Click here to view my presentation on Slideshare (YouTube videos unavailable to be watched within pdf there; Click here for Clip#1 – ; Click here for Clip #2 )

Please see my discussion group reflection post here.

In Week 9 of COM 549, I was responsible for leading a number of brief conversation sessions with small groups of my colleagues about a reading of my choice. When perusing the options I had the previous week, I was immediately attracted to an article titled: ‘Consumer Adoption of Mobile TV: Examining Psychological Flow and Media Content.’

The reasons for choosing this particular article include:

1. The topic seemed to align nicely with a project I have been working on with a PR firm here in Seattle, Sports Blog Nation, and Microsoft’s Vista Media Center team. Although the VMC is not exactly ‘mobile’, it is a new and different platform to watch television beyond the old institution of traditional television. For that reason, I thought there might be similar constraints to consider when trying to discuss with my peers the likelihood of media content being distributed on either the Vista Media Center or on mobile devices.
2. On a less substantive note, I’ve always been interested in psychology and was hoping to pick up a tidbit or two of information about how the human brain plays a role in the adoption of new technology.
3. The topic of the article also seemed to be relatively similar in theme to the ‘Media Monopoly‘ article that was required reading this week. That article ended with the following line:  The airwaves do not belong to the broadcasters. They do not belong to the advertisers. The owners, by law, are the people of the United States. My initial reaction while reading that conclusion was that one way that the monopoly over content might be diffused is through the adoption of new platforms with which to consume visual media content besides vis a vis the institution of the existing television set.

These three points framed my discussions on Tuesday evening.

To briefly summarize the article, the authors of the Mobile TV article set out to determine the likelihood of American consumers adopting mobile TV. They analyzed the uses and responses of users in Europe and Asia for their data. The model that they used was the highly regarded and well tested Technology Adoption Model (TAM) that is essentially held up by two principal beliefs:

1. Perceived Use (PU) – the value that a new technology can add to one’s work or lifestyle is important in determining the likelihood of new technology adoption
2. Perceived Ease Of Use (PEOU) – the ease in which the new technology can be adopted into one’s normal behavior is critical to whether or not users can even determine whether or not it has the ability to bring them ‘use’ or utility.

The study authors also measured the cognitive concentration (or ‘flow’) of the mobile TV user experience. The authors posited then attempted to prove quantifiably that the more that users were wholly immersed while using the technology the better.  To complete the scope of the study, they also factored in the quality and diversity of the media content. As seems to always be the case, they too found that content was kind, and that PU, PEOU, and flow all had the ability to be greater if and when the content they were consuming on their new technology platform was engaging and something that could not be duplicated on other technology mediums.

Ultimately, the authors’ hypothesis that Mobile TV would be readily adopted in due time seemed to be backed up by their findings and with their initial claim that by 2011, there would over 23 million subscribers to mobile television services in the United States. I can’t wait to find out!

1. I was pleased that I framed my questions about the Technology Adoption Model with Christensen’s terms of accelerators and suppressants for adoption of Mobile TV. By asking them what might be some examples of both, rather than the two beliefs of Perceived Use (PU) and Perceived Ease Of Use (PEOU) that were discussed in the reading, I was able to solicit more opinions and insights about my underlying question – what is the likelihood of mobile tv on our cell phones becoming a reality sooner rather than later.
2. Just as I suspected was the case, nobody outside of Jeff, a MSFT employee himself, had any idea what Windows Media Center on Vista was or where it could be accessed on their machines (for those few students who also ran Vista on their machines).  I find it fascinating that there are 180 million licenses of Vista out there yet my guess would be that less than 1/4 (IF that) know about Media Center and its capabilities.
3. By navigating through the Media Center, I was able to show my classmates a fair amount of the content options available currently via Media Center. Bagdikian emphasized that content was imperative to the adoption of mobile TV in the future. I feel the same way about the existing technology of Media Center, and through the work I’m currently doing trying to establish a relationship between MSFT’s development team and SportsBlog Nation, I’ve quickly discovered that MSFT is doing everything possible to amp up their distribution deals in the coming months and years.

