media

This is the second instalment of a three-part series of posts on the media:

1. Media & the Selective Outrage Machine
2. The Culture War Is Not Really Taking Place
3. The Big Hit:: CBC v. The Canadian Cancer Society

My last post was the media’s role in creating a dramaturgical stage of manufactured outrage that’s affecting how people behave within institutional contexts. This post is about media manufacturing a reality by presenting stylized facts and selectively using the “culture war” to do it. While partisan punditry becomes increasingly popular, I would argue that what’s bound to evolve is a news positioning that’s market-driven in more ways than one. The free market is reified and deified, but in a way that’s meant to appeal to advertisers {subscribers and pageviews} and consumers {an economic orthodoxy based on neoliberal views or views positioned as such}. The market is both subject and object. A media culture war has already emerged along specific faultlines, with “code” used by the combatants to frame the rhetoric on both sides. And, it is a war. There’s no room for civil discourse on the battlefield, but perhaps more aptly, there’s no patience for it.

Given the recent News of the World scandal, journalists are getting scrutinized for their ethics, but aren’t the nefarious and illegal tactics allegedly used by NoW the logical progression in an era of extreme coverage that’s meant to evoke visceral reactions and tap into raw emotions? I would argue, in the vein of Jean Baudrillard’s The Gulf War Did Not Take Place, that the institution of journalism helps to construct a configuration of society, often based upon, for example, lurid details, scandal, fail, and the polarities of the culture war. Currently, the drawn battle lines tend to cleave along political party affiliations::

• rural regions/suburbs v. cities
• social & cultural programmes v. market fundamentalism
• traditionalism v. progressivism
• fiscal conservatism v. “tax and spend”
• multiculturalism v. “anti-political correctness”
• Pro-immigration v. xenophobia
• Pro choice v. pro life
• Marriage is between “Adam & Eve” v. “Adam & Steve”
• Unions v. management

Canadians will be subject to another divide::

• Québec v. ROC (rest of Canada)

You get the picture. The idea is to exploit wedge issues by fostering controversy. But, the culture war isn’t really taking place—we seeing is a media manufactured manifestation of it and what we know about the opposing position is a fiction created by media rhetoric that places the values of those who don’t share our views as on a different planet. A few select juicy quotes here or a controversial soundbite there serve as empirical truth of what’s going on. After all, how many people know that the post-Katrina violence in the Superdome & Convention Center were vastly overstated? I would hazard to guess that many who heard the initial stories of anarchy in the Big Easy in the wake of the storm still have the perception that the city decended into a Hobbesean state akin to the Lord of the Flies. Of course, how this is framed means that cultural logics can be cued without saying anything outright, which is part of the theatrics.

I would argue that this use of the culture war will evolve into a more complex mapping that transcends traditional party lines, in both the US and Canada. In this current era, journalism isn’t rewarded for reporting on the issues, but for shaping and manufacturing them in an often desperate attempt to garner subscriptions and pageviews. Something may start as “grassroots” or may “go viral”, but as soon as the media gets a hold of it, it morphs into a piece of an agenda. You can blame it on the 24/7 news cycle and the rise of infotainment that successfully monetized the “news”, but it doesn’t matter; the genie is out of the bottle. The culture war is perfect fodder to whip readers into a frenzy by presenting the extremes and those across the divide as a polar opposite, while constructing a reality that may not even exist. This works by tapping into our values and attitudes and framing stories to get maximum polarity. It’s an economic imperative for the business model.

The above list of culture war wedge issues isn’t a continuum in practice; it’s binary. The opposing view is characterized as a polar opposite, often with inflammatory rhetoric. This is exacerbated by the fact that the public is less interested in news on a purely factual basis, particularly in the realm of politics and the economics, given the attention economy {the scarce commodity is our time}. We often seek information that’s been pre-digested in a manner most palatable to us. The function of news media now is to present the extraordinary with an emphasis on the sensational. The “cultural products” of the news media are soundbites and sexy attention grabbing headlines, increasingly important as Internet headlines can persuade and “inform” without even being clicked on.

