveness', formerly accredited to radio and especially television (see </span></span><a href="http://mcs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/22/5/531"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Jerome Bourdon's observant article fr0m 2000</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">), is being forced upon books, too. Surely it is wonderful to read well researched and contextualised reflective accounts on timely issues. How I for instance admire <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/">New Yorker</a> (most of the time) because it's evident that weeks and weeks went into composing the essay or artist portrait. For instance, I found this </span></span><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/21/090921fa_fact_stewart"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">day-by-day account</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> of last September's events in the financial markets simply -- amazing (New Yorker 9/22/09). I could imagine such and extensive, interview-based reportage must have taken months of research, fact-checking, revising. And the essence of the story is precisely in the retrospective perspective, 12 months after, by the key US actors. </span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 22px;font-size:15px;"><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">I wonder whether fast-paced book publishing can produce thorough, quality, well-written accounts of current affairs, simply because the author has to produce plenty of words to fill the pages. And is the book format the best one to serve audiences who want in-depth, contextual information about a current, newsworthy topic? Is this mode of publishing to non-fiction what <a href="http://www.metro.lu/">Metro</a> is to conventional nation-wide or regional newspapers?</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">I also think there's a certain parallel to academic publishing, too. I would really like my work to be current and relevant. I think it is the responsibility of scholars to take part in ongoing public debates. I salute online journals like the<a href="http://ijoc.org/ojs/index.php/ijoc"> International Journal of Communication</a> for being platforms for timely analyses. Yet, sometimes time (and lots of it) is needed for an article -- or a book -- to develop into a many-sided, wise, reflective, useful commentary or vision.<br /></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">My prediction is that there will be a 'slow-publishing' and 'slow-journalism' movement, parallel to slow-food movement. The race for 'real time' and short Twitter-style commentaries in all media will make well-researched, well-written, well-edited essays and reportage delightful delicacies that more and more audience members will want to savour as special treats. And hopefully the movement will be embraced beyond few elite gourmands, especially via new forms of public media and new non-profit journalism efforts (as <a href="http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/08/nonprofit-journalism-the-journey-from-anomaly-to-a-new-paradigm/">this current article by the Nieman Journalism Lab @Harvard </a> may lead to expect). </span></p></span><p></p></div>Minna Aslamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01948825486457269840noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126191406822861480.post-13859570764108290882009-09-16T14:27:00.013-04:002009-09-16T16:14:35.068-04:00Must Read #1<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Matthew Hindman: <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8781.html">The Myth of Digital Democracy</a> (2009, Princeton University Press).</span><div><br /></div><div>Finally something like this. A political scientist takes a serious and systematic quantitative look on the question of the Internet and political participation.</div><div><br /></div><div>His motivation: "Popular enthusiasm for technology has made sober appraisal of the Internet's complicated political effects more difficult." </div><div><br /></div><div>Couldn't agree with him more. <a href="http://www.ssrc.org/staff/erickson-ingrid/">Ingrid Erickson</a> & I recently mapped the close history of the concept "public sphere" within socsci and STS; see the <a href="http://publicprivatemedia.blogspot.com/2009/08/public-sphere-and-web-20.html">blog entry</a> and our <a href="http://www.fordham.edu/images/undergraduate/communications/public%20spheres,%20networked%20publics,%20networked%20public%20spheres.pdf">working paper</a> online @the Fordham University <a href="http://www.fordham.edu/academics/Office_of_Research/Research_Centers__In/Donald_McGannon_Comm/">McGannon Center</a> series. The optimistic undertone can be found in most articles discussing the Internet and its political potential. Still, the lack of empirical analyses is evident, especially of those looking beyond networked social movements as 'counter public spheres'.</div><div><br /></div><div>Hindman quite rightly points out an important distinction about democratization (as a characteristics / potential of the Internet) as either <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">normative</span></span> or <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">descriptive</span></span>. It's incredible how often the normativeness lurks into research, without the researcher / author explicitly acknowledging it (having read through quite a few abstracts of related recent research, I know now it's not only me committing this sin of opaqueness. I bet the Habermasian allure of normative ideas and ideals gives many of us a sense of purpose). But ideals can only be applied when we observe, describe and understand what's going on right now; what our starting point in the process towards that desired state of affairs is.</div><div><br /></div><div>Hindman also notes several factors that should, at the outset, make any big thinkers of Internet utopias a little wary. The digital divide is an undeniable fact, still. Direct (political or any other) speech in the internet doesn't mean that the speaker is being heard (by peers, political elites). Gatekeepers of information -- that were thought to hinder plurality of voices heard via old media -- exist in online communication as well.</div><div><br /></div><div>Hindman presents several cases through which he aims to gather understanding of the potential of Internet-based democratization, in descriptive terms. His operationalisation of the issue includes analyses of 'site visibility', search engines, online concentration, and the characteristics of political blogs. </div><div><br /></div><div>I can't claim I understand all methodological solutions (especially the metrix for link structures are beyond my current capabilities) but the takeaways are clear. An interesting and far reaching theory developed by Hindman & collaborators is '<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">Googlearchy</span></span>', or, 'the rule of the most heavily linked'. This means that the more links to a site, the more easy to find and thus visible the site; that there is a 'niche dominance' so that a small portion of sites of any online community dominate; and that this niche dominance is self-perpetuating (more links attract more links...) As for online concentration, Hindman observes that the main top 10 news sources are even more concentrated online than in traditional media (and, at the same time, certain tiny online outlets receive proportionally substantial attention) -- but the middle-class outlets have experienced decline. And those political bloggers? It seems that the 'ordinary citizen' as political blogger with a substantive following is an oxymoron. The scene seems to be somewhat dominated by those well-educated and established middle-class white males (have I heard this one before?)</div><div><br /></div><div>Conclusion: Hindman parallels participation in politics to participation in e-commerce. The infrastructure of participation may alter the patterns of who's participating and how. Surely the fantastic examples of political activities via online and mobile media are also clear. And Hindman is quick to note that the Internet has many positive applications and implications to us ordinary citizens, including fundraising and easy mobilising. At the same time, he clearly shows that many of the (academic) normative debates have gone too far ahead of empirical evidence.</div><div><br /></div><div>Salute to Hindman. There is nothing wrong with normativeness and optimism, but it's a fixation of mine to resist the 'evident' discourses and slogans. The next steps following Hiondman's intervention should include more analyses, and more qualitative studies, on people's experiences of the realities and expectations of political participation in today's multimedia environment. Politics, democratisation -- or <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">participation</span></span>, as I argue in this McGannon Center <a href="http://www.fordham.edu/images/undergraduate/communications/participation%20as%20position%20and%20practice.pdf">working paper</a> -- can take many different forms.</div>Minna Aslamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01948825486457269840noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126191406822861480.post-48031239004983249652009-08-27T00:23:00.003-04:002009-08-27T09:42:32.424-04:00Forever YoungA quick comment inspired by yesterday's (8/26) New York Times:<div><br /></div><div>I read two fascinating articles. One was the column by <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/opinion/26dowd.html?_r=1&em">Maureen Dowd about on-line celebrity gossip</a> and about a case involving a set of lawsuits that materialised after horrendous and initially anonymous blog-bullying. The other one discussed <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/technology/internet/26twitter.html?em">Twitter's popularity and who are driving it</a>. </div><div><br /></div><div>The former text documented a vile fight between a 28-year old blogger and a 37-year fashion old model; the latter noted that both Facebook and Twitter are really forums of the middle class, middle-aged (and regarding Twitter, those doing business / marketing, too). Teenagers may send hundreds of texts a day but tend to consider Twitter and FB platforms that are too public for them.</div><div><br /></div><div>Slightly scary: 40 is the new 14? It is as if certain forms of social media allow the kind of virtual yet <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">public</span> teenager / student socialising; as if to show off that while we middle-aged can still lead somewhat adult lives off-line, the inner youth has not died. And as a consequence, it is as if -- as perhaps in the case of the beauty and the blogger -- the conventional limits / ethics / adult behaviour patterns can get totally mixed up virtually and in real life.