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Please leave any feedback on my discussion. Thanks!

1. “Afterword: Media Monopoly” (1997) by Ben H. Bagdikian
2. “Archivists struggle to preserve crucial records as paper gives way to pixels” (1999) – by Florence Olson
3. Christensen – Breaking The Wire (Ch 10)

Post based on reflections on Bagdikian article.

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In “Afterword: Media Monopoly” an extremely interesting and important dilemma is posited by the author Ben Bagdikian. The article’s central premise is “the conflict-between what is good for business and what is good for the quality of life in society.”  I might put it in more simple terms – telecommunication companies wield far too much control in American life. There are too few companies controlling too valuable an infrastructure and service (essentially the means of distribution of digital media in many forms). Combine that with the fact that they have influence in Washington D.C. thanks to their powerful army of lobbyists, and the ability to align public opinion with their own agenda at times and all the ingredients are there for corporations to be corrupt at worst and negligent at best in their efforts to promote social equity.

As the author explains it, the crux of the problem is mass media companies are the most influential forces ”socializing and politicizing” the American public.  Because so many mass media companies are owned by large American corporations, the possibility of a dangerous conflict of interest becomes apparent. Through various forms, corporations are able to extend their beliefs and motives to an unsuspecting American public, “inappropriate as it may be.”

What is the most identifiable ‘value’ that corporate American might want to extend to the general population? Taxes. Corporate America would immediately and consistently have you believe that there’s nothing more anti-American than taxes themselves. A violation of the primary tenants of our civil religion – individuality, personal responsibility, and the steadfast belief in oneself and Providence, NOT government to solve life’s challenges and make ones decisions. Corporations’ disdain of taxes and their ability to impose that shared mindset on the public is mentioned as an explanation for why the true crises in the United States go unattended to year after year – crises such as inadequate housing and unsafe neighborhoods, lack of universal health care, underfunded and overcrowded schools, a lack of a universal living wage, lack of mass transit infrastructure, and inequitable executive compensation.

Before corporate American culture could truly socialize and politicize the general population however, it first needed the right medium. The television was just that. In the 1950s, the television set became a mainstay in American homes, transforming the way families scheduled their lives and budgets. No longer did Americans have to head out for a night out at dinner and the movies or theatre for entertainment. A perfectly fun and much more inexpensive evening could be had at home.

As television became the most “powerful merchandising tool in human experience” the addition of countless new stations and the introduction of the remote control combined to catalyze a race between networks in an all out competition for an increasingly fractured audience. The unfortunate consequence has been the same type of ‘lowest common denominator’ appeal to content production that we’ve discussed and read about all quarter. Except in terms of television programming, it became about lowest common denominator ways to try to shock, and thus captivate, an audience, usually through violence and sex. 

I’d like to read the rest of this book. I would need to do a bit of research on the author, but my impression is that the belief system of the author is more aligned with Ralph Nader than I might typically prefer. That said, as I’ve been known to sound off on in class this quarter in COM 549, the uneven playing field between consumers/the American public and telecoms is a very important issue to me. So important in fact that it’s made me consider a career in policy or, God forbid, even politics. With so few companies owning the means of distribution of the World’s most precious resource – information and the ability to connect - I can’t help but try to conceive of ways in which a truly free-market and common sense approach could be applied.

Though it’s a discussion for another day, my initial thought would be public ownership of broadband and all the fiber optic cable that allows the the amazing free flow of information in 21st century society.

Similar to what Bagdikian said to conclude: “The airwaves do not belong to the broadcasters. They do not belong to the advertisers. The owners, by law, are the people of the United States.”

1. “The Tragedy of the Commons” by Garret Hardin from Science Magazine (1968).
2. “Around the World Wide Web in 80 Days” by Barbara K. Kaye and Thomas J. Johnson from Social Science Computer Review, Vol. 21, No. 3, 304-325 (2003)

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1) The most pressing question I would have for my fellow students is what other types of problems may Earth, and the United States more specifically, face in the future that may not have technical solutions, forty years after Hardin’s article was written in 1968?