Up in Canada, while many media outlets will stoke the fires of the culture wars, merely invoking the term invites criticism. When pollster Frank Graves of EKOS used it last year to identify a strategy for the Liberals, all hell broke loose. After all, why would anyone want to bring the ugliness of US-style politics to Canada? Well, the truth of the matter is that the news media has much to gain from the culture war and the class war that’s nested within it, but don’t want to ever get caught promoting it. Graves’ great crime was putting a possible strategy out there that could  be used against the Conservatives that some construed as distasteful::

“I told them that they should invoke a culture war. Cosmopolitanism versus parochialism, secularism versus moralism, Obama versus Palin, tolerance versus racism and homophobia, democracy versus autocracy. If the cranky old men in Alberta don’t like it, too bad. Go south and vote for Palin.”

The “controversy” of Graves’ statement was manufactured and used as evidence of his partisanship, but it’s hardly shocking. Graves wasn’t talking about anything new in terms of Canadian political marketing, he just dared to put it out there in such stark terms. He unmasked the great Oz and violated the social compact by showing how the persuasion sausage is made.

The US is more accustomed to journalists, pundits, and politicians invoking the culture war and I would argue that the heated rhetoric dividing the left and the right is a product of the media manufacturing realities so that groups become extreme caricatures. Underlying all of this right now is a general uneasiness of the future of the middle class and partisan rhetoric is shaping a class war by using the culture war.

Canada has a few journalists who are exemplars of what I see as the future of this trajectory. What might this future be? Look to journalistic statements in magazines like Maclean’s magazine {a Canadian weekly} and by journalists like its national editor, Andrew Coyne and his ilk, e.g., Margaret Wente, are couched in false dichotomies with the volume turned to 11. The emphasis is on commentary, as opposed to hard news, but there’s a sly twist. Journalists like Coyne and Wente position themselves as iconoclasts that defy partisan lines, but know how to sniff out controversy and milk it for all it’s worth. They would scoff at this idea they’re exploiting the culture war, which is also part of the shtick. In this era of social media and conversations, Coyne prefers to use all media at his disposal {Maclean’s, Twitter, CBC-‘At Issue’ panelist on The National} like a megaphone aimed at the masses and that’s too bad. What’s lost is nuance and real dialogue. What this brand of journalism does is foster people shouting at each other, because, after all in a Charlie Sheen world, it’s about the winning—and the drama. The name of the game is staying relevant and Coyne and Wente are making a play with their centrist, iconoclastic approach. It would be brilliant if it weren’t so utterly sloppy in its execution, but I’ll be blogging more about this in a future entry. The result is that it’s hard to take either Coyne or Wente seriously.

My lament for what’s lost with this journalistic divisive theatre is somewhat half-hearted because what else should we expect when the fourth estate is tied to business models and financial imperatives? George Monbiot, in his “A Hippocratic Oath for Journalists”, makes some interesting observations in the wake of the NoW scandal::

“Journalism’s primary purpose is to hold power to account. This purpose has been perfectly inverted. Columnists and bloggers are employed as the enforcers of corporate power, denouncing people who criticise its interests, bullying the powerless. The press barons allowed governments occasionally to promote the interests of the poor, but never to hamper the interests of the rich.”

Monbiot’s words may sound a bit strong, but given that journalism is a business trying to keep its head above water these days, it makes perfect sense that the institution will use whatever means to ensure its own survival. I agree that journalism’s function these days is anything but holding power to account and would argue that most of the time it has functioned as chief architect in the fabrication of an elaborate cultural reality—a simulacrum embedded within media economics.

There is room for pushback. Big media are subject to the constraints of mass markets and by ultimately who pays the bills, i.e., the consumer and advertisers. Technology can enable a cost-effective end-run around the prefab strategies and canned approaches that are more about marketing than news. The target market being people wanting in-depth analysis, as opposed to dramaturgical showmanship. In essence, the long-tail of news. The Economist noted back in 2006 that hard-hitting journalism won’t die and there will be a market for it, but I would argue that in order to serve the journalistic function of holding power to account, alternative models will need to offer substance over infotainment. Ironically, it may well be the mainstream media and its reality distortion machine to produce the future that serves to create a consciousness that rejects it. What could possibly break the bonds of the news-consumption cycle? Prolonged economic doldrums that sow the seeds for a bona-fide class war, not an imagined one.

