Digital Democracy,Communication Rights and New Media

1. Digital Democracy,Communication Rights and New Media Review of Social Problems of New Media Rhetoric and Reality on the Internet Ideology of the Internet The Right to Communication

2. Ideology of the Internet ( Birdsall et al) • Rise of neo liberal thinking about the new economy • Celebrate Joseph Schumpeter • Create Industry Councils to deliberate on future of Internet • Decline to regulate the Internet • Link up Schools as sole sop to universality • Fail to provide for Canadian content on education Internet websites

3. The Right to Communicate • Birdsall et al refrain from a full articulation. • Why? Citizens should be involved in defining it • Yet 1991 Canadian Act in Broadcasting did not involve Citizens….1996 US Act involved citizens, but the civic agenda lost

4. Communication Rights • Right to inform and be informed • Right of active participation in communication process • Right of equitable access to communication resources and information • Right to privacy: individual and collective source: Birdsall et al in courseware.

5. Constitutional Framework • Stipulates “freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of speech and the press and other media • In legal interpretation, both a shield and a sword ( unstable history) since may be subject to ‘reasonable limits’ • Need more affirmation of a Right to Communicate • A charter amendment • A new judicial discourse • A public internet policy( Birdsall et al) • Irony: In Canada, most jurisprudence brought by individuals against the laws, not groups against corporations or state

6. Responsibilities to Communicate • Democracy thrives on creation of a culture of citizenship • Individuals have to assume responsibility to keep informed, participate in the political process, and direct their communication rights • The issue: if these responsibilities honoured, does the State have to ensure there is non-commercial space for communication alternatives? • Intervene to ensure choice • Fund alternative news sources • Support the CBC • But also support indie media more fully, in advertising, editorial development, training and media literacy programs • This asserts there must be a positive role of the State in providing citizens with the capacity to exert their franchise

7. Review • What is the theoretical framework for this class? • What do people say are the effects of the media? • What are some of the central problematics in the study of the media in Canada and around the world?

8. The Overall Framework • Cultural Model of communication • How do the media and communication processes construct a map of meaning in which people travel over time? • Explores the predominant democratic values, constitutional frameworks and ideologies about what the media ‘ought’ to do • Also implies point of view in evaluating how well they do • Explores lack of ‘culture of citizenship in the media’ • From a sociological perspective, embraces both conflict and interactionist perspectives

9. Assumptions of the “Cultural Model” • Both market and state decisions about the media create our cultural worlds • Systems and structures of ownership and control create professional environments and values which promote a certain capitalist world view • “cultivation” of world views, consequences on social stability, political cohesion and democracy are profound • They are cumulative: long term: still only in second generation of their effects • If you are a liberal/pro democracy, this is not fundamentally disturbing • If you are critical of capitalism, you explore the operation of hegemony working to suppress minorities, workers and the dispossessed.

10. The Impact of Television: A Canadian Natural Experiment • Communities like Igloolik twice voted against having TV in the North • Eventually conceded • A study by Tannis McBeth Williams looked at a natural experiment: before and after introduction in 1970s. There was ‘notel’ ‘mulitel’ and a control • A multi part study

11. Impact of TV on Creativity ( Key to Culture of Citizenship) • Does TV facilitate or inhibit creative thinking or imagination? • Looked at the alternate uses task • (e.g. tell me the different ways you can use a newspaper) • Total number and originality scored

12. Findings: Creativity • Notel scored higher before TV • A drop in length people would try to solve problems • Other dimensions: vocabulary use, spatial ability, reading IQ followed similar trends • Particularly marked among children • Why? • TV displaced other activities where creativity is valued: displaced deeper information processing, encouraged convergent, not divergent thinking • TV suppresses a culture of creativity, intrinsic to a culture of citizenship

13. Findings: Aggression/Civility ( Key to Culture of Citizenship) • Looked at patterns of children’s play • Aggression used in place of a social solution more often • Stereotyping and other expectations more prevalent. • Emotion, not Rational problem solving during conflict promoted • Rejection of any effects not logically tenable • TV cultivates a ‘mean world’ syndrome which saps a culture of citizenship, a sense of community empowerment • Clearly, proven to displace other leisure pursuits

14. What are the Cultural Effects? • Media now predominantly commercially driven ( less than 3% of TV viewing is now non commercial) • Exist to sell ideas, products values • Promote consumerism, individualism, will to gratify individual choice • Promote ‘lifestyle’ politics: branding of self and identities • “post” modern valorization of choice, diversity, difference • All as superficial style • Promote an ethical relativism: • its all a matter of taste, if you don’t like it, switch it off • TV commodifies politics, creates a culture of consumers, not citizens ( See Fletcher and McGrath)

