What A Difference 4 Years Makes
It is hard to imagine now that four years ago George Bush was reelected in the midst of a climate of fear and suspicion. Democrats were on the defensive, the long term relevancy of their party being questioned by the media. Today’s election may render the Republicans a minority party, completely out of tune with the mood of the country. What happened?
The easy answer would be to say “Iraq and Lehman Bros.”. Those two tragedies expose the fallacy of the neoconservative philosophy of preemptive war and radical deregulation. But I would argue for two different phrases–”Bottom-up and Broadband”. In 2004 Democrats were overpowered by two forces: the Republican Top Down money/organizing machine and the power of right wing talk radio. There were many states that will vote Democratic today (Montana, Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana) that in 2004 had neither organization or media that reflected a Democratic message.
When after the 2004 defeat Howard Dean came to LA to campaign for the DNC Chairman spot, he said he would build a Democratic organization in all 50 states. And he did. But what Barack Obama realized from the start was that he was building a movement, not just a political campaign and he seized upon the bottom-up power of the Internet that Dean had pioneered and took it to a new level. And while the Clintons didn’t run a 50 state campaign, Obama did and it really paid off in the final month of the general campaign with the extraordinary organization And that’s where Broadband came in to the picture. Think about the effect of the will.i.am “Yes We Can” video, viewed more than 18 million times on the net.
What Broadband allowed progressives to do was to build an alternative media channel that could reach to every corner of the nation. So in Missoula, Montana the movement could have media to combat the daily lying screeds of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. No longer was the White House able to set the media agenda with the big networks and newspapers as they had in the lead up to the Iraq War. Sites like TPM-TV were setting their own media agenda and in many ways the networks and the newspapers had to follow.
So if it turns out we have built a movement from the bottom up with Broadband, the only question that remains is–how do we sustain it after the high of the election is over?
“So if it turns out we have built a movement from the bottom up with Broadband, the only question that remains is–how do we sustain it after the high of the election is over?”
There should be plenty to keep everybody busy unwinding and cleaning up after the last eight years and moving forward at the same time.
VeryBadMan
November 4, 2008 at 9:37 am
We make extending broadband infrastructure and providing it cheap a priority for the new, New Deal. High-speed internet needs to be as readily available as Fox News.
Amber in Albuquerque
November 4, 2008 at 10:07 am
Do you “socialize” it? That is make wireless broadband free and universal? That has been proposed in some cities. I’ll tell you what pisses me off…being charged for broadband usage in some airports. I really appreciate the free access I find in a few, like Phoenix. The charges are an absolute rip. Ditto for being charged for Internet access in hotels. Come on now…charge me, and that’s the last you’ll see of me in your establishment given that it’s free even at a Motel 6.
Rick Turner
November 4, 2008 at 10:15 am
Hell yeah you socialize it! You take some of the publicly owned bandwidth and provide free ‘internet tv’…kind of like PBS. Or you ‘bail out’ AOL (really bad example and a really bad idea, but just so you can see where I’m going) or whoever and have new public ‘internet networks’…maybe using the BBC type channel system as an example. I’m a little light on the specifics because I don’t understand all of the regulatory issues that well, but at least you can see what I’m getting at (I hope).
Amber in Albuquerque
November 4, 2008 at 10:18 am
Here in ‘burque, we have a lot of free wireless hot spots (libraries, Civic Plaza, etc.) but you need a computer with integrated wireless to access them.
To get the rest of unconnected America wired (and trust me, we in the blogosphere regularly underestimate the general level of unwiredness of the rest of the world) we need to make the service available on a device most people already have and use…a TV. Maybe next-generation converter boxes (like those being pimped for the analog to digital conversion if you don’t already get cable) could do this.
Amber in Albuquerque
November 4, 2008 at 10:21 am
Make it part of the utilities you already pay. It would be expensive to make free, but the cable companies already bundle it, so why not utilities. When you look at the services Google and other companies offer as long as you allow them to mine your data, you are about half the way there if you get a connection.
There was a project to create a very cheap laptop for distribution into the third world.
As for free, my lunch of free chik-fil-a, free krispy kreme, and free starbucks is awfully good today. The girl in line at starbucks had a list with all of the other joints giving away food when a customer presents the “I Voted” sticker and it includes Ben and Jerry’s.
It’s a bit like a party here. You wouldn’t believe it.
len
November 4, 2008 at 10:55 am
An inexpensive, connected device? Do you mean something like the $100 laptop that Nicholas Negroponte (M IT Media Lab) has been developing and promoting:
http://laptop.org/laptop/
billy-bob
November 4, 2008 at 10:58 am
If you socialize net access then, to be fair, you need to socialize radio, so that Rush and Sean can spew their filth without having to find advertisers. Might as well socialize newspapers while you’re at it.