</div>Minna Aslamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01948825486457269840noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126191406822861480.post-19027196750700407472009-08-25T08:30:00.009-04:002009-08-25T09:25:42.072-04:00Public Sphere and Web 2.0<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Right now I'm working on a paper with a dear friend </span><a href="http://www.ssrc.org/staff/erickson-ingrid/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Ingrid Erickson</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> (</span><a href="http://www.ssrc.org/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Social Science Research Council</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">). Surrounded by terms like 'virtual public sphere', 'networked information economy', ' the communicative space', ' networked publics' we started to wonder how the idea and thematics of the public sphere (Habermas 1962/1989) has translated to the web 2.0 era. We know, after all, several recent and major cases of social media and user-generated content in general playing a crucial role in the US, Pakistan, Iran (see the previous blog on participation).</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">After searching numerous databases we noticed some broad trends:</span></span></div><div><ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Conventional (especially non-US) communication studies us the PS framework to analyse old media. There are also quite a few of historical studies about television, radio and news papers published in the past 5 years.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The idea of a European PS has been very fashionable within comm studies. More broadly, the idea of transnational or global PS facilitated by the internet and other digital media is widely discussed.</span></span></li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">However, within comm studies, sociology or pol sci there is (yet) very little theoretical or empirical research to be found on web 2.0. Partly this may be due to the time-lag of the academic publishing process, partly perhaps because the development is rapid and the concepts and tools to study it are not up-to-date...</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;"></span></span></span></li></ul><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The main challenge, in a nutshell is this -- as </span><a href="http://mediaresearchhub.ssrc.org/jostein-gripsrud/person_view"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Jostein Gripsrud</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> has noted in the </span><a href="http://www.javnost-thepublic.org/issue/2009/1/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">March 2009 special issue of the Javnost</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">:</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px; "><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The discussion on how democracy is affected by the introduction and functioning of digital media and the Internet has been going on for at least two decades. (...) While there is no doubt digitisation of the public sphere adds new dimensions and new forms of discourse, the implications of these for the overall quality or health of democracy are still quite differently understood by scholars working in these issues. Consequently, further theoretical work is required, but, perhaps even more important, a variety of empirical studies.</span></blockquote></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">I'm a believer in empirical work. I'm also a firm believer that the access to studies (databases) and forums addressing these issues should be even more interdisciplinary. A case in point: Ingrid, with a background in Science and Technology Studies, and vast knowledge of web 2.0 research noted how different the connotation of the term ' virtual public sphere' would be in that field -- virtual literally meaning virtual worlds. Our review of the term in the studies within 'conventional' comm studies and sociology indicated that it simply referred to the (potential) PS formed by other means than old forms of mass communication.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; "><a href="http://www.javnost-thepublic.org/issue/2009/1/"><div style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px;"></span></span></div></a></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; "><div style="display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">And I'm a firm believer that when any form of communication, involving some significant number of people, is popular, a formation of a public sphere is possible. We researchers need to show examples and options, to map good practices. </span></span></div></span></span></div><a href="http://www.javnost-thepublic.org/issue/2009/1/"><div><br /></div></a>Minna Aslamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01948825486457269840noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126191406822861480.post-77709121123092179272009-08-11T08:43:00.022-04:002009-08-12T17:47:30.144-04:00Murdoch's Tune and its Finnish Remix<blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">By this entry I end the short (cross-Atlantic) silence and join the chain of bloggers pondering about the pay-to-read plan of the Mogul Murdoch.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The recent </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Economist</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> (the paper version, dated 8/8), summarises the matter in its fabulously concise manner:</span></div><div><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">[RM] said he expected that all of his websites would charge users for access within a year, despite his previous commitment (...) News Corporation's boss was speaking as the company revealed a quarterly loss, caused in part by its struggling MySpace social-networking site. The media mogul has sparked an intense debate about ending free access to online news content; many observers remain sceptical that such plan will work.</span></blockquote></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">The Guardian's</span> (UK) superb media blogger Roy Greenslade has posted a </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2009/aug/10/charging-for-content-rupert-murdoch"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">comment with a compilation of international reactions</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> to the news. Somewhat ironically (given his affiliation) he remains amongst the sceptics. He summarises the discussions : "</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 18px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">publishers across the world are dancing to Murdoch's tune" .</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 18px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The tune in Finland is upbeat and celebratory</span>. </span><a href="http://www.taloussanomat.fi/kotimaa/2009/08/08/suomalaislehdet-valmiita-murdochin-malliin/200917820/12"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">In the related story</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">by the business paper <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Taloussanomat</span>, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">the commercial media houses are noted to "greet the decision with joy". It will be a rocky road, but solutions for commercially viable net-based news operations will surely be found, is the main drift.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 18px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">The issue here is that Murdoch's tune allows these Finnish companies, once more, to gather the complaints choir about the role of public service media company YLE. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Representatives of the two big media houses</span> </span><a href="http://www.almamedia.fi/home"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Alma Media</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> and </span><a href="http://www.sanoma.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Sanoma</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">are joined in unison, in stating that YLE's free news services hinder free competition. They demand that not all of the public service news services should be free; and even that YLE would become sort of pay-tv / pay-media content provider through licence fee.</span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 18px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 18px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">The worry that lurks behind the complaint tune is more than understandable. Look at BBC's success online. Also, the UK and German debates and experiences on restricting public service media indicate that this line of argumentation is taken seriously. And a <a href="http://www.taloussanomat.fi/media/2009/08/11/verkkolehtien-suosio-kasvussa/200917966/135">recent study about newspaper readership</a> in Finland indicates that young people increasingly go to online only for the news</span>. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">For instance, the State of the News Media study by PEW</span><a href="http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2009/narrative_online_audience.php?cat=2&media=5"> shows</a> t<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">hat the trend is exactly the same in the U.S..</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Let's get to the bottom line with another quote from <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">the Economist</span> in its </span><a href="http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13649304"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">recent lead on the future of the news </span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">(and let's remember its generally conservative market- and business-oriented drift...):</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); line-height: normal; "><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">[O]nly certainty about the future of news is that it will be different from the past. It will no longer be dominated by a few big titles whose front pages determine the story of the day. Public opinion will, rather, be shaped by thousands of different voices, with as many different focuses and points of view. As a result, people will have less in common to chat about around the water-cooler. Those who are not interested in political or economic news will be less likely to come across it; but those who are will be better equipped to hold their rulers to account. Which is, after all, what society needs news for.</span></blockquote></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">To echo Greenslade, would Murdoch, Alma & Sanoma be happy serving these smaller, kind of elite news audiences that pay services might create? Those who prefer to check out news online only are most likely not the core target segments that would want to <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">pay</span> for online services. Greenslade suspects, in fact, that if Murdoch's plan is not only a trick to stir up the market, he will look into combining on and offline subscription.