15. What are the Political Effects? • Media set the agenda for what the public thinks is important • Public opinion polls repeatedly find what people say is the top problem facing the nation is what the media are covering • ‘Frame’ news in a certain way • So that elections are about the “horserace” and not the issues : Mayor DaVinci • So that there is a “war on terrorism” which legitimates almost total suspension of civil liberties • Guilty of war, not peacemongering? • Annenberg: cultivate a “mainstream world view” heavy TV viewers, lack of tolerance for diversity or complexity • Historically: media focus on “ the now”: do not provide the past or contrary interpretations of the past and present • Indirectly,send the political system into disrepute • may be contributing to the decline of party loyalty, rise of swing voters, or decline of voting levels ( Taras, Fletcher and McGrath • Structural view: Key agent of socialization into values of democratic capitalism • Critical View: Key agent of hegemony: maintenance of power and exploitation of weak

16. What sells What is ‘hot’ recent What is close and relevant Reports stars Involves conflict Easily labels: reductionist Unexpected, novel What the society thinks it values What matters: What is not ambulance chasing Reports broad newsmakers and NGOs Features conflict resolution Complex Context: history, a map to interpreting complexity The Conflict of Values in News Manufacture: Democracy’s Oxygen

17. What are the social effects? • Fleras: media express dominant culture, contain minority cultures, establish hierarchy, exclusion or inclusion • Promote social tolerance/intolerance or empathy/ indifference to ethnocultural or other difference • Now, media interaction requires higher and higher access to money for the technology and literacy: creating a wider digital divide: a middle class gated community? • The sociology of community is white, middle class and gated

18. Several core dichotomies ( or myths) • Citizen versus consumer • Market versus state • Regulation versus deregulation • Censorship versus freedom of expression • Liberal versus reform responsibility • Democracy versus Propaganda

19. Citizen versus Consumer • The audience is the commodity in commercial media: access to them is bought and sold to advertisers • Their individual purchase/protest/switch off power is limited • Consumer can veto in the marketplace ( Napster) and win partial victory • Teeth of the self-regulatory bodies are weak • Consumer Sovereignty not all that is supposed • As citizens, they control the lawmakers • Are shareholders in the CBC: their only non commercial ( and largest news source outside of Canada and in Canada) • Can complain/mobilize against offensive media • BUT fewer than 10% do so( MediaWatch Survey): most just think they can turn off/ not turn to an alternative/or formulate community standards • Can argue for ownership laws: is a social movement arising in the US?

20. CITIZENS See a right to communicate is central Maximize collective public goods Concerned about digital divide and growing gap rich and poor Focus on public interest, social responsibility views Positive rights CONSUMERS See freedom of choice Maximize individual wants See media as mostly entertainment, and a luxury, for those who can afford Focus on right to make/spend money, neo-liberal views Negative rights only Citizen versus Consumer

21. Market versus State • Fleras, Winseck, Murray all make the case that the market is a social institution • The market has its own form of economic and social censorship– both direct and indirect • The market is structured by State • There is rarely a period of complete absence of economic regulation in the media ( usually chaos at first introduction of a new medium eg. Radio is ended by the industry’s request for regulation) • With concentration of ownership, there is a concern over fair competition, adequate diversity of expression • State has been less likely to intervene in some media: with globalization it is increasingly hard to intervene against the Multi Nationals

22. Regulation versus Deregulation • There are many forms of regulation to promote Canadian cultural industries in the face of US’s comparative advantage in cultural production • Fleras argues that there are many tools ( can con quota, simultaneous substitution rule, income tax breaks, intellectual property law) in film and TV and entertainment • Canada faces unique economic challenges in globalization due to the nature of the cultural commodity, and needs to negotiate the freedom to invent its cultural policy in its own image with a cultural accord • Regulation is needed by smaller markets, to offset competitive disadvantage • Even when there is so called “deregulation”– that is no direct state intervention-- there is indirect social regulation: the control of public outrage or public controversy

23. Regulation Typical of electronic media Treat communication as a scarce resource Enact legislation ( eg. Broadcasting Act) Regulate: entry, terms of service, standards of service Eg. Canadian content quota, simultaneous substitution rule, tax laws To preserve a Canadian choice Deregulation Typical of print and new media ( irony: computers) Treat communication as service best provided by competitors at market Resist legislation Allow some forms of self-regulation ( anti spam etc) Now refers to removal of ownership or other content provisions To preserve free trade and open markets Regulation versus Deregulation

24. Censorship versus Freedom of Expression • There is no absolute right to freedom of expression in the Canadian constitution • There are unique protections for minority expression, the consideration of when, in certain cases, social good may outweigh individual or corporate freedom of expression • Canada has some of the most progressive standards in the world ( Gendersetting, Violence in Media etc) • But every case is different: there is a superordinate freedom of expression, and some communities value it more highly than others: but citizens must be aware of how to influence community standards in its interpretation and what are the main tests for evaluating media contents

25. Censorship May override basic freedoms when limits are ‘reasonable’, ‘democratic’( that is, prescribed by law) and demonstrably justified in a free, democratic and multicultural society Censorship is social control by the majority, necessary and normal Censorship may be enacted to protect the minority from the majority( hate) Censorship can have effect: that is, reduce risk or change behavior Freedom of Expression Fundamental to the individual, includes the media Should therefore be absolute Censorship is by an elite/control oriented and often misdirected at symptom, not underlying cause of social problems Censorship is ineffective in changing behavior: thwarts rather than advances democracy by hiding the unpleasant or drawing more attention to it ( see page 96: Fleras) Censorship Versus Freedom of Expression

