What I gathered from this article is that as long as the United States continues to set the agenda and manages policy, it will continue to be the international leader and the largest influence on the global agenda policy. Five premises were provided to back up the claim. However, I found the argument that China offers competition to the U.S.'s international position. I find this point very interesting because China's domestic market is definitely "sizzling," and its economy has definitely kept many afloat, particularly the U.S.
Throughout the chapter, the emphasis is on the U.S. and its dominance in the international market. According to the authors, other countries may have a certain level of dominance (i.e. EU oversizes the U.S. ICT market and the lag of the U.S. with broadband). Overall, I will be all hears in class tomorrow in order to tie all of this together in my head because all I gathered was that the U.S. will continue to be the global influence as long as it continues to control policy-making. However, the U.S. still has strides to make with broadband and something as commonplace as the cellular phone market.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Chapter 5 reading
The selected readings in this week’s book tied together many of the themes discussed in previous weeks and in class discussions. However, I found Chapter 5 difficult to read and understand due to an influx of unfamiliar jargon and approach.
What I found most significant in this reading was the absolute need for transparency, oversight, and accountability organizations to monitor the actions of media firms. This would avoid clandestine operations such as Comcast’s affair with BitTorrent. This article made evident the dangers within the global media system, and the importance of taking action.
Furthermore, I agree with the idea of non-discriminatory policies and in providing equal access and price-controls.
What I found most significant in this reading was the absolute need for transparency, oversight, and accountability organizations to monitor the actions of media firms. This would avoid clandestine operations such as Comcast’s affair with BitTorrent. This article made evident the dangers within the global media system, and the importance of taking action.
Furthermore, I agree with the idea of non-discriminatory policies and in providing equal access and price-controls.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
An Unlikely Duo
In general, I found Chapter 5 to been a good overview of the policies behind broadband and wireless even if I did get a bit lost in the spectrums and bundles. It was interesting to see the impact that Republicans had on the push to deregulate broadband and the reasons behind some of the FCC actions. It was also helpful to hear more about the debate on net neutrality and what the different opinions are.
I didn't realize the FCC had forced AT&T to maintain net neutrality for two years during its merger with Bell-South in 2006. Cowhey and Aronson write that one of the reasons was because "the Democratic FCC commissioners (wanted) to keep alive the peering issues until after the next election when Democrats might win control of the White House and Congress, and permanently change policy." (p117) Seeing as this is now the case, I wanted to see what current action had occurred on the topic.
Sure enough, just last Thursday the FCC voted to begin writing net neutrality regulations.
This led me to also check out Google's Public Policy blog and read more about their reasons behind supporting net neutrality. If you scroll down the blog a bit, there is even a joint post by the CEO of Google AND the CEO of Verizon Wireless - a very surprising combination. They admit that they disagree on many aspects of how they envision the FCC net neutrality regulations but that they share a common view of keeping it "an unrestricted and open platform."
I thought that Castells would have been very happy to read the final sentence of their post as a key objective in his public sphere - "We're ready to engage in this important policy discussion." It will be interesting to see if they actually follow through on this promised debate - on an issue that is anything but neutral.
I didn't realize the FCC had forced AT&T to maintain net neutrality for two years during its merger with Bell-South in 2006. Cowhey and Aronson write that one of the reasons was because "the Democratic FCC commissioners (wanted) to keep alive the peering issues until after the next election when Democrats might win control of the White House and Congress, and permanently change policy." (p117) Seeing as this is now the case, I wanted to see what current action had occurred on the topic.
Sure enough, just last Thursday the FCC voted to begin writing net neutrality regulations.
This led me to also check out Google's Public Policy blog and read more about their reasons behind supporting net neutrality. If you scroll down the blog a bit, there is even a joint post by the CEO of Google AND the CEO of Verizon Wireless - a very surprising combination. They admit that they disagree on many aspects of how they envision the FCC net neutrality regulations but that they share a common view of keeping it "an unrestricted and open platform."
I thought that Castells would have been very happy to read the final sentence of their post as a key objective in his public sphere - "We're ready to engage in this important policy discussion." It will be interesting to see if they actually follow through on this promised debate - on an issue that is anything but neutral.
I've heard this all before...
After reading this week's chapters from Cowhey and Aronson's book, I understand why we had to deal with all the topics covered in their work separately before tying them all together. The various forces, including but not limited to technical, social, and policy networks, domestic politics, the flow of ideas, institutions of global governance, and power flows, that shape the past, current, and future management of global ICTs are exceedingly complex in their interactions. I found chapter 5 in "Transforming Global Information and Communication Markets" to be particularly difficult to fully untangle and to comprehend all the jargon used. However, there were some terms used by the authors that I found reflected similar concepts discussed previously in this course and others.