Or, um, do something American, like encourage competition. The biggest problem with net access today is that there are only two main suppliers: cable companies and telephone companies. I’m puzzled why the electrical companies, natural gas companies, and others, haven’t gotten it together to supply net access over their pipes.
As to one of the core arguments, I’m not convinced that broadband was a critical enabler. Bottom-up, yes. Extraordinary organization by Obama, yes. A financial mess easily assigned to Republicans and Bush, yes. A stupid and expensive war, yes.
After the 2004 election I told my peers, ‘we just have to wait until enough people in the Red states wake up to reality’.
As for this election, I tell my father, ‘I can’t afford Republicans any more. I don’t know if I can afford Democrats, but I know I can’t afford Republicans.’
KC
November 4, 2008 at 11:07 am
Protect it. Don’t let Murdoch and his lot strangle it the way they did the public airwaves.
Gage
November 4, 2008 at 11:09 am
That’s great, but $100 is not inexpensive for the segment of the population I’m talking about. Here in NM, a lot of people don’t have the $40 for the set-top converter box…and they certainly can’t afford cable (even if it were available). And even if the $100 were affordable, you need cheap or free access to an ISP. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/01/AR2008080102863.html)
No, I’m talking a seriously subsidized investment (using government/publicly owned bandwith) to improve and expand on what a (conventional with converter or digital) TV can provide. I’m talking about providing an access option to people who are only now considering how to get electricity to their homes (and still considering whether or not they really want to do that). I’m not talking about another consumer option…I’m talking about a social service necessary to educating the citizens of this democracy. (I know, I’m a freakin’ subversive.)
Amber in Albuquerque
November 4, 2008 at 11:09 am
Amber, the problem with trying to do TV net (as opposed to Net TV) was aptly captured by Patrick Norton, TV is a “lean back” medium, while internet viewing is a “lean in”. This truly captures what happens to your body as you watch either, and makes a significant difference as to the content on each. Web TV failed massively because of fonts, menus, pixilation of content needed to keep bandwidth narrow. Sadly, the two don’t really mix except at the point of using the internet to deliver movies (as in pay per view).
Jon can probably say more about why they are hard to mix. Rat hole: not sure how McCluen’s hot/cold media plays out here, since he thought TV was hot, and print was cold but it probably is that TV is colder than internet, so we get spectrum rather then either/or.
The technology that is most apt to bring internet to the masses is going to be a mobile device like a larger version of the iPod Touch. Trouble is that the cost of electronic toys is going to go up now that massive sales are no longer a sure fire business model. Less volume, more cost per unit.
Still radio became ubiquitous during the Great Depression so if it involves access to information and entertainment, people will sacrifice to get what ever.
Point is, yes, there needs to be a better way for poor and low income people to access it (other than the public library), and there will need to be a better way to keep content from being controlled by big money. It will also need a different way to cover expenses then low cost advertising, venture capital, and content providers trying to stake out territory.
Anyway, more technical rant than you were inviting, but geeks abound in this forum and it is something that will need to be addressed: especially the part about not being co-opted by money as cable and network news have become.
Ken Ballweg
November 4, 2008 at 11:10 am
Oh, and I will be able to see your fine city the name of which I can never spell, this week as I will be attending The Arc of the US annual convention from tomorrow through Sunday. It’s fairly tightly booked, but am curious if you have any recommendations for “must see/ do” in the down town area.
Ken Ballweg
November 4, 2008 at 11:16 am
Ken, nope, I like the technical rant. That, at least, makes sense as to why what I’m suggesting may not be possible, or may not be possible without serious re-thinking as to how the information is presented and accessed. For example, if pay-per-view works, what about scheduling ‘feeds’ of the pages you want to view to download (slowly) and be ready at a specified time (or something like that). Obviously the fonts/menus/click-thru stuff will have to be addressed.
The biggest problem I see is that many of the usability features of the internet were driven by profit motives (the desire to make a buck, even more than necessity, is the mother of invention). If what I’m suggesting is a public endeavor, then that removes a big driving factor for innovation. I know, I’m arguing against myself now…but perhaps there is a middle ground. I don’t think the technology/media type issues are insurmountable…just to date no one has been properly motivated to overcome them.
