Enhancing Personal Relationships

During class on Thursday, we touched on an interesting topic: the “destruction of civil society” via technology and virtual networks. With the rise of the internet, our personal relationships have become virtual; we interact through E-mail and text messages, skype with distant relatives, and have online discussions through vehicles like blackboard and LiveMeeting. While the mediums under which we communicate may be changing from face to face interactions, to technologically enhanced interactions, personal relationships are still possible, and actually quite successful in the digital age.

Through my personal experiences as an inside sales representative in my previous career, I found that your product can only take you so far, and a large part of the selling cycle had to do with the personal relationship between the buyer and the seller. Even though I communicated with my clients largely through the phone and via E-mail, whether or not they liked me and our relationship together affected my sales success. The programs at our disposal (E-mail, social networking, blackberry’s and iphones) gave us more tools to communicate effectively and quickly with clients. We were plugged into the network at all times so we could respond to issues and challenges as they came up. These tools are not only used in the business world, but in society in general. They give us new and interesting ways to communicate, in addition to face to face communication. They are not intended to replace or destroy civil society, but to enhance it. 

Innovation in America

With Steve Jobs’ death the United States has lost one of the most creative, innovative, and influential minds of this century. Apple’s products and Jobs’ ideas are some of the most influential of the last decade and have changed the world’s personal relationship with technology.  This past week, his life was celebrated across the world in numerous tweets, Facebook posts and articles, however his death also prompted the following blog: http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2011/10/07/chinas-internet-why-china-has-no-steve-jobs/. 

Last Friday, October 7^th, the Wall Street Journal featured a blog entitled, “Why There Is No Steve Jobs in China.”  The piece highlighted that China has the ability to produce the same market value and business model as Apple within the next decade, but due to the education system’s memorization values and the structure of its authoritarian government it will be difficult to produce such an innovative company.   “Wang Wei, chairman of the Chinese Museum of Finance, wrote: ‘In a society with an authoritarian political system, monopolistic business environment, backward-looking culture and prevalent technology theft, talking about a master of innovation? Not a chance! Don’t even think about it.’”

This article assumes that while China may have difficulty producing such great innovation, the United States is still a haven for creativity and development.  Like Steve Jobs, there are other youths making discoveries and inventing in their own garages, waiting to change the world.  However, the WSJ’s blog reminded me of an NPR radio cast from over the summer which highlighted the difficulty for present day innovation.  This is due to “patent trolls,” companies that buy up broad patents and then go out and sue entrepreneurs and start-ups.  Companies, including Flickr are then submerged into enormous legal fees essentially stalling and sometimes bankrupting their businesses.  In September President Obama signed a patent refurbishment bill, which grants a “first to file” right to inventors but many critics say that this will nothing to help entrepreneurs get to market and avoid the “patent trolls.”  According to President Obama, “If we want startups here and if we want established companies, like a DuPont or a Eli Lily to continue to make products here and hire here, then we're going to have to be able to compete with any other country around the world. So this patent bill will encourage that innovation.”  Critics are unconvinced that this patent bill overhaul will do anything to discourage patent trolls and boost innovation. 

Could Steve Jobs' early Apple survived modern day “patent trolls?”  Can the United States maintain its role as a beacon of invention and innovation despite bureaucratic patent processes?

http://www.npr.org/2011/09/16/140543464/obama-signs-patent-overhaul-bill

- Claire

Arrr! Radio Pirates!

In the recent class readings about the regulation of the media industry, most of the authors seem to divide the future of media into one of two camps.  It’s either government regulation or a no-holds-barred free market that eventually ends up in monopoly.  I think this is a false dichotomy, a choice between two solutions, neither of which is really that great. 

But there’s always a third way, and the early history of radio can show us a different way of doing things. 

A few years ago I read the book “Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in American” by Jesse Walker.  In it, he talks about the history of radio up until 1927, a time when the regulation of the airwaves was left not up to the government, but to the broadcasters themselves, who set up a mutual code of conduct so the could help each other self-police the airwaves.

At the time, radio wasn’t the tightly controlled corporate monopoly that we have today.  Radio evangelists, snake-oil salesman, one-man vaudeville shows, amateur reporters, and hobbyists of all kinds sailed along the airwaves.  

The spectrum was a seething sea of anarchy, and the broadcasters quickly learned that they had to have some sort of regulation to keeping from stepping on each other’s frequencies.  But the system they agreed upon was voluntary, brought on by the need for everyone to protect a shared resource.

As an anarchist (Oh no!  I just blew that internship at the State Department.)  I think it’s fascinating to look at historical moments when people came together and worked out their own rules without either corporations or the government being able to dominate the conversation. 

But this was all brought to an end by the Radio Act of 1927 that created the Federal Radio Commission, which later went on to become the FCC.  Attempts at licensing were made before this, but the government didn’t have the power to deny any applicants a license.  The pressure for regulation came not from liberal activists, as it does today, but by the large radio corporations who saw regulation as a way to cement their hold on the market.  