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">A broader question of public service, media and democracy: I seem to remember that a key part of the very mandate of public service is to inform. Public and scholarly memory tends to be short in these days of constant change in the media landscape, but remember: in the 1990s and early 2000s the Finnish commercial television channels have complained about the entertainment content produced by public service. As so much research in Europe indicates (re: Finland, </span><a href="http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a785034075"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Aslama, Hellman, Sauri 2004</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">), in past public service has very much taken the role of filling in the gap in the expanding media markets. And, yet, a part of public service mission has traditionally been full service and universal access. A tough call. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">I suppose the commercial operators are arguing that given the fee / public funding public service is not free. Needless to say, their tune is based on the idea of media content being as any product, and media policy being about industrial policy. They surely want to guarantee diverse news supply, but ultimately save their business.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Well, another option would be to take an opposite approach, a model of online quality or 'accountability' journalism as emerging in the U.S.: newspapers / news services as non-profits (see, e.g., the <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0212/p03s01-usgn.html?page=1">article</a> by <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">the Christian Science Monitor </span>summarising the trend, and Leonard Downie's <a href="http://bjr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/19/3/5">analysis</a> in <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">British Journalism Review</span>). Finland has a tradition of press subsidies, anyhow, so some sort of model could be set up... </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">Utopian thinking aside, my point is, really: Murdoch's tune and other complaint choirs do not necessarily further and broaden the core <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">content</span> discussion about what news will and should be and who participate in the production and distribution. It's a little scary, since, as <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">the Economist</span> noted, the ultimate role of news is to inform, connect people, and enable political participation in democratic societies.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 18px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">NOTE: there is such a thing as a </span></span></span><a href="http://www.complaintschoir.org/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">complaints choir</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">: it's a Finnish invention but now an international avant garde phenomenon that was featured, for example, in the PS1/MoMA contemporary art exhibition in New York... Here's an </span></span></span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z249iTXaZ-g"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;">example</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"> of academic complaints, sung by the choir of the University of Tampere, Finland.</span></span></span></span></div></div></div>Minna Aslamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01948825486457269840noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126191406822861480.post-8548671469002370072009-07-29T09:52:00.027-04:002009-08-20T10:11:44.149-04:00TVless Life<div><blockquote></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Television used to be my life. </span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I decided that was what I wanted to research when I saw my first </span><a href="http://www.oprah.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Oprah Winrey Show</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> in Chicago in 1992. Those were the days of mothers who dated their daughters' transvestite boyfriends. That kind of anarchy on TV, the most official and powerful of all media! Afterwards, as if to balance this out, I got to calculate content diversity indices for </span><a href="http://www.lvm.fi/fileserver/Julkaisuja%2047_2005.pdf"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">annual studies</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> of the </span><a href="http://www.lvm.fi/web/en/home"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Ministry of Communications of Finland</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">. I realised that television systems and programming strategies could also 'create audiences' and be real sites of (media policy) power struggles. I spent some 10 years researching the small screen.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">TV Disappears</span></em></div><div> </div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But since January 2008 when I moved to New York I haven't had a TV. People talked about </span><a href="http://www.nbc.com/30_Rock/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">30 Rock</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> and enthused about the last episode of </span><a href="http://www.battlestargalactica.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Battlestar Galactica</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">. I had no clue.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I noticed that I didn't desire any of it. I read online from the New York Times that my favourite show ever, </span><a href="http://www.nbc.com/ER/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">ER</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> was about to have its season and series finale (what is it about all these grand finales in 2009?) and would log on to </span><a href="http://www.hulu.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Hulu</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, to see it after the 'real time' broadcast. I would also check some excerpts of old Finnish sitcoms, on YouTube, that someone would share in their Facebook profile. I read a lot at night.</span></div><div> </div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">TV = Less Life</span></em></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Now, having spent 6 weeks in Finland this summer I realise that more </span><strong><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">TV equals less life.</span></span></span></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> I was back being hooked.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Housesitting a friend's place with a nice HD wide screen TV, I started the mornings with the </span><a href="http://yle.fi/aamutv/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">public service moning show</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">. Serious discussions about the necessity of biking helmets. Afterwards, I felt bored (but in a good way), engaged (in a distanced way); in other words, ready to start my day as a citizen.</span></div><div> </div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Then I stayed tuned in the PSB channel TV1 for the Canadian soap, set on the 19th century Nova Scotia. </span><a href="http://www.roadtoavonlea.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Road to Avonlea</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> (remember, anyone?) . My taste degraded as the day grew old: The enlightened Oprah and the spin-off favourite, </span><a href="http://www.drphil.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Dr. Phil</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">; followed by reruns of fashion-related reality shows (</span><a href="http://www.antm.com.au/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Australian Top Model</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">) and B class romantic comedy series (</span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1196947/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">the Ex List)</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> in commercial channels.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">TV is National and Nostalgic...</span></em></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">This experience has taught me two things: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">how old habits such as media practices stick with us, and how broadcast TV is still very much a national construct</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">. Although I don't miss American television, I feel attached and drawn to the kind of programming, on Finnish television, that resembles television culture that I grew up with (I'm 41).</span></div><div> </div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">But I also found out, as I bet many expats and fans of foreign TV shows before me, that no matter of all the webstreams and digi-TV-ready computers, the present copyright regime keeps the (free or low-cost) flow of television programming within national borders.</span></div><div> </div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div><em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The Case of TV-Kaista</span></em></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><a href="http://blogs.helsinki.fi/hanniemi/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Professor Hannu Nieminen</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> of the University of Helsinki has recently written a unique case study on a Finnish attempt to bypass national borders in television webstreaming (in print: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Jostein Gripsrud and Hallvard Moe, eds.: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The Digital Public Sphere: Challenges for Media Policy</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, </span><a href="http://www.nordicom.gu.se/eng.php?portal=&main="><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Nordicom</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">).</span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px; "><span lang="EN-GB" style=" ;color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">He tells a fascinating story: </span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px; "><span lang="EN-GB" style=" ;color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">From summer 2006 </span><a href="http://www.tvkaista.fi/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">TVkaista</span></a></span><span lang="EN-GB" style=" ;color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:medium;"><a href="http://www.tvkaista.fi/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">has offered a global service which allows anybody from anywhere </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">in the world to have access to all Finnish free-to-air television broadcasts for a small fee. Only difference to watching live television is the time that it takes to record the programme before having access to the copy. </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span><!--StartFragment--><span lang="EN-GB" style=" ;color:black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">In autumn 2006 major Finnish television companies challenged TVkaista for breaching their copyright. The argument was that in effect, TVkaista was nothing but commercially motivated re-transmission of the TV-companies’ copyright-protected programmes, and as such it was plainly illegal.