Amber in Albuquerque
November 4, 2008 at 11:18 am
FWIW, I like Old Town…have a drink on the patio at Seasons (if it’s not blowing like an SOB). There’s shopping on Gold Street and fun architecture and Route 66 stuff all along Central Ave. If you have car access and free-time during the day, I recommend a drive down Rio Grande Boulevard (extends from Central north to Alameda). Farms in the city…one of the things I love most about living here. Farm land being used for McMansions…one of the things I don’t. Still, it’s a beautiful drive. Eat some green chile…and take a walk in the evening and see if you can smell the cedar and pinon.
Amber in Albuquerque
November 4, 2008 at 11:24 am
Appreciate the suggestions. My wife took instantly to the Gold Street one, as she is not attending the convention and is a hobby window shopper.
Thanks.
Ken Ballweg
November 4, 2008 at 11:49 am
You’re quite welcome. I just took my own advice and took a drive down Rio Grande (actually I had to go to the farm to pick up my weekly allotment of organic veggies). Anyway, I was thinking about the radios, and the Great Depression, and the TV.
I think that the last thing we (the big smooshy collective we) need is another personal electronic device to access content. We need a ‘lean back’ medium that provides bottom up content for free or cheap. A medium where people can gather around and receive content as a family or small group.
It seems to me that a critical difference between ‘lean in’ and other personal access points compared to ‘lean back’ devices is that ‘lean ins’ are isolating. They are not conducive to group viewing and, consequently, their very nature inhibits social interaction and discourse related to the content. I think, that decreasing isolation and increasing interaction will be almost as important as providing the content in the first place.
I’m not advocating the elimination of the long-tail or not providing access to personalized content. I’m just saying that any subsidized public endeavor should focus on a technology that will replace the role radio and TV have traditionally played in our society (for better and for worse) rather than on ‘building a better iPod’. And again, not only is this going to require enabling hardware it will require adapting content…most likely in ways that haven’t been thought of (or at least haven’t been seriously considered) yet.
Amber in Albuquerque
November 4, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Lean out of the mean and into the celebration, Ken. It will just age you faster. We are finally going to be free of George II and his cohorts, but remember, it means we are undoing a choice we made the same way we are making this one. Our candidates tend to reflect our moods and if there is really a difference, it has to be a change in our moods.
If they punish Rove, good, but Bill Ayers deserves the same as the 16th street church bombers because either we are one nation under one law, or we are just cliques clawing for more power over each other.
It can’t work unless we submit to that gratefully.
I wish you all could see what I’ve seen this morning. So many of your preconceptions would be dashed and I have to wonder if you would feel like yourselves without them. In the line I was standing in, I was with two black women joking that anyone who hesitated with the ballot after two years and a billion dollars might not be smart enough to vote. We all were h0lding our heads high, we were voting together, we were enjoying each other.
You thought I would vote for McCain. I didn’t. Why? I’m a Democrat. I really don’t like the methods of Obama’s campaign. I really think many should stop and ask themselves if being meaner than the Republicans makes us better, or is it just a great get even. But I never said I would vote for McCain and this is my tribe.
That is what it is really like here. As I’ve said: different locale. Means matter. Polite matters. Respect matters.
It is a great pleasure to boil barbarians as the old samurai said in Shogun, but then we make our choices. Celebrate the day. Celebrate the freedom. Celebrate each other. Get the freebies.
len
November 4, 2008 at 12:20 pm
“So if it turns out we have built a movement from the bottom up with Broadband, the only question that remains is–how do we sustain it after the high of the election is over?”
Simple, hound Obama’s ass to answer why he voted the way he did on the FISA bill.
I’m sorry if I’m not impressed by Obama “building a movement” – he didn’t.
The most he did was recognize one and ride on its wave to the White House.
Suggesting that he built a movement implies a top-down phenomenon. The fact is the movement built him.
If this movement *is* bottom-up, then the bottom people have to keep pushing once Obama’s elected and steer the movement in the right direction.
And if Obama’s administration is really about readying America for the 21st century – then the bottom-up movement should make sure to push for legislation concerning e-privacy, copyfight and net neutrality.
It should make sure Obama’s priorities include opposing DMCA, FISA and other top-down laws that stand in the way of innovation.
Also, as Obama’s been so upfront and unequivocal about his support of gay marriage, abortion and other controversial issues (albeit yesterday’s controversial issues) he should be doubly as vocal about tomorrow’s issues – net neutrality, copyfight and e-privacy.
Armand Asante
November 4, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Not sure that genie can be put back in the bottle. Tough to imagine the internet quick attention jumps and snippets as content in a social interaction setting. Like fighting for the remote isn’t bad enough.