From what I’ve read I would argue that the radio we had back before 1927 was a lot more vibrant, informative, and entertaining than the bland radioscape that we have today, where you have to choose either corporate butt rock or NPR.  Regulation has only meant that the FCC auctions off the spectrum to the highest bidder, and today we have monstrosities like Clear Channel buying up stations like miners in the gold rush. 

So how do we go about dividing up a limited resource, like spectrum?  As a former pirate radio DJ, I helped take some of the spectrum back.  There are, believe it or not, still little islands left on the spectrum where you can anchor your ship and put up a transmitter.  Podcasting has killed off a lot of this movement, but it still exists for anyone that’s interested.  The relative ease of setting up a station in your attic  has shown that the FCC, despite threats, armed raids, and intimidation, will never be able to fully control the airwaves.

And I don’t think that’s such a bad thing. 

Indecisive musings about technology

While reading the Internet diffusion section of the third chapter of The Information Revolution and World Politics, I couldn't help but think about a commercial I saw about three years ago where TV Show Heroes' Masi Oka promotes the One Laptop Per Child Foundation. This organization seeks “to empower the world's poorest children through education”. To that end, they've created computers specifically designed for children, and for the tough conditions many of them live in. They work under five principles, one of which is that the children should have connection to the Internet.

At the time, the advertisement seemed ridiculous to me. I thought: “Seriously? Is a laptop what the poorest children need?”. But right now, I'm not sure that reaction was completely fair. Many of the points made by Hanson do confirm that first impression. Hanson describes how futile these types of efforts can be when power supply is “insufficient and unreliable”, when specialists and technical support are not easily available, and when language represents an obstacle for disseminated use. Furthermore, in the chapter Information Revolution, Global Economy, and Wealth, the author describes different projects to promote and diffuse Internet and computer use that have failed despite being well-thought out. Such was the case of Gyandoot.

However, I can understand the other side. In another video, the company's founder explains the importance of achieving their goal. “Why would a kid in the developing world need a laptop of all things”, he says and lists the different problems that they might go through, such lack of clean water. “Good grief, why should they?” His answer: “take the word laptop and substitute it with education, and nobody would say that”.

I can see where he's coming from. If each child had a computer, the world of knowledge and access to resources that they would obtain is invaluable. I guess it could eventually help them to develop their own projects, and so decrease dependency on foreign entities to solve their communities' problems. However, for that to happen, the kids do actually need a system that supports and enables that type of education.

It's a complicated matter. As Hanson points out, countries that lag in technology are also at a disadvantage, so I do think that getting that technology there would do some good, and it's a beautiful initiative. But it is definitely not a panacea for the world's problems.

History is written by the winners… or now by media powerhouses?

 “Most history is guessing, and the rest is prejudice." 

 ~Will and Ariel Durant, Our Oriental Heritage

The phrase every history major keeps in mind when researching a particular event or era is, “history is written by the winners,” coined by the author, Alex Haley.  It reminds the researcher that sources of history are predominately biased towards a particular viewpoint. In cases where one is studying a particular civilization or era where the written word was not yet used or widespread, completing a thorough source selection is problematic.  For instance, much of what the world knows about Peruvian history pre-Spanish conquest is of the Inca civilization of which had no written language.  The Spaniards came into contact with the Incas when conquering Peruvian land and recorded the history of Peru through the Inca’s oral accounts.  When reading Peruvian history as recorded by the Spaniards the picture of a long and great Inca civilization forms, although we now know that the Inca Empire was only at its height for about one-hundred years prior to conquest and the Inca’s, in fact, gained their power from previous major Peruvian civilizations. 

Today, Alex Haley’s theory should be adjusted to reflect the power of mass media's effect on how people perceive history, current events and the world.  Media powerhouses such as Fox News, CNN and the BBC have a tremendous influence on public opinion and can many times direct an event’s outcome through persuasive, suggestive and manipulated text.  This week the following visual went viral over the Internet, passed through social media and attempted to demonstrate the power of a media outlet’s tone and tenor on it’s readers.  I must have seen this on multiple Facebook Friend’s profiles over the past week and it gives me hope that American’s are not ceasing to question the media’s validity or motives. Social media can act as a tool to spread intellectual ideas and knowledge!  Or, perhaps I am simply attracted to this certain type of information posted on Facebook and have like-minded Friends. 

-Claire

Corporations or Countries?