Twitterversion:: [blog] How the culture war “isn’t” really taking place & how angry “iconoclastic centrism” is journalism’s next big thing @Prof_K @ThickCulture

Last summer, the Obama Administration got embroiled in controversy with the Henry Louis Gates, Jr. arrest and Barack’s comments about the Cambridge police. This summer, Andrew Brietbart set off a chain reaction with clips of a video at a NAACP meeting that he felt showed how a black USDA official, Shirley Sherrod, was expressing racist views. Here’s Brietbart explaining his position on Sherrod’s talk and his allegations that the NAACP audience was “applauding her overt racism”, although he also acknowledges how she draws distinctions between the “haves” and “have nots” in the context of the story::

Subsequently, the Obama administration pressured her to resign.

Well, as it turns out, the clip wasn’t the whole story. Sherrod’s talk in its entirety is about bridging the race gap and how she had to come to terms with her own feelings. In the aftermath, the wife of the white farmer that Shirley referred to in the video and helped, Elouise Spooner, came forward and said that she did right by them::

When the story broke, I saw it in Toronto on CNN, which was only showing clips which were damning and those outraged at Sherrod’s “racism” at a NAACP meeting. It was a jaw-dropping story, how it was framed, but I wasn’t all that surprised when I saw how the story was more complicated and not at all surprised to hear that the Obama administration is backpedaling after figuring out the rest of the story. Apparently, CNN jumped on the bandwagon, throwing caution and good journalism to the winds::

“CNN’s Rick Sanchez said producers there were intrigued by Biggovernment.com’s posting and immediately started reporting on it. But with all the questions involved — Was this a fair characterization of Sherrod’s full speech? Can she be reached to give her side of the story? — they wouldn’t be ready to discuss it on his afternoon show until Tuesday, he said.

By then, the story rushed by.

“As journalists, we have to protect ourselves the best we can,” Sanchez said. “It’s easy for it to happen to anybody, by the way — jump to a conclusion, get excited, look at the coverage. It’s kind of like creating a bandwagon effect. Once you get on the bandwagon, you can’t hit the brakes. According to the SF Chron::

“CNN’s Rick Sanchez said producers there were intrigued by Biggovernment.com’s [Brietbart’s] posting and immediately started reporting on it. But with all the questions involved — Was this a fair characterization of Sherrod’s full speech? Can she be reached to give her side of the story? — they wouldn’t be ready to discuss it on his afternoon show until Tuesday, he said.

By then, the story rushed by.

‘As journalists, we have to protect ourselves the best we can,’ Sanchez said. ‘It’s easy for it to happen to anybody, by the way — jump to a conclusion, get excited, look at the coverage. It’s kind of like creating a bandwagon effect. Once you get on the bandwagon, you can’t hit the brakes.'”

So, while CNN and Fox were both focusing on the reverse racism angle of this story, Fox’s O’Reilly kicks it up a notch. He cites several stories that the mainstream media didn’t cover as a journalism fail and evidence of a left-leaning bias. Bill practically accuses other networks of embracing a leftist agenda over giving the audience what they want::

All of this frenzy even duped the NAACP, which initially denounced Sherrod. While the media, politicians, and organizations are quick to jump the gun on incendiary bombs like this, what gets lost are the issues at hand on race and the Tea party movement. It gets convoluted, as even ousted Tea Party Federation activist Mark Williams defended Sherrod, as the controversy swirled. At around 7:30 EDT, there were two “highest rated” comments on the full video {link to all comments}, which shows that views are being expressed that show that people aren’t willing to follow a us-them mentality with respect to the Tea party movement and the NAACP::

“I am a white, Christian, Tea Party conservative from Texas….and I must say that while I appreciate much of Mr. Breitbart’s work, he really blew this one with his selective editing. I appreciated much of what Ms. Sherrod said about racial perspectives from all fronts. She sounded like she was sharing honest feelings based on her background, and how she came to terms with that. She should get her job back! Most of the Tea Party folks that I’m around would feel the same way.”—spastikmunkey

“I’m an Old (57) White Male. After watching this, I believe it is wrong for Mrs. Sherrod to lose her job. Yes, she had – and has – some racial issues – especially understandable given what happened to her father – but her heart is good and she has worked to overcome them and do the right thing. I’m all about grace and allowing people to grow. I only hope that blacks will give whites the same room and understanding. It’s the only way we’ll ever achieve racial reconciliation of any depth.”—lostcause53

The actions of CNN and {allegedly} the Obama administration, given USDA deputy undersecretary Cheryl Cook who phoned Shirley and told her the White House wanted her to resign since her comments were causing a controversy, show how the media and politicians are preoccupied with hype and spin, as opposed to getting the facts straight.