26. Liberal versus Reform responsibility • What has been a pendulum in favour of privatization, commercialization and a neo liberal view of the media has swung abruptly back • Even very free market states like the US are involved in huge military and security interventions • Most countries in the world, with the exception of the US ( and some other regimes) consider the media a public good and subject to responsibilities • Even in the US, a constant struggle between reformers and pro marketers, with latter in the bare minority • But what we have now is a mixed economy: neo liberal versus social responsibility views intermingle for the various media • With convergence: will there be a race to the bottom? Progressive liberalization? What hope for poor countries?

27. Neo Liberal ( or neo-classical) Ideology • Looks at cultural products like any other • Restricts role of State in regulation • Sees only a negative role for the state: preventing market abuse • Looks at maximization of individual self- interest as the most liberating communication force • Advancing aggressive platform for free trade globally • Pushing for domestic deregulation

28. Reform Liberal Ideology • Treats culture as a public good not like a private one • Expands role of State in regulation • Sees State as providing positive rights: capacities for citizens to engage culturally • Looks at maximization of the public/citizen’s interests • Looking for protections in the push to global trade( a special covenant internationally on cultural standards) • Pushing for reregulation: smaller business/creator entry, restraint of dominant players

29. Reform Liberal Ideology • A public good problem of cultural products is recognized • Metaphor is not a commodity but a (natural) resource: like air or water: scarce, but renewable, and common property • Cultural/Information/Media Products are more important than other products: they are either renewable( artistic creation) or non-renewable( the Buddhist statues ruined by Taliban) • The public good arguments: • ( liberal humanist goal of ideal citizenry/continuity of a society/political integrity/ creativity of expression/) • (nation-building) a sense of belonging • ( multi-culturalism) a protection of minorities

30. Democracy Versus Propaganda • Historically, State’s have used propaganda against their enemies in war, and certain techniques on their own troops/citizens to mobilize in a ‘just’, democratically constituted war • Traditional propaganda during war has now expanded into ‘war on terrorism’ with no clear time horizon or clear enemy • Democratic regimes now use political marketing, techniques of persuasion widely • Sole protections: Ethics Commissioner, Access to Information Acts, vigilant public press and vigilant public • Various Homeland Security Acts/ covenants on Terrorism pose a real threat to press freedoms and public’s rights to privacy and to know…especially raise the issue of racial profiling, new forms of State oppression • ( See Fleras, pp. 53-57)

31. Media in a Time of Crisis • Aftermath of 9-11 proves civil liberties are vulnerable • State control of military intelligence information is now very tight • Press not able to find out: about interned prisoners ( importance of Arar case) • Canada not able to challenge US military intelligence or find out about detained citizens

32. Crisis Cont’d • US now threatening video surveillance cameras at the border: ‘dictating’ 3 fold increase in military expenditures ( Rumsfeld); a new Canadian identity card; “surveillance society” of George Orwell’s 1984 that threatens spillover • In the US, dissent is unpatriotic, or worse, terrorist • A return to propaganda, racial profiling, risk of McCarthy era in Cold War: and which press is writing about this? The story is only beginning

33. The Media, Politics, Marketplace and Democracy • We have been and will continue to be involved in major global transformations of economies, democracies, cultures and societies • The best way to monitor the impact of such change is through a vigorous news media, committed artistic community, and impassioned debates over ethical and democratic issues

34. Media Reform Movements in Canada • Social movements emerging ( Mediawatch, CRARR, Impacs, Fraser Institute) • Anti war,and pro privacy • Calls for increasing support for CBC: merging it with the press councils ( ending the individual ombudsman) • Increasing $ to alternative media • Federal investigation into mainstream oligopolies: a pressure which is rising now that Minister Rock wants to deregulate the restriction on 20% foreign ownership • More teeth– and supreme court challenges—on complaints on the quality of media coverage to do with equity, or fairness • More studies of the content of the media: is it good or bad or why

35. The Public Opportunity • Venues like the World Information Summit ( sponsored by the UN) • The International Cultural Accord which calls for fair trade in Culture ( UNESCO) led by Canada and supported by over 50 countries • WTO: challenging again and again the economism of their world view

36. CULTURAL DEMOCRACY Support public, alternative, non-commercial space for the media Build media literacy and awareness Monitor and critique mainstream media Increase the quality and coordination of self-regulation CULTURAL INDUSTRIES Protect the Freedom of the Press Support private media outlets against unfair competition from the US Build audiences for Canadian media Monitor and critique alternative media Remove regulation: there is sufficient competition to let the market decide Recommendations for Democratic Communication

37. CMNS 130 Bottom Line • Media Politics Matter • Citizens must be aware of the democratic consequences of the media worlds they swim in • The best counsel for media tyranny is indifference: beware of the Brave New World