[opendtv] Re: FCC's spectrum plan gives broadcasters food for thought
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2010 08:03:16 -0400
At 8:18 PM -0700 6/30/10, Dale Kelly wrote:
Lets stay on point.
The discussion was about message distribution, not context.
Dale
I'm not sure that my post was off the point.
As Canadian educator and author Marshall McLuhan wrote in 1967...
"the medium is the message"
McLuhan may not have been writing about the political effects of the
electronic medium, although much of his career was focused on the
effects of media on humankind, and influence media has had in
creating "the global village," a term he coined in the '60s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan
In the early 1960s, McLuhan wrote that the visual, individualistic
print culture would soon be brought to an end by what he called
"electronic interdependence": when electronic media replace visual
culture with aural/oral culture. In this new age, humankind will move
from individualism and fragmentation to a collective identity, with a
"tribal base." McLuhan's coinage for this new social organization is
the global village.
There are very good reasons that the political class viewed the
electronic media as a valuable tool for both communications AND
social change/control. It is not surprising that they took the view
that the spectrum is a natural resource that should be controlled by
the government.
For the first time in history it was possible to easily "transmit"
information TO the global village - RF knows no political boundaries.
Around the world governments decided to control this new medium and
in most countries the content that was delivered. The U.S. took a
different approach, creating a government /industry partnership that
give the illusion of independence. What is especially important about
the experience here in the U.S. is that the politicians went out of
their way to create the illusion of independence and fairness. While
in most areas of the world, TV was viewed as a government mouthpiece,
if not an outright propaganda tool, in the U.S. we came to trust the
boob tube.
Only after the hook was set did the mass media help the politicians
use the medium to promote profound social change. The hand-cuffs came
off with Watergate; life has never been the same since.
Someday historians will look back on all of this and wonder how it
was possible that people were so gullible as to become a collective
global village controlled by politicians and the special interests
that rely on government to control the marketplace to their advantage.
Regards
Craig
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