International Media

Who are the Media?

IN these great United States The First Amendment protects the freedom of the press, a right for media to exist in whatever outrageous form it might be manifest in.

For the average American, this freedom is taken for granted but in places around the world, it is much more difficult and dangerous to attempt to Free the Press.

According to the French NGO Reporters Without Borders the United States ranks 20th in their annual "Press Freedom Index" behind Germany, Japan, Austria, Lithuania, the UK, and all of Scandinavia. Aside from being middle-of-the-pack among industrialized nations, many key US allies around the world are embarrassingly low on the French RSF's index, such as Yemen in 170th, Tunisia in 164th, Pakistan in 151st, Mexico in 136th, Israel in 132nd, Iraq in 130th, and Egypt in 127th.

As you might have learned from the link above, an Egyptian journalist was shot while covering the protests in Tahrir Square in Cairo. In fact, in addition to this singular tragedy, journalists across Egypt covering the weeks of youth-ignited rallies were under fire from the military as well as Mubarak's executive security forces.

Notably, American CNN Journalist Anderson Cooper was attacked by violent Pro-Mubarak protesters, probably hired by the same people responsible for this.

Let us not forget that our government was deep in bed with Mubarak's 30 year regime, offering them $1.3 billion in aid annually, second only in US aid to Israel. More recently President Obama has come out in favor of the throngs of Egyptians camping out in Tahrir Square, demanding their basic human rights, including the freedom of press. The irony is that we spent literally billions of dollars over the last 30 years oppressing these very same people. Pardon my French, but what balls Obama has to step up and pretend to support these people.

In fact the United States has been perpetrating this same foreign policy feint for decades. Supporting oppressive regimes that benefit us economically while ignoring their human rights violations on the one hand, and deposing other autocrats or "dangerous powers" in advantageous situations with impunity on the other.

Probably this is a tiny, distant idea to you. There seems to be almost no one who will admit this openly, on television, in print, in any media in this country. The exception is of course the internet, as well as Dr. Noam Chomsky, who has been trying to prove and popularize this viewpoint for decades.

The question I began this post with "Who are the Media ?" has unequivocally not been answered, but its led me to observe and critique some pre-received ideas about how free our press is.

An Allegory_2

The allegory, although basic, is at its core, highly explanatory. The larger hands and the smaller heads of the villagers mirror our larger craniums suited to higher brain function and capacity. The villagers likewise must use their hands to harvest and plant their seeds in the earth.

The field represents the platonic notion of forms in that they are the ideas that everybody can tap into. The process of harvesting and planting is the notion of the creative process: in essence, they transform the ideas which ‘float around in space (the scene is set in an alien land)’ personally through their given fields.

When Presston, play on the word “press” from the “printing press”, creates a connection to another group of people and thoughts he opens up a dialogue and a multitude of new ideas (the seeds from the sides of the paths). Currency is established in order to trade to the optimum. In our own world the printing press essentially made it possible for us to exchange aesthetic and literary content.

Enter Trenneti; – an anagram for Internet – she opens up an exponentially larger set of connections. Likewise, if the press could be depicted as the one path, the internet has opened up a miasma of different interconnections and exchange. Knowing about these paths, she is able to stay one step ahead of her village, selling their wares as her own. This is analogous to matters of intellectual property such as internet piracy.

An Allegory

Allegory:

At some point in the continuum of time in a land far far away (as all social allegories must start) there is a rather disk shaped plain. It is not so different from the geographical world the Ancient Greeks envisioned. Now, in the middle of this plane is a circular field of grain. But it is not just any kind of grain – yes, it provides nourishment, but not particularly of the body. The heads nod slowly in the alien breeze; it is quite a sight to see: perhaps, the most amazing thing is their splendid coloring. It is not quite an alternating image of rainbows, but if you’ve ever seen a bubble of soap: (like the ones children blow in the happy parks of our own dear world) that is what it most closely resembles.

Surrounding this epicenter of grain are villages. Small and quaint – by human standards it would be aptly described as simple. The inhabitants of this village are humanoid, but with one exception. They have small heads and instead have extremely large hands. I am also under the impression that they have nerves that we do not have in their hands. Each village member dwells on a plot of land and on this land they plant flowers and vegetables of every kind. These plants all die within a few days; they are either harvested or traded within the village for other flowers or vegetables. And each village member, each third day takes a delicate harvesting device and heads to the center of the plain. Once at the field they carefully collect the heads of grain and carry their loads back, planting them in their plots of land. It should be mentioned at this point that these grains never yield the same crop. It is as though there is a sack of seeds with only one type each of seed. So trade between village members is always quite active.

There are quite a few villages around the field, but they do not know about each other. One member of a village, we shall call him Presston decides one day that he would like to know what is on the other side of the field. He makes preparations and sets off, after a week and a half (these creatures do not have as much need for food as we) he parts the grains of the last metre and comes out into the plain again. Following a path he comes to a village not unlike his but oh! the plants in this village. They were so exotic: shapes sizes and colors that Presston had never seen before. Presston, being what we would call a natural businessman, decides that the people back in his village must experience these vegetables and flowers. Journeying back, he begins to pull out - from the roots - the stalks of grain, ultimately clearing a direct path from village to village.