And before you demonize isolating experiences, remember books are one of the most isolating things we enjoy. And they haven’t been the death of society yet. In fact many would argue that they are proving to hold on just because they provide introspective down time.
Ken Ballweg
November 4, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Ken, good points both. I wasn’t trying to demonize isolating experiences (I’m practically a shut-in) and, quite frankly, given our current state of affairs I have big-brother/Farenheit 451 nightmares of groupthinkesque ‘lean back’ media being used to further anesthetize the masses.
Whatever ends up happening though, I think internet content needs to be as cheap and accessible as town criers, newspapers, radio, and then television were. What I don’t want to see is information being accessible only to those who can afford it (like books used to be).
Amber in Albuquerque
November 4, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Just can’t get away from this awful isolating thing and go do productive things. Damn me.
Anyway, have to disagree that the Obama phenom was either top down or bottom up. He provided a catalyst, and had the good sense (his real promise) to get good people who would simultaneously allow, and encourage its growth.
Obviously a theme is emerging in my posts: could we please move beyond the either/or, black/white, good/bad, right/left, patriot/unAmerican style of viewing the world. It never was that way, never will be that way, and it is too convenient a tool for people with a totalitarian bent, like Chaney, to use to their advantage.
I haven’t stood for the National Anthem since the Viet Nam war, and wont until we admit the war crimes we committed (which will leave me several more wars to work my way through after that). However, I am as fierce a Jeffersonian patriot as any of the symbol based crowd Palin was pitching to. Forced conformity (flags on cars) is a product of fear and uncertainty, and is the food of demagogues.
Geez, I seem to be lecturing you a lot, but it’s a rainy day here and I’m really just thinking out loud (in that free association fashion of the internets). Time for morning ablutions (being retired it my clock to do with as I want), and heading down town myself.
You all be careful with your giddiness out there, it’s been such a foreign emotion for so many years, it may be hard to handle. Please don’t operate any heavy machinery, or punch a conservative for Christ just cus you can.
Ken Ballweg
November 4, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Ken, I know what you mean (sigh)…and thanks for writing my black/white, left/right, can’t we find some middle ground lecture for me (except for the Vietnam part, I was just a baby).
Amber in Albuquerque
November 4, 2008 at 12:58 pm
@amber:
You have it now. The web IS just a technology. The way a browser and IP addressing/packet system work, the mediums are media and will morph to any shape or form of interaction you care to provide. I already sit around a computer with my son leaned back watching YouTubes of old TV shows when entertainers really had to dance and sing well. We watch new bands, old songs, everything. It is a cultural memory as broad and deep as anything digitizable.
For lean in, there are extraordinary works in the gaming industry and group play is encouraged. Many people I know use WoW as a way to keep up with their kids. Occasionally I read my daughter’s Facebook to keep up with her growing social awareness although I don’t comment there because like her room, it’s her space.
Web media such as blogs grew out of web pages, from multi-media to monomedia, to emphasize writing. YouTube emphasizes movie making skills and music. Each one of these has an emphasis and we have been replacing one with another and mixing and matching.
But you won’t get real physical intimacy through a keyboard, mouse and screen. It is at best, a simulacrum, a golem of desires. Just as the TV replaced the piano as the center of the living room, something gets lost as the emphasis from one sense and mode shifts to another, then shifts back again.
For togetherness, road trips and camp outs are still best. The web can only be an extension of what we do. It can’t replace it and it isn’t a new magical mystery tour. It isn’t even Kesey’s bus.
Armand is right. The movement built Obama. Now it will become many movements just like home pages became dozens of different media emphasizing different modalities.
The polymaths can bridge the chasms, but otherwise, the best way to help Obama is to pick one of the causes of the movement that really has your passion written on it and focus on that. If as Rick said months ago, it is his job to inspire, then he can do that without too much help. What he needs and the country needs are hands working on different parts of the puzzle.
Rick likes energy. I like integrated safety apps (or at least that is what I do). Otherwise, scoring new music for the church is a great way to use my second rates skills for first rate causes. I’ll bet you have a dozen of these. A bottom up system means lots of little efforts, lots of hands, making hard work easy in lots of places at the same time. The illusion at the top takes care of itself.
And your friends here are just a few keystrokes away. Always. That is the real difference the web makes.
len
November 4, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Thanks Len.
Amber in Albuquerque
November 4, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Most of you are overthinking this. Gage @11:09 hit the nail on the head: Protect the Internet as we know it.
Network Neutrality must become protected by law. The demand is there*, and a market will spring up to meet it, at a reasonable price. But if we let the carrier decide who we can and cannot interact with, the Internet will just turn into semi-interactive TV, and the only voices heard will be those of the government, big corporations, and the well-heeled.