In this week’s readings, Elizabeth Hanson highlighted the fact that not only are people becoming more connected via globalization, but that our currencies, financial transactions, and corporations are entangling countries together more and more as well. Some of the more worrisome realities from the reading is that “trade in currencies exceeds the values of international trade in goods and services”[1], that money can flow into and out of a country within seconds, and that this lack of regulation is “creating a world of manias and panics.[2]”

With the financial meltdown of 2008 that spread across the world, the ongoing recession, and the US presidential election bringing financial regulation and corporate policies to the forefront, I find this to be a very relevant topic to discuss today. Right now the rhetoric around financial and corporate regulation is that of ‘economic freedom’ and that government ‘should not interfere’. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney even goes so far as saying “Companies are people.”[3] Have we lost the ability of hindsight? Did we forget about Enron, WorldComm, Anderson Accounting, Adelphia, Countrywide Financial, Lehman Bros.? When millions (perhaps billions) of dollars has been lost over corrupt and selfish business practices, shouldn’t a more cautious approach be applied to regulation and not one of laissez-faire attitude?

My belief is that companies are not people, they are entities created to generate a profit, a profit for shareholders and clients in the case of public and financial companies. Notice “shareholders” does not mean all of the public, most shareholders in companies, and clients of large financial services companies, are only those people who have disposable income and can afford to invest their money in companies. A large number of people across this country, and across the world do not represent “shareholders” and are not included in this group.Ultimately it is a dangerous path to equate companies as people. We cannot have such a short memory to forget that the lack of regulations, speculative practices, and a corrupt mortgage industry that took advantage of individuals created the unstable and insecure world we live in today. 

Many MNC’s have more capital than most of the nation-states on the planet[4] and with that comes great responsibility,  we haven’t seen corporations take this responsibility dependably and conscientiously. It begs me to ask the question, are we really that far away from a world pictured in the Pixar movie Wall-E where Buy N' Large runs the world?

---

[1] Hanson, E. C. (2008). The Information Revolution and World Politics. p. 147

[2] Ibid, p. 150

[3] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/11/mitt-romney-heckled-iowa_n_924426.html

[4] Hanson, E. C. (2008). The Information Revolution and World Politics. p. 161 

Now is the Time to Seize the Day-Newsies and Deterritorialization

“Even though we don’t have hats and badges, we’re a union just by saying so…”

In his article, “What’s Wrong with Globalization?” Colin Sparks talks about how Disney is involved with what he calls the “deterritorialization” of culture, taking stories that once had a strong sense of place and local flavor and dumbing them down for the masses in order to have them resonate with a larger target audience.   He gives the example of Winnie the Pooh, in which the character of Christopher Robin was taken from his English countryside setting, moved to the suburbs, and given a Midwestern accent so as to make him not stand out as being from any particular place.  The result is a kind of dumbing down of children’s fiction, where kids are only exposed to ideas, places, and values that will reach the lowest common denominator. 

I think it’s interesting that every once in a while corporations like Disney produce a movie that, for one reason or another, ends up slipping past the culture censors, the people whose job it is to boil down anything that is authentic and spoon-feed the resulting mush into children’s minds.   And maybe it makes sense that the Disney movie that was the most radical, the movie that had the most potential to make people question their own values, the movie that had the ability to transport viewers to a very specific time and place in history, also happened to be Disney’s biggest flop. 

I’m talking about Newsies.  This live-action film was Disney’s biggest commercial failure, and it was quickly yanked from theaters and sent straight to video before it had a chance to prove itself. 

Why the rush to bury Newsies?  Disney says the reason was purely economic, but my theory is that Disney suddenly stopped and said, “Holy shit!  We’ve actually put out a movie that could make children start questioning authority!"

For those that haven’t seen it, Newsies is explicitly about class warfare.  It teaches kids, as all good children’s fiction should, that capitalists are greedy, money-grubbing leeches that will literally work children to death, given the opportunity.  And it teaches this profound lesson through the use of synchronized dance and singing.

Newsies is set in a very distinct time and place: New York City in 1899.  The characters all have heavy, almost painful New York accents.  And the story, in my opinion, is more close to reality than any other Disney film has gotten. 

The film is based on a strike that paperboys waged to improve their working conditions (http://www.angelfire.com/nj4/annimh/realdiffsim.html).  Newspaper magnates like William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer built their print empires on the backs of paperboys, who spent all day hawking newspapers on the street for pennies, even having to pay for the papers that weren’t sold.  The boys decided to organize and strike for better working conditions, effectively stopping the papers from circulation while they refused to work. 

Of course, the real strike was broken after two weeks, while in the Disney version the strikers demands were met and they rejoiced in victory.  Nevertheless, the movie offers kids important lessons about the power of collective organizing and solidarity.  I’m proud to say that I first watched in when I was 12, and I continue to watch it whenever I’m in need of some inspiration, often singing along if no one else is around. 

It seems like the lesson that Disney learned, however, was never to make another movie that has an explicit political message.  I’ve seen a few Disney movies that have been produced since then, and they all seem to lack a sense of place or purpose.  In every movie they re-affirm the same tired stereotypes about princes and princesses, regurgitating the same story over and over.  With Newsies, I really felt like I was a New Yorker, even though I’ve never lived there.  I have a lot of other friends that have been similarly impressed by the movie, but apparently we aren’t the wide lump of middle America that Disney was trying to appeal to. 

"And the world will feel the fire and finally know.."

-Dan G.