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">TVkaista, in turn, claims it only offers recording service, not the programming.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Nieminen concludes:</span><blockquote><ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">TVkaista as a service-format is an exciting example of the hardships that today’s global copyright governance faces. There is an urgent need to study similar experimentations and their reception in other countries. Does the prevailing copyright regime offer any real solution to TVkaista’s challenge? </span></li></ul><ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The case of TVkaista brings out interesting topics concerning cultural democracy in the digital era, especially regarding both the creation of comprehensive and publicly accessible national audiovisual archives, and the competencies of the ex-patriots to actively participate in the social and cultural life of their home countries. However, is this participatory potential is real or is it just wishful thinking? If it is real, what more is needed in order to make it stronger?</span></li></ul><ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">From the viewpoint of the European public sphere, the case of TVkaista includes promising prospects: these kinds of services can be seen both to represent and to promote a new kind of European cosmopolitanism. Again, the problem is if this cosmopolitan promise is just our optimistic projection or do we have some concrete evidence of the democratising effects of such services?</span></li></ul></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />Nieminen's article depicts a case par excellence of how TV could matter, precisely because it's national but its distribution is potentially global. At the same time, the discussion on the role and funding of Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE) continues, e.g., </span><a href="http://www.hs.fi/talous/artikkeli/Tutkimus+Kaksi+kolmesta+torjuu+ehdotetun+Yle-maksun/1135248595982"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">online in yesterday's (8/19) biggest Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">. The core idea simplified: although people might not watch TV they are likely to follow content though some distribution channel. Consequently, every household should pay a 'media fee' and that would be used to fund public service media. </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 3px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 3px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">As noted in my last post, commercial media houses are in a mission to challenge YLE's existence in all possible ways. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Not surprisingly, a new poll (commissioned, unsurprisingly, by the </span><a href="http://www.sanomalehdet.fi/inenglish"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Finnish Association of Newspapers, </span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> a major opponent of PSM) showing people's major discontent to the idea most comments to the news item seem to call for a narrowed mission for PSB, and budget-based funding.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Long Live TV!</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Television is no longer only the apparatus in the living room. Public service is no longer only broadcasting. And mainstream audiences are indeed getting more and more comfortable in watching content on their laptops, as the </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/06/business/media/06video.html?scp=17&sq=television+viewing&st=nyt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">New York Times recently reported</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">:</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px; "><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">By some estimates, one in four Internet customers now uses Hulu, an online home for </span><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/nbc_universal/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about NBC Universal." style="color: rgb(0, 66, 118); text-decoration: underline; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">NBC</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> and Fox shows, every month. “Dancing With the Stars,” the popular ABC reality show, draws almost two million viewers on </span><a href="http://ABC.com/" target="_" style="color: rgb(0, 66, 118); text-decoration: underline; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">ABC.com</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, according to Nielsen. (...) While online video is not going to replace television anytime soon, it is now decidedly mainstream. About 150 million Internet users in the United States watch about 14.5 billion videos a month, according to the measurement firm </span><a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/companies/comscore-inc/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More information about comScore, Inc" style="color: rgb(0, 66, 118); text-decoration: underline; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">comScore</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">, or an average of 97 videos per viewer.</span></blockquote></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 22px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">At the same time, TV still gathers biggest audiences, most ad money, and even changes the aesthetics and duration of the online video. From the aforementioned NYT article:</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 22px;font-size:15px;"><p></p><blockquote><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Production companies are now creating 10- and 20-minute shows for the Internet and writing story arcs for their characters — essentially acting more like television producers, while operating far outside the boundaries of a network schedule. (...)</span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Yet TV networks get much of the credit for the longer-length viewing behavior. In the past two TV seasons, nearly every broadcast show has been streamed free on the Internet, making users accustomed to watching TV online for 20-plus minutes at a time. </span></p></blockquote><p></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">To echo the scholar/media practitioner John Ellis, who set to write his book</span><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=hX_ztCVi5fkC&dq=seeing+things+ellis&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=T95AkUnM_F&sig=OaigNrEZ_PVXHyPoMP4108uLLmg&hl=fi&ei=RleNSoLgOYrElAedtsisDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> Seeing Things</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> about the death of television, but had to change his mind: Television is not dead. Television did not kill cinema. Net/mobile video content will not kill television. There will be interaction, and mingling and mixing, and convergence. </span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">As the case of my old habits and TVkaista show, the conventional, 'old-fashioned' characteristics and qualities of television (national-bound aspects, public service traditions, 'liveness' and simultaneous consumption) could be used to its advantage. In the times of Ipods, vinyl records became popular again. Rephrasing Ellis: the lone net surfer may increasingly begin to yearn the sense of common witnessing.</span></p></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 22px;font-size:15px;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 22px;font-size:15px;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 22px;font-size:15px;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 22px; font-size:15px;"></span></div><blockquote><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 22px;font-size:48px;"><br /></span></div></blockquote><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 22px; font-size:15px;"><p></p></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></div><div> </div>Minna Aslamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01948825486457269840noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126191406822861480.post-7185921710718935492009-07-20T02:05:00.018-04:002009-07-20T12:23:56.100-04:00Much Ado about Participation<span style="font-family:georgia;">It seems to me that in today's public and scholarly discourses about the media the underlying issue is always about 'participation' .<br /><br />To start with, there's the aspect of a kind of <strong><span style="color:#ff0000;">media (form & content).</span></strong> The term 'Participation Media' is frequently used to refer to cross / multimedia content production and products, as well as to interactive possibilities for consumers to take part in the production. Most often, the presumption still seems to be that the framework of participation media is provided by specific, conventional media institutions, and a great part of the content is produced by professionals -- such as in so called 'reality programming' where individual audience members vote by mobile and chat online.<br /><br />At the same time, we know how 'informal' media outlets and social media tools facilitate informal new agency functions and serious political activism (here's an example of an </span><a href="http://www.bentley.edu/news-events/pdf/Facebook_APSA_2007_final.pdf"><span style="font-family:georgia;">interesting analysis</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;"> on the US). <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">Facebook</span> and Twitter provide for the most current, and infamous, examples </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/16/world/middleeast/16media.html?_r=5"><span style="font-family:georgia;">regarding Iran</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">, but for instance professor <em><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">Ullamaija</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">Kivikuru</span></em> has analysed the </span><a href="http://ejc.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/21/4/499"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Tsunami news coverage </span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">in 2005 in Finland and noted the importance of Finnish diving sites in providing the most up-to-date information about Finns in Thailand.<br /><br />Yet another mutation of the theme is a </span><a href="http://www.wikipedia.org/"><span style="font-family:georgia;">certain crowd-sourced encyclopedia </span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">(we know what I mean) or often <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">short lived</span> projects of </span><a href="http://journalismleadersforum.blogspot.com/2007/09/crowsource-journalism-advocate-jay.html"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">crowd sourced</span> online journalism</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;"> (see also the </span><a href="http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2009/chapter%20pdfs/PewKnightreport%2008%20FINAL.pdf"><span style="font-family:georgia;">PEW report</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">), or </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/16/movies/16mass.html?