The Newman ref came from Darin Barney's Prometheus Wired, which is certainly provocative, if not maddening in its persistent reminders that technology "promises" very little (in the sense of ensuring outcomes) besides an intensification of the alienation and exploitation of late capitalism. It's good to be reminded of this, though, especially in light of things like this: "the real desire of a media monopolist such as Microsoft is not simply to control products and content but, more important, to control the standards and protocols of future product development" (117). Again, no kidding?

My real question for Barney is an echo of the question I return to repeatedly in my posts here: What can tech do, then? Or rather, how can we make it do what we want it to? If blogs offer some kind of potential for changing the world, how do we convert that potential into reality?  8:07:16 PM      comment

the fourth estate: I'm generally very critical of how journalists do their jobs; most of the time I think they don't push hard enough, ask hard enough questions, or concentrate on important issues. Ann Cooper's eulogy for Danny Pearl, "the 10th journalist to die covering Sept. 11 and its aftermath," reminds me that what I see as the failures of media are not necessarily the journalists' -- meaning the reporters' -- fault. I've long heard the argument that the reporters are often the ones who really want to ask the hard questions and cover the real issues, but it's editors and business managers who make this impossible. (This was, in fact, at least part of the point made by a PBS documentary special last fall that focused on a local TV station in Florida.) Cooper broadens this claim in something of a desperate plea for the importance of real reporting. She writes:

Sometimes ethical lapses and excessive egos in the profession have made it vulnerable to criticism. Governments have used this as an excuse to hide the truth from those they rule.

But without journalists like Danny Pearl we lose knowledge and understanding. We lose checks and balances on our political leaders. We sacrifice the ability to debate problems and policies; peaceful solutions to a society's problems become elusive, making conflict more likely.

For me this is why blogs could someday be important: If big media is going to shut down meaningful public debate, and if reporters are increasingly pawns in global power struggles, one possible (and potentially very powerful) solution is that we all become the media. Terrorists can't kill everyone with a computer and an internet connection, and no corporate gatekeeper or paranoid president can keep the mouths of everyone with an internet connection closed. Yet, this is what they'd have to do to control information if we were all the media, and blogs make that possible. Of course, there are simple structural ways that the freedom of the internet is being shut down, but...  8:43:10 AM      comment