I think it’s easy to characterize any social movement in a stereotypical fashion, but I wonder how this plays out in an era of network politics. Where is the agency and what is the exact configuration of the Tea party movement when it comes to positions on race? Clearly, not everyone in the Tea party movement is on board with race as a wedge issue, but can any leader realistically speak for what is a confederation of localized grassroots activity?

Song:: The Style Council-‘Long Hot Summer’

Twitterversion:: [blog] Sherrod debacle highlights media & political #fail, but implications for social movements in networked politics?  http://url.ie/6unp @Prof_K

Last week, Bill O’Reilly got on Senator Coburn’s {R-OK} case for a quip the senator made about Fox News-style reporting and the mandatory health care imprisonment debate {Hat tip:: Linniqat}.

Well, as it turns out, there was plenty of evidence of Fox News-style “reporting” that confirmed that Fox was making a big deal out of prison as a result of noncompliance. O’Reilly tried to spin it as reporting a news story, but examining the footage, the bulk, if not all, was commentary—not news.

While CNN ratings languish, Fox and MSNBC are both branding their infotainment and rely upon the blurring of news and commentary. O’Reilly and Fox like to jump between the two categories depending on what’s convenient for them, but it’s rather disingenuous and insulting to act as if that’s not what’s going on.

Twitterversion:: Bill O’Reilly goes aft. Sen.4quip on FoxNews journalism.HuffPo slams Bill, who blurs news/commentary #Fail #ThickCulture @Prof_K

Song:: Aimee Mann-‘Real Bad News’

I saw this story re-tweeted by a_picazo via SaeedCNN::

An Australian TV cameraman, Simon Fuller, was aggressively stakerazzing a riot suspect and his father outside of a courthouse. There were two camera crews from two different stations. The father of the suspect asked the cameraman of one of the crews to stop following them 25 times. What was meant to be a parting shot, Fuller called the father “a fucking terrorist.” Fireworks ensued with the son calling Fuller out on the terrorist slur. While Fuller apologized at the time, the damage was done. Some argued that given the gravity of the offense and the timing and context of the altercation, the apology wasn’t appropriate. The exchange was aired by Channels 7 and 10, but was edited in a way that that painted the father as hostile.

The full story is here, which includes the following video clip of a Media Watch programme, which analyzes the full video footage::

Here’s the crux of the exchange that set things off::

Gad Amr: You say to him fuck off. You say to him fuck off? You say to him to fuck off?

Simon Fuller: The camera’s rolling.

Gad Amr: You bloody idiot.

Simon Fuller: The camera’s rolling.

Gad Amr: You idiot. I don’t care you say to whoever, you idiot.

Omar (the accused) Amr: Fuck him, mate. He’s a fuck knuckle.

Simon Fuller: You fucking terrorist.

Race and Islam have been hot-button issues in Australia and vilification of the Islamic community has stemmed from sensational cases, such as the Sydney gang rapes committed by hardcore gang members. The rapes and crimes like it have been framed by some as “crimes against Australia.”

The lack of professionalism by Fuller and his epithet that was meant to insult Amr isn’t going to help things and paints the mainstream media as insensitive to the Islamic community.

Twitterversion:: Via @SaeedCNN & @a_picazo, Australian cameraman uses “fucking terrorist” slur after badgering father & son. Media #Fail. http://url.ie/5qbd @Prof_K

Song:: The Audreys-‘Nothing Wrong with Me’

In the early 2000s, there were two films that came out, Bully {2001} and Thirteen {2003} that were cautionary tales about the darkside of teen life and bad influences. I’ve noticed that in the media recently, bullying is getting quite a bit of attention recently, with a focus on suicides, suicide attempts, and the use of the Internet, i.e., cyberbullying, which got widespread media attention with the Megan Meier suicide catalyzed by Lori Drew’s creation of a fake persona.

I’ve been watching how the media portrays these cases, often focusing on white and/or middle-class incidents, which is part of the “shock and awe” of the story. The narrative is that your kids aren’t safe where they should be—in school, public or private.

A few weeks ago, I was watching an Anderson Cooper special on CNN, where he returned to the Hollenbeck neighbourhood of Los Angeles. Anderson wasn’t talking about bullying, but about gangs.