_r=5"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">Facebook</span>-directed animation</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">, or a </span><a href="http://www.convergenceculture.org/weblog/2009/06/collaborative_transnational_au.php"><span style="font-family:georgia;">collaborative translation service for TV shows</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">... The central aim is the joint production, and while there is a hub that gathers the information, the production is not facilitated by and/or channelled through conventional , professional media production and distribution means.<br /><br />Then there are the more scholarly, conceptual and abstract discussions about how <span style="color:#ff0000;"><strong>audience members</strong> </span><strong><span style="color:#ff0000;">are addressed</span><span style="color:#ff0000;"> </strong></span>by the media and/or <strong><span style="color:#ff0000;">how they position themselves</span></strong>. The conventional dichotomy of citizens versus consumers still lurks in the background, but (as I noted in the previous post) some researchers have come up with new roles (or modes of address) such as that of a customer, player (<em><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">Syvertsen</span></em>), or '<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error">enjoyer</span>' (<em><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-error">Costera</span> Meier</em>). To be sure, for example my analysis of Finnish television journalism some five years ago already revealed that within that relatively formatted genre (or generic programme family) there were several very different and distinct way to address the (imagined) recipients of journalistic contents.<br /><br />In broader terms, some scholars want to bypass the idea of audiences and talk about '</span><a href="http://canarytrap.net/2009/05/audiences-and-audienceship/"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" class="blsp-spelling-error" style="font-family:georgia;">audienceship</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">' as referring to the very interface between audiences and texts (<em>Li</em>; as opposed to, I guess, the subject positions of audience members); while others note that the idea of mass communication and 'the work' of its audiences, are still valid concepts, when </span><a href="http://fordham.bepress.com/mcgannon_working_papers/24/"><span style="font-family:georgia;">appropriately reconfigured </span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">(<em><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" class="blsp-spelling-error">Napoli</span></em>).<br /><br />It is clear, however, that the slogan of 'participation' -- audiences as 'participants' in (or even 'in partnership' with) the media -- is a marketing strategy of both <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">conventional</span> commercial and public ('mass') media organizations. In terms of (internal and external) public service ethos, clients and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" class="blsp-spelling-error">prosumers</span> have already a while ago bypassed the core idea of citizens (regarding the Finnish case, this is noted by researcher <em>Johanna <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" class="blsp-spelling-error">Jääsaari</span></em>, in a forthcoming article by the research team of the project </span><a href="http://sockom.helsinki.fi/fiss/themes/journalism/power.html"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Media, Citizenship and Circuits of Power</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">).<br /><br />A White Paper on </span><a href="http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/resources/publications/public_media_2_0_dynamic_engaged_publics/"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Public Media 2.0</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;"> by the </span><a href="http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Center for Social Media</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;"> notes laconically that 'The people formerly known as the audience are now at the center of media'.<br /><br />At the same time, it is curious that some recent surveys on the topic, in the US (</span><a href="http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2009/narrative_overview_publicattitudes.php?cat=3&media=1#2ethics"><span style="font-family:georgia;">PEW</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">) and in Finland (the Circuits of Power project, by <em><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_14" class="blsp-spelling-error">Karppinen</span> & <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_15" class="blsp-spelling-error">Jääsaari</span>),</em> seem to indicate audiences' criticism towards the media. The US/PEW survey on citizen-based media verified that citizens are mostly used as sources rather than given opportunities to really produce journalistic contents. The Finnish respondents felt that the least likely parties to have any influence on media contents were audiences.<br /><br />Two things come to mind, one completely practical (and normative), the other theoretical (but to be <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_16" class="blsp-spelling-error">operationalised</span> in research, for instance).<br /><br />While content, distribution and the related roles of those (formerly?) known as audience members are important in the participation discussion, there's yet another sphere which is becoming increasingly crucial, in terms of content and access. IMHO, participation in (or, just to begin with, the awareness of) <strong><span style="color:#ff0000;">media policy making</span></strong> is a crucial aspect of the entire participation process. And I mean real engagement.<br /><br />The situation is <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_17" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">analogous</span> to participation in content-making. The ability to send an <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_18" class="blsp-spelling-error">SMS</span> comment to the current affairs TV show is not an incredibly radical solution. Some years ago, I did a brief analysis of the content of a website by the Ministry of Communication. The site was set up to allow citizens the possibility to comment on 'Radio and TV programming in 2010', read: how they think about the role of public service. What emerged, among other things, was a lot of resigned skepticism on decision-making processes.<br /><br />I'm not an expert on contemporary political climate and participatory modalities -- this may be the case every time when citizens are asked to comment or participate in such informal manner. I'm just thinking, by the way of an illustration, the momentum when organizations like </span><a href="http://www.prometheusradio.org/"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Prometheus Radio</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;"> and the </span><a href="http://www.freepress.net/about_us"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Free Press </span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">were able to mobilize millions of Americans </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_Radio_Project_v._FCC"><span style="font-family:georgia;">to challenge the FCC </span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">regarding ownership regulations in 2003-4. And I'm thinking the hundreds of transnational advocacy and activist organizations that are interested in rethinking and challenging media policies, nationally and globally (see, e.g., the Resource Database of the </span><a href="http://mediaresearchhub.ssrc.org/"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_19" class="blsp-spelling-error" style="font-family:georgia;">Mediaresearchhub</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">).<br /><br />If I were employed by any European public media organization, I'd probably work on launching a mega campaign on behalf of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_20" class="blsp-spelling-error">PSM</span>. I'd reach for grass roots allies of all kinds (from social justice <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_21" class="blsp-spelling-error">NGOs</span> to consumer organizations), I'd use all kinds of social media campaigning tools. And I'd work on media literacy so that people would understand the questions of diversity and access, net neutrality, and the like. And what <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_22" class="blsp-spelling-error">PSM</span> and related policy-making have to do with them.<br /><br />Another point that I'd work on, as a scholar, would be <span style="color:#ff0000;"><strong><span style="color:#cc0000;">how to assess participation</span>.</strong></span> As <em>Bridget Griffen-Foley</em> has so humorously proven, <a href="http://mcs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/4/533">'audience participation' has existed at least over a century </a>-- so what can be new and revolutionary? And don't give me new media platforms as the explanation</span><span style="font-family:georgia;">. While all kinds of texting, chatting and blogging can be fun, I'm still an old-fashioned believer of the possibilities of mediated communication to build up and strengthen <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_23" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">democratic</span> societies.<br /><br />The most sober, and ethical, and suitable for the foundation of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_24" class="blsp-spelling-error">PSM</span>, and useful conceptualisation that I have come across (but I may be biased) is <em>Peter <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_25" class="blsp-spelling-error">Dahlgren's</span></em> (2005) idea of <a href="http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/summary/117348314/SUMMARY?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0">Civic Cultures</a> (see also <a href="http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/ftinterface?content=a713839241&rt=0&format=pdf">this article</a>). If it is claimed, as it seems to be, that participation is now the key to a democratic mediated communication (and perhaps even to related public sphere/s), then what kind of participation really counts? While scholars like <em><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_26" class="blsp-spelling-error">Liesbet</span> van <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_27" class="blsp-spelling-error">Zoonen</span></em> have celebrated the immense power of the <a href="http://books.google.fi/books?id=nnTFLqP1VnoC&dq=entertaining+the+citizen&source=gbs_navlinks_s">engagement and participation <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_28" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">fostered</span> by reality shows</a>, that format, and the kind of aspects it brings out in the participants, may not be <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_29" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">transferable</span> to all kinds of contents and purposes of communication.