roundtable: Re: Content is the cargo of truth

roundtable: Re: Content is the cargo of truth

Re: Content is the cargo of truth

Richard K. Moore (rkmoore@iol.ie)
Fri, 31 Mar 1995 13:21:41 +0000 

Message-Id: <v0211011baba199f1ba76@[193.120.234.105]>
Date: Fri, 31 Mar 1995 13:21:41 +0000
To: roundtable@cni.org
From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore)
Subject: Re: Content is the cargo of truth


At 4:21 PM 3/30/95, Matt York wrote:
>Victor Schreibman writes:
>> The television model is comprised of the medium and it is that
>> medium following the profit motive that has produced a muderous product.
>
>What I think you are saying here is that television is a hopeless
>medium.


I don't read that at all.  Vigdor (not Victor) is noting the monopoly
ownership _model_ that has been allowed to develop, not commenting on 
the potential of the _medium_.  And his comments are totally germane 
to the future of networking: we know from our daily usage that the 
medium CAN serve to facilitate millions of "producers" -- but the 
model being pushed for a commercialized cyberspace may well force this 
new medium to become the same sterile wasteland that television has 
become.

I refer everyone back to the excellent article Wally Bowen published 
in the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer, February 19.  In it, he briefly 
recaps the early history of radio -- how immediately after WWI, it was 
a wide open space with lots of non-proifit broadcasters.  As commercial 
forces came on the scene, they brought the feds in (EXACTLY like the 
telcos are doing today with the Internet), and forced the non-profits 
out.  He also points out the further parallel that the commercial-
sector-led regulation campaign was accompanied by a propaganda campaign 
against the evils of radio anarchy.  Sound familiar?  (If this list 
hasn't seen that article, I can forward it -- it's less than two pages.)

---
>There is no
>"propaganda system" in the world of text.

Yes there is.  There may not be the same level of control over the medium
itself, but there is obviously a narrow, corporate-serving, propaganda
"line" that guides the content of nearly all mass-circulation newspapers
and magazines.

The _mechanism_ of that control is only secondarily interesting (read
Chomsky if you care) -- awareness that the propaganda system exists,
however, is essential to any rational discussion of public policies
re/media.


Richard K. Moore
<rkmoore@iol.ie>

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