Bullies and gangs often use similar tactics to instill terror and intimidation, but gangs are often made distinct by their “criminal activity.” The motives are linked to similar needs for perceived control, belonging, and identity. Is this an artificial distinction, one of degree and not of kind? I think so and I feel that if the media were portray suburban bullies like gangland thugs, there would be a backlash tied to attitudes surrounding class and race.

Anyone who has read Geoffrey Canada’s Fist Stick Knife Gun: A Personal History of Violence in America {1995} {Amazon.ca} could see the social structure, habitus, and behavioural parallels between bullying in suburban schools and Canada’s recounting of growing up in the Bronx in the 1960s. This is a good summary of one of Canada’s anecdotes about growing up:

“One day his two older brothers came back from the playground. ‘Where’s John’s jacket?’ their mother asked. John answered, ‘A boy took it.’ She asked Daniel, ‘And what did you do when this boy was taking your brother’s jacket?Daniel muttered, ‘I didn’t do nuthin’. I told Johnny not to take his jacket off. I told him.’ ‘My mother exploded. ‘You let somebody take your brother’s jacket and you did nothing? That’s your younger brother. You can’t let people just take your things. You know I don’t have money for another jacket. You better not ever do this again. Now you go back there and get your brother’s jacket.’ Though his older brothers were both smaller than the playground bully, they got the jacket back. Their mother gathered them around and told them they had to stick together, ‘she would not tolerate our becoming victims.’ That philosophy of ghetto parents he summarized as, ‘Accept it, this is a violent world, so teach (children) to cope by acting more violently than the others.'” [*]

Canada goes on to describe how the institutions in the neighbourhood, schools, police, etc., aren’t factored into the social order for various reasons, cultivating feelings of powerlesness and fueling taking matters into one’s own hands, i.e., violence. Again, I see parallels here with the bullying being portrayed in the media. While some may argue that the parallels fall apart with cyberbullying, I disagree. The warfare of bullying is a psychological violence, which can have just as deadly consequences. Technology isn’t the enemy though. It’s the social institutions enabling the behaviours.

Twitterversion:: Bullying is media darling now, but what about insights re: gangs? Is drawing that parallel too radioactive? #ThickCulture  @Prof_K

Song:: Belle & Sebastian-‘We Rule the School’

I honestly believe Salon.com needs a laughtrack these days, as I find much of it to be unintentionally hilarious in its gender-war-pot-stirring making sure the culture war is alive and well to its readers. For over a decade, Salon has done articles on sexuality that push liberal minds to the edge by contrasting prevailing mores that are in conflict with more traditional ones or longstanding notions of “propriety.” Ah, living in the postmodern condition of intellectualized discourse in an era when everything is an untethered floating signifier and the rules are nebulous at best. The target audience seems to be those who struggle with being hip and urbane, but having some vestiges of a more socially conservative order keeping them from totally cutting loose and raising their kids in a bohemian hedonifest. In the process, the social conservatives take their shots and pageviews go up.

Last Friday, Kate Harding posted an article on Salon.com’s Broadsheet on “Hook-Up” culture. She links to another article on a study finding that hook-up culture may not be that detrimental, but goes on to cite the Teen Vogue editor, Rachel Simmons, and sociologist Kathleen A. Bogle’s interviews for a book on the subject, as evidence that hooking up might not be such a good thing because women are often left in “relationship” limbo. Harding uses this as a springboard to lambaste the media for promoting a “please your man” culture.

While Harding tries to reconcile this with a utopian pining for a world where a multiplicity of sexualities can co-exist without feeling a pressure to conform to a media-manufactured social orthodoxy, I feel she’s totally missing the boat here. Harding thinks that those caught up in the emotional wreckage that hook-up culture can bring are being taught the wrong things and that women aren’t taught to value their own desires::

“It’s that the girls in question don’t feel comfortable admitting what they want. They’ve been taught that saying ‘I want a relationship’ or ‘I’m falling in love with you’ will terrify any red-blooded American male — that is so not What Guys Want! — so young women who are interested in something more serious are terrified of being alone and completely unwanted if they say so…

If we encouraged girls and women to place real value on their own desires, then instead of hand-waving about kids these days, we could trust them to seek out what they want and need, and to end relationships, casual or serious, that are unsatisfying or damaging to them, regardless of whether they’d work for anyone else.”