<br /><br />I claim that the five circuits of what <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_30" class="blsp-spelling-error">Dahlgren</span> labels as civic cultures are <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_31" class="blsp-spelling-error">quanti</span> -or at least <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_32" class="blsp-spelling-error">qualifiable</span>, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_33" class="blsp-spelling-error">researchable</span> concepts, that is:<br /><br />Does participation (participatory possibilities) foster:<br />1) knowledge and competencies (related to democracy)<br />2) values (procedural and broader)<br />3) affinity and trust (providing 'minimal sense of commonality among citizens in <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_34" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">heterogeneous</span> late modern societies')<br />4) practices (those necessary for democracies), and/or<br />5) identities (as participants in a democracy).<br /><br />Did I just set up a postdoc challenge to myself?</span>Minna Aslamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01948825486457269840noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126191406822861480.post-2468635890106500022009-07-09T13:23:00.022-04:002009-07-20T06:04:36.753-04:00Second Lives. Rethinking Research on Public Service Media<span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Some time ago I attended an inspiring </span><a href="http://www.uta.fi/jour/ripe/2008/programme.html"><span style="font-family:georgia;">conference </span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">dealing with 'public service media (<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" class="blsp-spelling-error">PSM</span></span></span>), <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-corrected"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_1" class="blsp-spelling-error">participation</span></span></span>, partnership and media development'. It brought together scholars and some <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_2" class="blsp-spelling-error">practitioners</span></span></span>, too, mostly from Europe, to brainstorm about the future of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_3" class="blsp-spelling-error">PSM</span></span></span>.<br /><br />Sneaking into a working group well on its way, I entered just in time to hear the presenter say:<strong> <span style="color:#ff0000;">"</span></strong><span style="color:#ff0000;"><strong><span style="color:#ff0000;">I need to begin by repeating what my <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-corrected"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_4" class="blsp-spelling-error">distinguished</span></span></span> colleagues have already said: I love <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_5" class="blsp-spelling-error">PSB</span></span></span> (public service <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_6" class="blsp-spelling-error">broadcasting</span></span></span>)!"</span></strong> </span>He then went on dissecting dissecting the notion of the public sphere and suggesting several theoretical <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-corrected"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_7" class="blsp-spelling-error">modifications</span></span></span>.<br /><br /><em>United We Stand</em><br /><br />As a European media scholar I recognize the discourse and the sense of camaraderie from numerous <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">occasions</span>. Such a sentiment of alliance between scholars and the institution of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_8" class="blsp-spelling-error">PSB</span></span></span> has even said to have contributed to the academic popularity of hard core normative theoretical paradigm in Europe, as first laid out by </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%BCrgen_Habermas"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><em><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_9" class="blsp-spelling-error">Juergen</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" class="blsp-spelling-error">Habermas</span></em> </span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">(1962) in "</span><a href="http://www.amazon.de/Strukturwandel-%C3%96ffentlichkeit-Untersuchungen-b%C3%BCrgerlichen-Gesellschaft/dp/3518284916"><span style="font-family:georgia;">The Structural <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_10" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" class="blsp-spelling-error">Transformation</span></span></span> of the Public Sphere</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">". The idea of a necessity of a democratic public sphere was relevant in defending the public <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_11" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" class="blsp-spelling-error">broadcasting</span></span></span> ethos in the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_12" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" class="blsp-spelling-error">commercializing</span></span></span> media markets in the late 1980s and 1990s.<br /><br />I salute the principle above (demorcacy enhanced by a -- mediated -- public sphere). I honor any sense of true engagement in scholarship, as it's to rare indeed. I also understand that a scholarly commitment to the public service ideal is still going strong, prompted by the fierce competition for audiences, within a media market and across markets, both <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_14" class="blsp-spelling-corrected"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_13" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_14" class="blsp-spelling-error">geographically</span></span></span> speaking and in terms of different media. </span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">As the former CEO of the Danish public <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_15" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_14" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_15" class="blsp-spelling-error">broacaster </span></span></span>(DR), <em>Christian Nissen, </em></span><a href="http://merlin.obs.coe.int/iris/2006/4/article3.en.html"><span style="font-family:georgia;">has summed it up</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">: mass markets do no longer exist; the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_17" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_16" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_17" class="blsp-spelling-error">socio</span></span></span>-<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_18" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">cultural</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_19" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">climate</span> is fragmented and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_20" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_17" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_18" class="blsp-spelling-error">individualised;</span></span></span> and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_21" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_18" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_19" class="blsp-spelling-error">globalisation</span></span></span> in the media landscape is a fact. (He talks about Europe but this surely applies to other parts of the world, too). </span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">And, as for instance the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_20" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">Norwegian</span> media scholar <em>Trine Syvertsen </em><a href="http://ecs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/7/3/363">has noted</a>, audiences are no longer only citizens and consumers, but customers <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_23" class="blsp-spelling-error">and</span> players -- and content producers. The current economic situation has shown the fragility of commercial media, but hasn't freed more public money for public media. In this brave new word, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_22" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_19" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_24" class="blsp-spelling-error">PSB</span></span></span> must radically rethink its mission when <span style="color:#ffff00;"><span style="color:#000000;">transforming itself</span> </span>into <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_24" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_21" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_26" class="blsp-spelling-error">PSM</span></span></span>.<br /><br />In many (Western) European countries the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_25" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_22" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_27" class="blsp-spelling-error">PSB</span></span></span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_26" class="blsp-spelling-corrected"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_23" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_28" class="blsp-spelling-error">organisations</span></span></span> have been in the forefront of digital development. While they led that bandwagon by developing <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_27" class="blsp-spelling-corrected"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_24" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_29" class="blsp-spelling-error">infrastructure</span></span></span>, that was all they got; there was little <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_28" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">money</span> left for proper, innovative content development. Also, the rights for old <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_29" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_25" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_30" class="blsp-spelling-error">PSB</span></span></span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_30" class="blsp-spelling-corrected"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_26" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_31" class="blsp-spelling-error">institutions</span></span></span> to be present in 'new' media platforms has been restricted in several countries, or at least fiercely debated in many others. (Such debate, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_27" class="blsp-spelling-error">initiated</span> by commercial media, is going strong in Finland as we speak, coupled with the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_28" class="blsp-spelling-error">age </span>old critique of the licence fee as the financing model, see a short </span><a href="http://www.hs.fi/kulttuuri/artikkeli/Yle-raportti+on+suuri+pettymys+mediayritysten+j%C3%A4rjest%C3%B6lle/1135245404193"><span style="font-family:georgia;">example</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">....)