| Well the immediate reason for pushing this campaign and talking about it is that, though the issues at hand are somewhat complicated, it is very very important, and the deadline is next week. But one longer term issue is that movement building and governance is partially about moving beyond the kabuki theater that is our modern media system. We talk a lot about media in the blogs, as in 'the media does xyz' or 'the media lied about Iraq', or whatever. The amount of chatter about the media as some large entity that is beyond our control and oppressive is remarkable. But right now, at this very moment, a very big decision is being debated at the Federal Communications Commission about the future of our media system. Will it be the closed gatekeeper system that lied to us about Iraq? Or will it be a diversified system where argument and discussion flourish? This argument happened in the 1920s and 1930s, and our side lost. Every new communications medium has given us the opportunity to refight the battle, but only the internet combined with the Iraq war has created the public will to do so.
Right now, we're talking about this fight in terms of the 'iPhone hearings' or Free the iPhone. And that's catchy, and it's not wrong. But it isn't quite right, either. What is going on now with the sale of the public airwaves will determine how our media develops for the next thirty years. Right now. If you're mad about Iraq, or your local developer lying to the local press, or any other nonsense you see in the media system, right now there's a chance to push back.
So what do I mean by that? How can I possibly argue that the iPhone and its restrictive contract with AT&T has anything to do with local news coverage, or NBC? Well, there's no direct link. It's not like NBC's owner GE has massive interests in telecommunications infrastructure. Or rather, it's too big a problem if you think that everyone's against you. But the point is that we're dealing with systems, and gatekeeper-heavy systems often develop into instruments for the powerful. You may not think that AT&T locking iPhone customers and Apple to its whims is the same as Rupert Murdoch's attempted purchase of the Wall Street Journal, but both are in essence an attempt to put corrupt gatekeepers in charge of the information stream coming to Americans. That's bad. And it often develops into the kind of information system in which political elites and media elites and financial elites merge into one borg. This isn't a Democratic critique, actually, it's a similar critique you can find on the right about the liberal media. I spent some time on a panel with Jonah Goldberg recently, and he expressed that conservative frustration with the media in the 1950s came from how one square mile in New York controlled the media. That's not entirely wrong.
If you read stories - even in relatively mainstream press outlets like the Washington Post - on the auction of the public airwaves, and we're talking a HUGE chunk worth tens of billions of dollars, they are confined to the business press. It's a good article, but journalist Kim Hart didn't even consider including the hundreds of thousands of activists weighing in on the decision of how to structure our media system. Fortunately, we have the internet, which means that groups like Free Press and bloggers like me are able to go directly to you and have a conversation about these essential issues.
How we build the systems that govern our society matters. If these systems are open, then we have an open society where liberal ideas can flourish. If they are closed, then we get thing like the Iraq war. And finally, I'll add one more point about why I'm writing about this so often.
If you look at the dynamics of the larger net neutrality/open internet coalition, you will find a 21st model for building coalitions on progressive cross-cutting issues.
- A clear intellectual rationale (a free and open internet)
- Business interests represented in the coalition (Google, eBay, etc)
- Strong grassroots organizing (Moveon, Common Cause, ACLU)
- A set of policy 'hubs' with organizing and rapid response capacity (ie. Free Press, Public Knowledge)
- Bipartisan coalition work (Christian Coalition, Congressman Chip Pickering)
- Blogger/internet messaging capacity
- Capacity to organize both on a state, Federal, legal, and regulatory level (Maine, Congress, courts, FCC/FTC)
Every successful coalition to deal with massive problems we're facing in modern America will require a coalition like this. Global warming, the military industrial complex, health care, Iraq, a rogue executive branch - these are all cross-cutting big problems requiring a LOT of work, strong intellectual foundations, and great organizers.
We may or may not free the iPhone. But the point is that every time we fight, whether on media consolidation in 2003, net neutrality in 2005, state franchising in 2006-2007, or spectrum in 2007, we get stronger. |