I find this ironic condescension towards women wrapped up in empty Dr. Phil-esque emancipatory rhetoric a bit too much to take. Ironic, as Harding assumes her own orthodoxy of desires that’s a polar opposite of what the media, in this case focusing on the likes of Cosmo and  Maxim, are portraying. While much of the media have been quick to point out for decades that if you’re not desirable or aren’t in a relationship, you don’t matter, i.e., alone = loser, Harding as an agent of media is advocating what may well be a fiction—longing for the “right” answer of true female desires. Harding implies our real desires are being subjugated by media, but the fact of the matter is that our real desires are intertwined with media and culture. I would argue that much of the rhetoric in the division of values in the US evident in the “culture wars”, well-trodden territory for Salon.com, is about desires intertwined with media and culture.

We want meaning from our desires. We want meaning from our actions and the constellation of products and brands we surround ourselves with to gain identity. So, what is the meaning of the “hook-up”? I think for many youth, there isn’t a lot of meaning and I don’t mean that pejoratively. I think this is more of an issue for those writing on “hook-up” culture as a wedge issue of morality or bitching about media and society.

The “hook-up” can be reduced to a consumer behaviour, a mode that fits us all like a glove, whether we want it to or not.. We consume things to satisfy our desires, but out desires are never satiated. Is it media? Is it culture? Both. The fuss is that relationships shouldn’t be an act of consumption and that sex shouldn’t be cheapened by commodification. These concepts are just a tad too close to mail-order brides and prostitution, no?

Welcome to late capitalism.

Twitterversion:: Salon.com blasts media/society 4 sturm/drang over hook-up culture.Are true female desires being subjugated? #ThickCulture @Prof_K

Song:: Vampire Weekend – “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa”

Notes from North of 49ºN

I’ve been thinking more and more about the concept of nation, of late.  In summers past, the 4th. of July, Independence Day in the United States, meant being in northern California and perhaps heading to Point Reyes and seeing the tug-of-war between Bolinas and Stinson Beach.  The past three years, I have observed Canada Day, celebrating when Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Québec, and Ontario became a federation, a dominion with ties to the UK.  Two adjacent countries, which appear to have similarities, but have key differences.  Population is one differentiator. At confederation in 1867, the US population was around over 10 times that of Canada, 38,558,371 to 3,625,000 {1870}.  The twentieth century would see the rise of American dominance, not only in terms of economics, but also in terms of media and culture.

American culture is readily evident in Canada.  On television and in major cities like Toronto, with the prevalence of brands like Starbuck’s, McDonald’s, and Subway.  A quick scan of the TV listings shows how popular US television content is in anglophone Canada.  Canada is aware of this and requires broadcasters to show Canadian content {Can con}.  The CBC, the Canadian national public broadcaster, is a flagship network of the nation, where, through its mandate, the network’s goal is to be a cultural touchstone for the nation.  I’ve blogged about the future of the CBC television on this post:: Will Globalization Kill or Make the CBC Relevant Again?, which touches on how the CBC is struggling to remain viable and relevant in the shadow of big media players in the United States and fending off challengers within Canada.  Unlike the BBC, Britain’s national broadcaster, which is funded through household television licences, the CBC gets funding from the government, but also is subject to market forces through selling ad time, both sources being historically uneven.

The question I have is whether the role of a national broadcaster is even important.  I don’t see the United States as having the equivalent of the CBC, let alone the BBC.  PBS and NPR are, in my opinion, a loose confederation of programming, as opposed to a network with a strong identity, let alone an entity fostering a conceptualization of the United States as a culture or a nation.

The ideas of Arjun Appadurai and Benedict Anderson come to mind.  Appadurai speaks of globalization in terms of flows.  Flows of finance, ideologies, technologies, people and media, each with the suffix scapes.  Mediascapes have two components::

1. The flows of capacity to produce and disseminate electronic information
2. The images of the world created by these media

Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities discusses nation as an abstract entity, where meaning is shared within and the mass media address its citizens as a public.