2) I’m particularly interested in behavioral economics as a niche intellectual curiosity and how new economic and communication models must account for the infinite number of unique motivations and usages for the Internet. How can an acceptance of human irrationality (which I take to the be the underlying core principle of behavior economics) be overcome in future attempts to understand how and why we interact with digital media technologies?

3) How can the theme of the Tragedy of the Commons be applied to the discussion about the  economic collapse of the newspapers as people ‘expect’ free news and information at all times?

Question set based Roger Fidler’s ‘Mediamorphosis: Understanding New Media.’

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1) Fidler states that the mass markets that the national radio broadcast networks created helped to reinforce ethnic, racial and religious segregation in the United States. In the VERY next sentence he writes, ‘as the networks consolidated their power, they became much more than a unifying force for the nation.’ Then goes on to talk about creation of consumer society.  I suppose I feel like there should have been a much more detailed explanation about how the national networks helped to reinforce segregation. Explanations from the class as to how this happened?

2) I found it fascinating that the author and philosopher Thoreau wrote: ‘Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys which distract our attention from important things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.’ His point is that so what if people can afar can connect. What if they don’t have anything to connect about? First of all, it’s comical to me that a man who fancies himself a philosopher, regardless of the era, could think that the human condition didn’t have something that others could relate to irrespective of other variables preconditioned by time or place. My question though would be, did the literary class feel threatened by the telegraph much like journalists do today by bloggers? If so, why might they have associated instant communications as a threat to entertainment or the arts rather than merely an improved communication system?

3) There has been no discussion in any of the readings – unless I’m forgetting something pertinent, which is possible – about the business models of the telegraph industry. The models of the newspaper, radio and television industries have been discusses thoroughly in multiple readings; and the history of the telegraph and its central role in the history of communications systems has been touched upon in more than one week’s readings. But I’ve yet to see much analysis about how the economics of the telegraph. Did it’s business model in any way evolve over the years and how did its business model effect communications systems?

Citation: Benkler, Y. (2006). The wealth of networks: How social production transforms markets and freedom. New Haven [Conn.]: Yale University Press.–> Chapter 6 ‘ The Trouble With Mass Media

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In  The Trouble With Mass Media – Chapter 6 of Yochai Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks, mass media’s role in the public sphere is discussed historically over time and space. By tracing the history of mass media so thoroughly in distinct places and during different periods of history, Benkler sets up his objective of proving why and how the internet will provide “improvements in the structure of the public sphere over mass media” compared to the structure of mass media models like newspapers, the radio and television.

I was relieved when Benkler took a few moments to clearly define what he meant by the ‘public sphere.’ It’s just one of those concepts that’s certainly no mystery, but also not easily identifiable in concise writing or words if one were put to the test. Benkler wrote: “The practices that define the public sphere are structured by an interaction of culture, organization, institutions, economics, and technical communications infrastructure.”

More than anything, I related to the imagery of the hub-and-spoke structure of mass media’s organizational, production and distribution structure. A one-way street where thoughts, ideas, and information were consumed like packaged goods unlike in recent years an on-going, dynamic exchange between a myriad agents.

This is a passive cultural form of media consumption that has thankfully disappeared since the advent of Web 2.0. Now, everyone has a voice and the ability to form tribes and communities online based on their beliefs, cultural customs, niche interests or along any number of countless lines of identity or self-expression. I wrote about this very subject recently on Flip The Media intending for it to be read in conjunction with this post and as an early exercise for my thoughts for my final paper in this class, COM 549. The thoughts contained there provide a small but very personal example of the ideas which Benkler discusses about transforming the production, distribution, and consumption of media from a passive to an amazingly dynamic and fluid activity.

I mentioned Benkler’s historical analysis taking place over time and place because he frequently injects commentary about how mass media models have taken different forms  (same structure though) based on the controlling government – authoritarian or liberal. Said differently, depending on what the motives are of those who control the distribution hubs of mass media – be it message control or profit motives – these motives were the product of the same type of structural foundation for mass media across the major mediums of newspapers, radio and television.  As for the internet? In authoritarian societies, the internet poses a major threat to the central command of information and control of the narrative. In liberal societies, this free flow exchange of information effects deeply rooted understandings about economic costs and organizational forms/hierarchies.