(*Well, alright, there will always be those luddites who want nothing to do with the Internet, but free MuniWiFi wouldn’t help them, either.)
Gryffin
November 4, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Ken-If TV is lean back and Net is lean forward, how do you explain the 12 billion videos watched on the net last month?
Jon Taplin
November 4, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Random thoughts…
Net Neutrality: Absolutely essential and extremely scary if it doesn’t become a fact of life.
Keeping big money from controlling internet access is the first step.
The next is an affordable device to keep the people connected. Hopefully it doesn’t cause more traffic accidents though ala cellphones!
Lastly: It is amazing to remember that Youtube is only 3 years old!!!
Yours truly…
Josh C
November 4, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Jon, I think it’s the content being small self contained, personally chosen snippets (by and large) vs. Amber’s social experience of, for example, a sitcom in the front room that everyone agrees is “what we are watching tonight”. Short film v. feature film is part of it more then the video aspect. Massive number of choices is another part, you guide and program to a much larger extent than you can with even cable TV (since 80% of that is pitched to some demo that you will not be attracted to e.g. golf or home shopping). Traditional TV/ radio has more choices made for you so less interaction.
I’m not totally sure about what all the differences are, in fact, but every since I heard Norton say that, it made sense based on how I’m keenly aware my body reacts to the two formats. That’s why I was kind of tossing it out to you to help me process.
Personally, for me, the biggest difference is text, which you adjust physically to to read with more of us needing to pull it into our personal focal point. Traditional TV is much more visual/ movement based for tension. Internet is much more text based, which stands the traditional McCluen hot/cold media a bit on its head.
Like I say, not my insight, but one I took to the first time I heard it. So I really can’t fully explain if it is actually as sensible as it feels to me, or just exactly what the mechanics and import of it is. Clearly though web will work better on small handheld devices (phones, media players, portable computers) than traditional TV will. So, lots of video, but what type and what content?
Oh, and isn’t it nice to think we can get back to the more neutral activity of figuring out how the world works, rather than spending so much energy focused on cheering for our respective teams while hissing that other side’s villains.
Ken Ballweg
November 4, 2008 at 4:04 pm
I find myself frustrated with a lot of video unless it’s really entertainment based. I can read information much faster than the talking heads can speak it. Obama has been interesting, though, as he combines information…yes, sometimes vaguely, but information none the less…with the entertainment value that comes with good oration. McCain just does not know how to get his message across without coming off like a madman, Palin comes of as a ditz, Biden was pretty good, but Obama just has that cadence thing that probably comes out of the black church experience. He’s good extemporaneously too, in coming off as a reasoned human being. I would be nervous with McCain’s finger too close to the virtual “red button”, and Palin? She’d be wanting to try it out just to see if she could blast a Russkie from her home. Just another moose to her.
Rick Turner
November 4, 2008 at 4:24 pm
I prefer the written word…which is probably why I hang out here instead of on YouTube. Video gives you the added communication of tone and body language that can get lost in text-based mediums though (they especially get lost when the writing is bad).
Putting text on TV is a bad idea because of readability issues. Straight web-based video not so great either because it’s just video. To really use this medium you have to have hyperlinks. I’m thinking of something along the lines of video podcasts with embedded coding that you can access with your remote (like my husband does for his fantasy football stats on our satellite TV receiver).
But I agree with everyone else saying that net neutrality must be maintained and that (for better and for worse) content should not be provided only by corporations (that big brother thing again).
Amber in Albuquerque
November 4, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Hit submit and the brain keeps going. So….
Personal video programing v. Network video programing.
More the flow than the method (video camera) used for producing the content you select from.
Wasn’t McCluen’s basic tenant how the brain processes the medium makes the totality of the impact of the message?. Again, I’m thinking in terms of hot/cold being dichotomous, while reality is specteral, so internet structure how you access and interact with the medium becomes an addtional factor of that medium.
Ken Ballweg
November 4, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Yeah, I think whatever “content” morphs into, it’s going to “morph”…organically. It won’t be a structure (video or text or video/text hybrid) created and marketed as a product. Of course, like everything else it will end up being marketed, but I think that we’re going to end up seeing something new.
Amber in Albuquerque
November 4, 2008 at 5:45 pm
The Internet is much hotter than McCluhan was describing TV to be. We are here participating, doing, acting, even as it stimulates the ADD tendencies among us. This is not a passive “cold” medium the way we use it here.
Rick Turner
November 4, 2008 at 6:22 pm