Borders are often permeable under globalization and Canada has seen flows of media flood across its southern border, but what has this done to Canadians’ notion of nation?  Can Canadian content policy and the CBC help to reinforce the imagined community of Canada?  Does nation even matter?  Is Canada to Canadians “our home and disparate land,” as stated in today’s Vancouver Sun?  What about shared Canadian experiences such as Hinterland’s Who’s Who::

I think we need to remember that the context here is capitalism.  Media is flowing, media full of American meanings and ideals, as entertainment content to generate revenues.  In light of this onslaught, I think it is important for Canada to preserve its identity by creating content that increases Canadian cultural knowledge and awareness.  Why?  Without a national identity, i.e., an imagined community of Canada, meaning becomes increasingly derived from imagined communities of brands.  If our Diderot unities reduce to the constellation of brands we surround ourselves with, can we be citizens or are we just consumers?

I think nation does and should matter.  In Benedict Anderson’s words, nation::

“…is imagined as a community, because, regardless of the inequality of that may prevail in each, the nation is always conceived as a deep. horizontal kinship.”–p.7

Song:: Dreamer – Jenn Grant {Halifax, NS}

Video Extra:: jPod clips of “Cowboy” aired on CBC, Winter 2008.

Twitterversion:: #Canada, national identity, & #Media. Globalization blurs borders, but does #nation matter? #Appadurai #BenedictAnderson http://url.ie/1xu6 @Prof_K

One of my students blogged about not being able to watch ABC’s Lost while studying abroad:

 “Interestingly enough, ABC was the first network to set up a deal with iTunes ‘to seek out alterative distribution venues for its show…’ I personally love that you can watch shows on online form ABC.com. Sometimes, I think its even better than watching it when it originally airs because the commercials are only 30 seconds and I can conveniently watch on Mac while I’m cozy in my bed. iTunes is also great though because when I was studying abroad in South Africa I had no television and ABC.com wouldn’t work outside the country, so I had to resort to buying shows online. I loved the fact that after I bought each show they were saved in my library and I could watch them whenever I liked, without any commercials.”

I’ve run into not being able to watch US content in Canada and was really frustrated when there was no legal way to watch shows like season 3 of The Venture Brothers, as they were being aired in the summer of 2008.  {There’s a possible workaround that I mention in my blog comment above.}  Canadian content in the US, such as the Trailer Park Boys (above) is a thornier problem, as one will need a Canadian web proxy for viewing.  Neither of these shows were available for purchase on iTunes when I was wanting to watch them.

I’m often asked, why is web content being geographically restricted?  A big issue has to do with intellectual property (IP) rights.  Here’s an exchange I saw on CBC about why the Hockey Night in Canada (HNIC) and the Stanley Cup cannot be available online to overseas web surfers:

“O: I have to ask becuase I have a [l]ot of friends who live overseas…

Every time I talk to them they ask me why they can’t watch the Stanley Cup online

AL: One of our most common complaints, for sure.

O: Oh really?

AL: Sure. Our agreement with the NHL is for Canada only. NBC and Versus wouldn’t like it if someone in Boise was watching an HNIC broadcast online, eating into their customer base. Ditto for someone in Sweden (although I don’t know who’s broadcasting competitively there).

I understand the frust[r]ation, though. We’re sending this online to a population that can watch it on main net and in HD.. why give them online? But it’s the way of the future and our numbers were, I’d say, solid for a first-time, and for games that were played in the evening (not online’s prime time by any means).”

The Balkanized Web

So, if you’re in Sweden & want to watch HNIC, you’re out of luck, despite the fact that you{and hundreds of others} watching in Sweden may have effect on revenues, since there’s nobody broadcasting it.

The contractual obligations are keeping the web content geographically bound, despite the web being decentralized and global.   The marketing limitations are keeping content from being legitimately purchased on iTunes {and sites like it} or through pay-per-view/video-on-demand via the web or cable/satellite means.  Geographic restrictions are frustrating audiences, leaving revenues on the table, and limiting the building of global audiences.

It’s clear that broadcasters are keenly interested in revenue streams, but still don’t get it, in many respects.  This Globe & Mail article really shows a lack of creativity in terms of addressing the “what should be online?” question.

“Even in the U.S., where NBC and Fox launched Hulu.com to showcase their programs online, the ad revenue generated from that business is still a mere fraction of network TV revenues, Mr. Eiley said.

In Canada last year, online advertising revenue from TV shows was about 1.6 per cent of total TV advertising revenue. The trend is troubling for broadcasters, since audiences are increasingly demanding online programming. Mr. Eiley said the networks are left with unattractive options for online content – either pack more commercials into Internet shows or charge for content.”