I intend to use some of the information contained within this chapter of Benkler’s invaluable book but to conclude I will mention that he provides a detailed account of how newspapers, radio, and television (the three primary forms of mass media) arrived at the same structural models of mass production that appealed to the lowest common denominator in the interest of profitibality and how that had different but equally unfavorable potential implications for mass media’s role in the public sphere.

Brin, D. (1998). The transparent society: Will technology force us to choose between privacy and freedom?  Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley.

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In The Transparent Society, David Brin writes ominously about a future where privacy as we know it will cease to exist. Written in 1998, as the proliferation of the internet and information networks was beginning to take off, Brin’s book begins with a stark but captivating hypothetical: the possibility of the future taking one of two distinct forms – one in which citizens choose to be naive and cede control of privacy and surveillance issues; or one in which citizens are proactive agents in the flow and control of information, ceding some privacy themselves yet ensuring that others don’t manipulate the power that could accompany the singular control of such a wealth of personal information.

There is a theme throughout Brin’s book that he presents on multiple occasions, and to him it’s the crux of the dilemma facing society in the future. That is people often demand ‘far more openness from our opponents than we want applied to ourselves’ (20). 

Before delving into the meat of his argument – that accountability from government is necessary even if it means living in truly ‘open’ societies – Brin makes a compelling case as to why governments can not be trusted with special access to the wealth of personal information stored in future databases. He reminds readers of the tyranny that gripped the world in the 20th century when dictators across Europe and the world invoked threatened democracy while committing atrocious crimes against humanity. Brin reminds his readers that all this was possible simply because the general citizenry had no idea what these tyrants were up to until it was far too late.

The history of computer interconnection networks, as well as the technological advancements in surveilance and communications, are then presented to help better explain how and why what we once considered private information and space is no longer so. Brin provides a smattering examples of how the conveniences afforded by modern technology also have their drawbacks – namely, the erosion of privacy as each and every ‘move’ we make online is recorded digitally and stored away. Who though owns control to this personal information? To name but a few, Brin cites tracking, fradulent credit reports, identity theft, advanced sensors as examples of how privacy is under siege as a result of technological advancements.

I found many of Brin’s warnings about a world delineated by surveillance mechanisms like infra-red goggles to be a touch hyperbolic and perhaps even tainted by a personal interest in science-fiction – he did after all write a series of science-fiction novels in the 1980s. That said, he had many insights about how the internet and information networks would change communication that have proved to be quite accurate and of particular interest to me. For example, he correctly forecasts how niche interests (like the Pittsburgh Steelers) will be able to be pursued by people across the globe, and how the resulting ‘tribal’ formation will bring together people who might otherwise never encountered each other.

The one major flaw I found in Brin’s work (and it’s more a product of when the book was written rather than an egregious oversight) is the failure by him to truly identify the transformative power of ‘search’ and how notions of privacy and personal information have been convoluted even greater by the meteoric rise of the company Google most notably. Much of Brin’s thesis revolves around the theme of ‘distrust for government’ and how that has always assisted our democratic structure of checks and balances. Well, what about distrust for a company like Google, who in 1998 was not on anybody’s radar but has since experienced a meteoric rise to where it is now one of the most powerful entities on Earth? Brin does emphasize that Americans have always been weary of the accumulation of power, be it in the private or the public sector.  But what might he say about a company like Google who does store so much of the world’s personal information on their serves? Brin likely would voice distrust, but what about the company’s clean record thus far protecting the privacy of its users? Finally, what might Brin think about the possibility of Google being awarded exclusive rights to operate that frequency band in the near future?

These, to me, are the most relevant questions surrounding privacy that have materialized in recent years. They were not so easy to predict and subsequently were excluded from consideration in David Brin’s very interesting and fast-paced read, The Transparent Society. Though I found the questions in the book to be posited in overly black and white terms, it was nevertheless informative and thought provoking.