The idea of an inflection point for ICT infrastructure parallels the definition of a technological discontinuity, where a substantial change in technology innovation and usage results in broader societal adjustments, especially in the areas of economics and governance. Examples of past inflection points or technological discontinuities relating to ICTs are the movable type printing press and the telegraph. The current inflection point for ICT infrastructure is due to the increased modularity of technologies, which allows for different technologies to complement one another because of standardized interfaces, and the spread of powerful broadband networks. Although the authors do a good job of justifying their usage of the US as their focal case study throughout the chapters that we were assigned, I believe that this biases them toward a more optimistic view of the economic and social potentials for ICTs. There is very limited discussion about how the variation in access and usage of ICTs globally will impact governance systems.
However, it was interesting to read the various ways in which US policies and norms toward ICTs have spread throughout the world, and it was apparent from the authors' analyses of the future for US economic leadership that there are some pivotal policy issues, which need to be addressed. These include net neutrality, copyright management, US lag in broadband availability to individual and small and medium businesses and the development of advanced wireless infrastructure.
The various forces shaping ICTs diffusion and policies as discussed in chapter 6 remind me a lot of the those described by Ernie Wilson in his strategic restructuring model. The whole idea that there are multiple forces impacting global and national ICT regulation and diffusion, including institutions, structures, domestic politics, individuals, and ideas, and that it is not inevitable for technologies to just spread on their own is a break from the commonly espoused ideas of technological determinism.
Overall, I thought that Cowhey and Aronson were thorough in providing an overview of the various aspects affecting global ICT governance. They also did a good job of differentiating between what they think will happen, what they hope will happen, and how interactions among all the various ICT actors and forces will determine whether an efficient, fair, and least globally detrimental ICT governance system will result.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
The Powers that Blog
The Castells article made some excellent points on power and communications and their impact on politics. He wrote, " The battle of the human mind is largely played out in the processes of communication." No where is this more direct than in the political arena where politicians via for approval of the human mind, or their vote.
As communications becomes more interactive and involves more players, it is a natural place for politics to look to connect with more people. The obvious example of this is Obama's successful media campaign that was heavily reliant on Internet campaigns and interactive social networks. He was able to engage people on a personal level unknown in previous political campaigns. His website was even called www.mybarackobama.org. Obama used the media to create a sense of ownership and connection that ultimately won him the election.
Politicians are realizing the growing power of the media and are working to capitalize on it like Obama has. It is interesting to note that this shift involves a two-way communication which is different from previous political interactions where politicians just broadcast their views and promises out into the ethos. Voters are now demanding more interactions and transparency since media has taken down the barriers of time and distance to these exchanges.
This interesting article from 2008 talks about Obama's successful media campaign: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10carr.html
However, I was most struck by the last sentence that shows the power shift occurring with communications: "Yes, we have met Big Brother, the one who is always watching. And Big Brother is us.”
As communications becomes more interactive and involves more players, it is a natural place for politics to look to connect with more people. The obvious example of this is Obama's successful media campaign that was heavily reliant on Internet campaigns and interactive social networks. He was able to engage people on a personal level unknown in previous political campaigns. His website was even called www.mybarackobama.org. Obama used the media to create a sense of ownership and connection that ultimately won him the election.
Politicians are realizing the growing power of the media and are working to capitalize on it like Obama has. It is interesting to note that this shift involves a two-way communication which is different from previous political interactions where politicians just broadcast their views and promises out into the ethos. Voters are now demanding more interactions and transparency since media has taken down the barriers of time and distance to these exchanges.
This interesting article from 2008 talks about Obama's successful media campaign: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/10/business/media/10carr.html
However, I was most struck by the last sentence that shows the power shift occurring with communications: "Yes, we have met Big Brother, the one who is always watching. And Big Brother is us.”
Monday, October 19, 2009
Sooo...Castells is my new fave scholar!!
This week I decided to view some other posts from other groups, and I found a very interesting post about a character named Johnny who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for winning his political campaign of world domination. It was absolutely intriguing because it presented Castells' article and views in a clear, understandable, and entertaining manner. Nonetheless, it further emphasized how I have truly grown to enjoy Castells' scholarly work. Much of what he discussed in this week's article related to communication (duh!) and the ever-constant convergence of media. He also touched on power relations and media politics. To touch breifly on power relations, his understanding of power was the capacity of a social actor to impose his will on another social actor. He discussed counter-power, which was the social actor's capability of resisting the imposition. He made many common truth points about society using media as their political platform informants. Therefore, in a sense, media has a power of importance becasue politics depends upon media politics. However, the power is not in the hands of the media.