There are several issues going on.  Content as IP is being treated as an asset that must generate revenues, but what about trying to get more people interested in that asset in order to foster future revenue streams.  The networks aren’t always being creative about using Web 2.0 to help build buzz and audience.  They should be trying to leverage Web 2.0 to build audience, but how can you really do this when so much of what is being produced and aired is pure, mind-numbing kife.  

Over the holidays, I saw CBC really hyping Being Erica {see trailer below}, which {to me}, when I saw it in February was like watching a slightly less neurotic Ally McBeal being inserted in a sort of Coen Brothers-esque time-traveling world of suspended quirky disbelief.  Sort of.  The network used a prequel blog and Facebook, making it seem like they were really pushing to not just get the word out, but to get people hooked on the idea of Erica, because they know her.  Plus, even if you couldn’t watch the shows on CBC online, you could purchase episodes of the entire season on iTunes {above}.  

The ratings are so-so for Canada, high 500Ks down to 511K, and it looks like it will get another season, albeit with fewer episodes.  This type of support is a luxury that wasn’t afforded to Douglas Coupland’s jPod.  Not that I’m bitter, CBC.  Not at all.

1. What are your thoughts on TV content on the web?
2. What are some creative ways to use Web 2.0 to deal with IP issues and revenues?

So, I just got wise to the basic cable brawl between Jon Stewart and CNBC. I was able to catch up thanks to the convergence of TV & the Internet. My Web 2.0 viewing was sponsored by Bertolli and another view had a Tide commercial before the segment played.  (I also got to see promos for South Park and other Comedy Central shows).  The following is a decent overview of the skirmish.  “Don’t mess with the peacock,” for sure.  

This decision was inevitable. For an Obama administration that professes to favor transparency in governance, lifting the ban on media images of soldiers’ coffins returning to Dover Air Force Base from Iraq and Afghanistan was a no-brainer. But even for the Bush administration, the ban was the most apparent example of two deeply conflicted modes of media management: secrecy at home and guided exposure abroad.

Of course, like many of the media management tactics that administration employed, the policy itself pre-dates George W. Bush’s arrival in D.C. The ban was put into place during his father’s tenure in the White House, but was never fully enforced until the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. For journalists already accustomed to the notoriously secretive ways of the second Bush administration, it was no surprise that they would deny access to such politically powerful images. Many of Bush’s advisors, including Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, felt strongly that images of soldiers’ coffins had turned public opinion against the Vietnam War and hoped to avoid a similar result in the current conflicts. Less than a year into Bush’s first term and already known for their ability to shape media storylines with a vice-like grip on information (starkly contrasting the leaky Clinton White House), the administration officials surprised no one by restricting access.

Nonetheless, from the Pentagon’s perspective, the increased enforcement of the ban on such images marked a reversal of a larger trend. I have written elsewhere about the history of media-military relations, but, in short, military officials felt that journalists had far too much free reign in the conflicts of Vietnam and, much more recently, Somalia. Such independence, they believed, had led to largely negative coverage. In an impulsive leap to the other extreme, the Pentagon stowed journalists in pressrooms in Kuwait during the first Gulf War – an arrangement reporters and media outlets bitterly decried. For the 2003 invasion of Iraq (and to a limited extent in Afghanistan), the Pentagon introduced its controversial media embedding program, allowing journalists to attach themselves to units.

Importantly, this strategy was the exact opposite of their domestic media strategy. Rather than block media access altogether, they gave the press in-depth access to soldiers and military units, while at the same time, successfully steering them away from covering the consequences of the invasion for the civilian population. Though the embedding program was as successful a media management tactic as the secrecy in D.C., it did not breed the same sort of resentment in journalists as it provided them with fascinating (albeit one-sided) coverage. For this reason, it was the better strategy: shape the coverage, but leave them happy.

In some ways, we should question why the Bush administration didn’t reform the soldier coffin ban themselves, employing the lessons of their international media strategy with the domestic press. Rather than blocking images (which only generated more interest from the press), why didn’t the administration encourage the Pentagon to arrange sessions with vetted pro-invasion military families who would speak of the importance of the sacrifice their son or daughter made? Perhaps, they feel the image of dead Americans on U.S. soil would simply unpalatable to the American public. Returning to the current administration, the question for the future will be whether they are ushering in a legitimate age of transparency and broader media access, or if they’ve simply learned a lesson about savvy media management from their predecessors.