<br /><br />At the same time, <em>Karol </em><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_31" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_29" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_32" class="blsp-spelling-error"><em>Jakubowicz</em></span></span> (</span>one of the most prominent European public service scholar-<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_32" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_30" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_33" class="blsp-spelling-error">practitioners</span></span>) and other scholars and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_31" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_34" class="blsp-spelling-error">PSB</span></span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_32" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_35" class="blsp-spelling-error">practitioners</span></span></span> </span><a href="http://www.uta.fi/jour/ripe/2008/papers/Jakubowicz.pdf"><span style="font-family:georgia;">h<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_33" class="blsp-spelling-error">ave strongly</span> argued that in order to survive, public service media need to mean public service <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_33" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_34" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_36" class="blsp-spelling-error">broadcasting</span></span></span> plus all the relevant platforms plus web2.0 (social media)</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">.<br /><br />In the current stormy weather for <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_35" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_37" class="blsp-spelling-error">PSM</span></span>, a survival strategy, or two, is thus very much needed (whether in terms of policy support, popular support, content mission, other special remits...), and scholars can surely help in suggesting scenarios and providing empirical evidence (or <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_36" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_38" class="blsp-spelling-error">counter-evidence</span></span>) of related and affecting trends. But given the complexity of the challenges, I'm not sure that 'loving public service <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_34" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_37" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_39" class="blsp-spelling-error">broadcasting'</span></span></span> is the most fruitful starting point.<br /><br /><em>Love Needs Not to Be Blind</em><br /><br />Loving public service is like loving democracy: the theories are plentiful, mostly beautiful (and necessary) but the reality is always more messy and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_35" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_38" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_40" class="blsp-spelling-error">contradictory</span></span></span>. And it's those latter, concrete, empirical aspects (such as policy or <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_36" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_39" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_41" class="blsp-spelling-error">financing</span></span></span> questions; or <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_37" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_40" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_42" class="blsp-spelling-error">institutional</span></span></span> practices) that receive relatively little attention from European scholars, compared to the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_38" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_41" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_43" class="blsp-spelling-error">re-theorisation</span></span></span> of the core idea. </span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">(Although just learned about a conference addressing mainly the financing part, in <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_39" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_42" class="blsp-spelling-error"><a href="http://www.wmin.ac.uk/mad/page-2156"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_44" class="blsp-spelling-error">CAMRI</span></a></span></span>, University of Westminster, this Oct). </span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">It might be useful for policy-oriented scholars or <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_45" class="blsp-spelling-error">organisational</span> analysts to expand the interesting research done so far about European regulatory models and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_46" class="blsp-spelling-error">approaches</span> to <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_47" class="blsp-spelling-error">PSB</span> and new media, to map concrete <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_48" class="blsp-spelling-error">explorations</span>, experiences and innovative solutions <span style="color:#ff0000;">outside</span> the Fortress Europe.<br /><br />But even more poignantly, the meager academic contribution is evident regarding the very<span style="color:#ff0000;"> re-definition of what we mean by public media</span>. There are only very few truly alternative visions to the existing traditional, nation-bound, centralised, all-around, full-service institution. In other words, I have never heard one European scholar date to suggest that perhaps nation-bound, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_40" class="blsp-spelling-corrected"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_43" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_49" class="blsp-spelling-error">conventional</span></span></span> PS model could at least partly be substituted with something else.<br /><br />I had to move from Finland to the US to see this. I had always thought that the public media in the States (<a href="http://www.pbs.org/">PBS</a>, <a href="http://www.npr.org/">NPR</a>) was a <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_41" class="blsp-spelling-error">caricature</span> of the European model; maybe alternative to commercial networks but exclusive and elitist. Ignorant me. </span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Despite the the immense <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_42" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_44" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_50" class="blsp-spelling-error">commercialisation</span></span></span> and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_43" class="blsp-spelling-corrected"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_45" class="blsp-spelling-corrected"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_51" class="blsp-spelling-error">concentration</span></span></span> of the markets there are many, many interesting and vibrant examples of community and local old and new media. Some NYC-based journalists, working for one of the big weekly newsmagazines, recently told me they get their real news from their neighbourghood weekly newspaper. And as for the bigger institutions, especially NPR has been able to hang on and provide alternatives, also online. </span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">It has be also understood that some media are no longer nation-bound but either local, or, issue-driven, or, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_44" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_46" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_52" class="blsp-spelling-error">transnational</span></span></span>, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_45" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_47" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_53" class="blsp-spelling-error">borderless</span></span></span>. </span><a href="http://www.bbcworldnews.com/Pages/default.aspx"><span style="font-family:georgia;">BBC World </span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">or the regional Finnish </span><a href="http://www.yle.fi/"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_54" class="blsp-spelling-error">YLE</span></span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;"> radio news are great endeavours but do not exactly cater represent diverse voices or new approaches for diverse audiences. </span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">I have begun to think that maybe European big and stiff <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_46" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_48" class="blsp-spelling-error"><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_55" class="blsp-spelling-error">PSMs</span></span></span> could learn something from the grassroots. And, to my surprise, I seem not to be the only one, as the </span><a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&reference=P6-TA-2008-0456&language=EN"><span style="font-family:georgia;">European Parliament </span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">has begun to see the potential, wanting to revive community media to support European civil society (see also the </span><a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2004_2009/documents/dv/691/691771/691771en.pdf"><span style="font-family:georgia;">summary </span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">of their study on the state of the art of community media in Europe). Now we need scholars for independent analyses and innovative suggestions (or at least, taking part in them).<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><span style="font-family:georgia;"></span><p><em><span style="font-family:georgia;">Second Lives of Public Media Scholars</span></em></p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">In sum: The idea endorsed by most by public media scholars and <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_56" class="blsp-spelling-error">practitioners</span> (and some policy makers) in Europe seem to be that public service <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_57" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">organisations</span> should become like the virtual world Second Life: a state-of-the-art, open source, (greatly) user-generated forum that entertains but educates and informs (and serves educational <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_58" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">organisations</span>, governments, non-profits), even may do some business. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">But at the same time, the dominant discourses seem to indicate, this kind of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_59" class="blsp-spelling-error">PSM</span> would still be a kind of an avatar to the existing <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_60" class="blsp-spelling-error">PSB</span> system, remit, policies, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_61" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">institutional</span> structures, and so on.