This opens up a frenzy of trade. The villagers from the other side had also never seen the likes of the plants of Presston’s village. The villagers collectively come up with a system of exchange involving tokens; many generations pass. For no known reason, nobody has opened up another path, like Presston had done. Until Trenneti. Trenneti has an even more ambitious idea; she takes a blade and begins to clear many paths going to 8 points of the compass originating from the center of the center. She discovers 8 different villages. She finds that these villages also possess plants that have never been seen before. Trade reaches a new frenzy.

(Readers should also take note that the grains from the stalks on either side of the paths cleared also yielded plants never seen before.)

Trenneti, also being, what we would call, a natural businesswoman, discovers that if she keeps track of who is selling what plants at which location she is able to trade what her fellow villagers have produced. The villagers of Trenneti’s village trade in a clockwork pattern, visitng village by village. Trenneti simply keeps one mark ahead of her village.

The villagers, for obvious reasons, become angry but they cannot seem to identify and therefore catch Trenneti.

Thus the now connected community of the plain trade and farm and attempt to trade and farm first, their flowers and vegetables, counting their marks always.

Barrier

So i initially i was working with different languages.  I then changed gears, changed lanes, and changed my way of thinking to people in our nation but in different situations. So i went to a jail. I met with some guys and it was a very interesting experience. For me to hear what they are doing with their lives now and where there are planning on going is very interesting.  To know that coming in to see them and create a change in their day really means something is also very interesting.  All i know now is that this was a touching experience and i will do it again.  Where this is taking me, i do not know as of yet, but i do hope it takes me somewhere good. That is all.
Peace

Audience matters

As I continue to explore what technology is and means to us today. I recently came across an interesting section from the book "Publics and Counter publics" by Michael Warner. In it Warner suggests there always is an audience. Regardless if the audience is actively engaged or passively amused. He also brings up several notions that I think go hand-in-hand with our overly sharing offenders (myself included) with social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, YouTube and good ol' Myspace. Who are you addressing and what's your intended audience?  With that being said, I'm puzzled by the means of this new age rhetoric of instant publishing. Are we so intertwined with the (general) public that we don't have the means to choose a public anymore? 

Warner suggests knowing where and when it is assembled in common visibility and common actions allows people to find their belonging, their subscription and their own discourse. Also, in that sense Warner goes on to pose the question, "Can the public exist apart from the rhetoric?"

Relating this to my project of decoding dress codes and the socio-cultural meanings we come across through our garments, Warner's claims make me think of a crowd witnessing something, the attire of a street performer or an audience member at the opera. Who was their chosen public when deciding their dress? Do they reach only them? Where do they start to form their own discourse on what to wear or as in Warner's critique are they addressing their audience through their clothing?

Who is your public?

UNIX Guru

unix guru/

The state of Texas owns this guy's thoughts...link posted above.

IP Law, Copyrights, and Ebooks

As I'm focusing my project on technology and the publishing industry, exploring Internet Copyright laws regarding ebooks and digital publications was extremely intriguing. While looking through the copyright restrictions listed on the CreativeCommons website, I began thinking about the implications of those laws on the meaning we attribute to certain publications. The most common guideline was that an author's works are not considered public domain until either 90 or 120 years after their death. What does this indicate about the value placed upon an author? Does this indicate that an author's works are somehow inherently devalued 120 years after their death? Or is the law more about an author's rights to make a profit. If this is the case, shouldn't their family be entitled to the profits later on? The whole issue prompts a slew of questions that I intend to investigate further in my project.

I also thought it was interesting that we have more access to works published in various other countries than in the U.S., provided that a language translation is available. Copyright laws do not often apply to or are not as harsh on works from other countries. What does this say about America? Does this result in Americans being more knowledgeable about artistic works from other cultures? Or maybe this is an indication that America values its own work more than that of other countries. Whatever the answer, the implications of these laws are extremely interesting.

During my investigation, I looked on the websites Project Gutenberg and Ebooks.com. Project Gutenberg is a nonprofit website that functions with the goal of providing free ebooks for anyone to download onto kindles, ipads, etc. They seem very dedicated to the idea of the free circulation of creative works online. While on their website, they discussed libraries and how they aspire to be a comprehensive online library. This certainly applies to my publications project. I began thinking is this the future of the library? It makes sense, a completely free database that one can access at any time without a library card or overdue fees. Yet, what is being lost? I have to wonder whether these books that the Project Gutenberg website says are printed in a "Plain Vanilla Format" have aspects of form missing. Often, especially in poetry, form and presentation of the words on the page are important to the piece...do online publications take these elements of reading away? I also began to wonder what happens to the ability of writers and artists to make a profit when these works are posted online. I can see pros and cons: on the one hand, writers are probably more easily published and generate a wider audience using online publications, but without copyright laws, how do they make a profit? How much does free circulation affect their well-being and their ability to make a living?

As I begin to investigate the transition from paper publications to digital publications, these questions will surely need to be researched further.