The part of Castells' reading that was overly interesting to me was the section discussing mass self-communication. This was intriguing because mass self-communication is the way many of my mentors and idols in my line of work (media entertainment) remain relevant, brand themselves, and stay afloat in the ever-changing global world of media. Horizontal networks of interactive communication are imperative nowadays. Radio listeners and music fans alike want to be able to actively communicate with the celebrities. Fanmail and generic email responses do not cut it anymore. People want the personal feel. (i.e. blogs and social networking sites). In another aspect, mass self-communication offers a medium for social movements. Protests can be arranged in a matter of minutes if the right medium is chosen and the right amount of people view the message and respond accordingly. To this day I still cannot recollect the point in my life where facebook, twitter, youtube, ireports, etc. became such a hot commodity and a "medium" themselves. These forms of mass self communication are also testament to America's existing culture. It "emphasizes individual autonomy, and the self-construction of the project of the social actor." With that, maybe there is hope to holding on to a national identity!! Mass self-communication is making a significant impact upon the media and its traditional practices because the large media conglomerates have even joined the movement by acquiring MySpace and YouTube, to name a couple.
In closing, Castells was very clear in stating that "the autonomy of newtorking sites does not imply competition against the mainstream media." This is a very important point because everytime society moves toward new forms of media, others debate about the extinction of past media. (i.e. radio to television, television to internet). The media must remember that convergence is the future! Mainstream media and new technologies are co-existing. Personally, and I may be wrong, but on the surface with all things held equal; media convergence is a positive for all forms of media. It brings rejunvenation to the older, more traditional forms and creates new ways to market young people like me!
The part of Castells' reading that was overly interesting to me was the section discussing mass self-communication. This was intriguing because mass self-communication is the way many of my mentors and idols in my line of work (media entertainment) remain relevant, brand themselves, and stay afloat in the ever-changing global world of media. Horizontal networks of interactive communication are imperative nowadays. Radio listeners and music fans alike want to be able to actively communicate with the celebrities. Fanmail and generic email responses do not cut it anymore. People want the personal feel. (i.e. blogs and social networking sites). In another aspect, mass self-communication offers a medium for social movements. Protests can be arranged in a matter of minutes if the right medium is chosen and the right amount of people view the message and respond accordingly. To this day I still cannot recollect the point in my life where facebook, twitter, youtube, ireports, etc. became such a hot commodity and a "medium" themselves. These forms of mass self communication are also testament to America's existing culture. It "emphasizes individual autonomy, and the self-construction of the project of the social actor." With that, maybe there is hope to holding on to a national identity!! Mass self-communication is making a significant impact upon the media and its traditional practices because the large media conglomerates have even joined the movement by acquiring MySpace and YouTube, to name a couple.
In closing, Castells was very clear in stating that "the autonomy of newtorking sites does not imply competition against the mainstream media." This is a very important point because everytime society moves toward new forms of media, others debate about the extinction of past media. (i.e. radio to television, television to internet). The media must remember that convergence is the future! Mainstream media and new technologies are co-existing. Personally, and I may be wrong, but on the surface with all things held equal; media convergence is a positive for all forms of media. It brings rejunvenation to the older, more traditional forms and creates new ways to market young people like me!
The New Producers
For this week's reading, I found the positive outlook of Yochai Benkler quite refreshing. He examines the ways that new communication technologies promote increased freedom in the production of media and less dependence on the market to create media. In the past 15 years, the way we organize information production has radically changed. New developments in ICTs, especially that of the internet, have brought about structural change that goes to the core of how liberal markets and liberal democracies function together. These ICT developments coupled with changes in social production practices as well as changes in economic organization have created new opportunities for how we make and exchange information, knowledge and culture. Media production by individuals and by cooperative efforts comprised of individuals and other non-market based organizations is increasing dramatically in diverse areas of production from software development to investigative reporting. Thus, individuals are now able to take more active roles in the new information environment than in the industrial economy of the last century.
The rise in influence of individuals and cooperative non-market media production threatens the historical giants of the industrial information economy, media corporations. Benkler sees the increasing number of laws and institutions being put in place to regulate media production (from copyright laws to rules for registering domain names) as the greatest danger to individuals' freedom and active, critical participation in liberal democratic society.
The outcome of these tensions between non-market media production and market-based producers will significantly affect how we as individuals learn what is going on in the world and to what extent and in what forms we will be able to affect how the world is seen.
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