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">Now it's the high time that public media scholars create new avatars, descend their ivory towers, leave the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_62" class="blsp-spelling-error">Habermasian bourgeois</span> cafes and BBC fan clubs, and start to take roles of public <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_63" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">intellectuals</span>. Not only as lovers of <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_64" class="blsp-spelling-error">PSB</span>, but lovers of diverse 'counter-commercial' media. The adoration for public service cannot entail <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_65" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">institutions</span> but their mandates -- can those mandates be spread out, shared, <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_66" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">networked</span> and 'crowd-sourced' somehow? Or how to ensure true <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_67" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">sustainability</span> of the PS values of access to, and diversity of, mediated contents, and their unifying, engaging aspects?</span></p><p><span style="font-family:georgia;">The task will not be easy: As a prominent <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_68" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">British</span> PS scholar <em>Georgina Born</em> has <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_69" class="blsp-spelling-corrected">demonstrated</span> in her </span><a href="http://essays.ssrc.org/mcrm/?p=11"><span style="font-family:georgia;">recent essay</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">, there exists a certain <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_70" class="blsp-spelling-error">declassement</span> of academics <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_71" class="blsp-spelling-error">vis</span>-a-<span id="SPELLING_ERROR_72" class="blsp-spelling-error">vis</span> think tanks and consultancy businesses. In my mind, the only way to gain legitimacy is to provide fresh, new ideas and true (researched) <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_73" class="blsp-spelling-error">alternatives</span>. Some may even be wild scenarios. The important thing is, as my heroes the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_74" class="blsp-spelling-error">sociologists</span> </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Bourdieu"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><em>Pierre <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_75" class="blsp-spelling-error">Bourdieu</span></em></span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;"> & </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zygmunt_Bauman"><span style="font-family:georgia;"><em><span id="SPELLING_ERROR_76" class="blsp-spelling-error">Zygmunt</span> <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_77" class="blsp-spelling-error">Bauman</span></em></span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;"> have noted about the role of social sciences: it is <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_78" class="blsp-spelling-error">already</span> a great deed to show that <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_79" class="blsp-spelling-error">alternatives</span> exist to things that seem inevitable. In this case, both to the fully commercial media, and to the <span id="SPELLING_ERROR_80" class="blsp-spelling-error">PSB</span> as we knew it in Europe last century.</span></p><p><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><br /></p></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-family:georgia;font-size:0;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"><span style="font-size:0;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>Minna Aslamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01948825486457269840noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7126191406822861480.post-56310504485229583502009-07-01T14:47:00.014-04:002009-07-10T13:10:53.734-04:00post 0.0<span style="font-family:georgia;"><span style="color:#ff6600;"><strong>Welcome to challenge and rethink 'old' and 'new', public and private, global and local, production and reception, the past and the future, and.... of the media.</strong></span><br /><br />Lay opinions and fancy academic theories about the media are plentiful. Funnily enough, they often take quite a uniform, and black-and-white, form when presented in public discussions. We know all these stories or <span style="color:#ff6600;"><strong>slogans</strong></span>:<span style="color:#cc0000;"> infotainment contents mean dumbing down of citizens, the internet means a new virtual public sphere, but blogging means the demise of traditional journalism...</span><span style="color:#ff0000;"> </span>More nuanced and empirically tested ideas -- whether ethnographies on migrant populations' media use, or small town community journalism projects -- are more complex and perhaps thus not sexy enough to catch people's attention.<br /><br />And still: <span style="color:#cc0000;">the media matter in our lives in so many ways.</span> They are big global business and central local sources of information. They (re)create certain discourses and thus potentially influence our ideas and knowledge base. They are circular and viral. They are everywhere. They connect and disconnect us; they foster understanding and compassion as well as fear and hatred. Thus, it is important to learn from different people, facts and figures, projects, experiments, regions, voices all kinds of different things the media can be and mean to us. Only then we see alternatives and can go beyond the slogans -- to envision opportunities for more connection, diversity, and understanding via the media.<br /><br />My goal as a media researcher and teacher is to collect new, fresh, surprising, engaging voices, ideas, research results, experimental projects on contents, industry innovations and regulatory approaches, and so on. I want to take conventional ideas, ranging from <span style="color:#ff6600;"><span style="color:#cc0000;">public media</span> <span style="color:#000000;">to </span></span><span style="color:#cc0000;">participation, the press, entertainment, community, web2.0</span> -- and even, yes, <span style="color:#cc0000;">the media and democracy</span>! -- and collect and compile additions by wise sources to the mainstream discussions.<br /><br />This approach seems to be an obsession of mine: In my (published) </span><a href="https://oa.doria.fi/handle/10024/36321"><span style="font-family:georgia;">doctoral dissertation</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;"> for the </span><a href="http://www.helsinki.fi/"><span style="font-family:georgia;">University of Helsinki,</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;"> I addressed the close history of Finnish television landscape and challenged 3 (albeit international) slogans circulating around: convergence of programming (between channels), tabloidization of (television) journalism, and emotionalization/entertainization of factual content. My conclusion: there is some truth in every fiction, but <span style="color:#cc0000;">changes are not overly drastic or one-directional</span>. And especially: certain shifts in media culture do not necessarily result in immediate socio-cultural or political catastrophies. Rigid moralistic claims and positions in public debates just might be more harmful than some trends in the media, if the goal is to work towards better media systems, contents and societies. If that is the case, then we need to understand what we need to know more of, and how to use some tendencies constructively, rather than condem them. More about my PhD research in 2 short posts, one in </span><a href="http://www.helsinki.fi/lyhyesti/vieraskyna/08_toukokuu.html"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Finnish </span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">and one in </span><a href="http://www.helsinki.fi/inbrief/column/08_may.html"><span style="font-family:georgia;">English</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">.<br /><br />Recently, I've been very, very fortunate to continue my work as a scholar in two continents, at the </span><a href="http://www.fordham.edu/academics/Office_of_Research/Research_Centers__In/Donald_McGannon_Comm/"><span style="font-family:georgia;">McGannon Communication Center</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">, Fordham University, New York, and University of Helsinki, the </span><a href="http://sockom.helsinki.fi/fiss/"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Swedish School of Social Science</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">. I'm also collaborating with the </span><a href="http://www.jmi.nic.in/ccmg/"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Centre for Culture, Media and Governance </span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">at the Jamilia Millia Islamia university in New Delhi. It seems I'll be teaching in 2 if not all 3 of these places in the near future. And, as we all know, teaching means learning.<br /><br />In addition, for the past 1+ years I worked for a project called the </span><a href="http://mediaresearchhub.ssrc.org/"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">, at the Social Science Research Council (New York). Thanks to the SSRC, I got to know a little about collaborative reseach in the fields of media reform and media justice; I'll continue to work on that through a book project; and I hope to be able to assist in future efforts around a project on 'public media'.<br /><br />But very concretely, thanks to the </span><a href="http://www.hssaatio.fi/en/index.html"><span style="font-family:georgia;">Helsingin Sanomat Foundation</span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">, I'm now able to dive into the world of slogans about and around the media, and:<br /></span><ul><li><span style="font-family:georgia;">Develop this blog as a cumulative and collaborative resource site of posts, notes, ideas and comments;</span></li><li><span style="font-family:georgia;">Based on this blog, develop research & teaching ideas / sites;</span></li><li><span style="font-family:georgia;">Based on the blog, and simultaneously, develop a commentary book in Finnish to address some current national debates (also, to give them international perspectives); and, eventually and hopefully, </span></li><li><span style="font-family:georgia;">Develop another publication in English.</span></li></ul><span style="font-family:georgia;">Right now, this blog is what matters the most. May it be a forum of unlikely combinations of ideas, and a source of information and inspiration for others than the blogger herself, too. My goal is to create one proper post a week (and updates inbetween). Next week, it's all about <span style="color:#cc0000;">researching public service media,</span> globally. Stay tuned.<br /><br />PS: Many thanks for this idea (a simultaneous blog&book project) to a wonderful documentary maker/theorist/anthropologist Amelia Bryne. See her </span><a href="http://thewholefragment.wordpress.com/about-the-blog/"><span style="font-family:georgia;">blog/book project </span></a><span style="font-family:georgia;">on rethinking documentaries.</span>Minna Aslamahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01948825486457269840noreply@blogger.com0