Newsletter

The Sixth Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy


Leveling the Playing Field: Mass Communication vs. Mass Media

By Ben Gross

Some of the initial questions thrown onto the floor where: Whether the new media can assume the role, and or compete, with older media. Can the new media have a far enough reach to make the effective counterpoint in providing news and information? Can it become the medium of record? Can the media deny or enhance access to all people in the country? Can the new media improve democracy?

The moderator John Seigenthaler, chair and founder of The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, can remember when television was the new medium and print was the old.

Donna Hoffman, Associate Professor of Management at the Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University, believes the Net may go the way of radio (one to many) she says radio does not scale to many to many like the Internet, because it lacks features of the net such as telepresence and hypertext. While radio scales as a one to many medium, the Internet has already been a success as a many to many medium.

Mike Godwin,staff counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that the reason the Net is like the advent of radio and television is because of the power it has. The current policy makers grew up without the new media. Neither Congress nor the courts recognized radio as having any 1st amendment significance. Therefore, it was easy to put a regulatory framework such as the FCC. Most of our work on first amendment comes from this century.

John Seigenthaler says that the court constantly harped about scarcity. He says the regulators are worried about content and not scarcity.

Mike Godwin says there have been two historical arguments for regulation; Scarcity and the fact that their is something is unique about the medium that justifies the regulation. The only really new thing of late is broadcasting. Some people say that every medium should have its own rules. He gives the example of Howard Stern who could be fined for something he said on radio and then could print it in a book where neither he nor the bookstore owner would be fined.

Sander Vanocur, a professional-in-residence at The Freedom Forum, says that he did not think he had any less freedom in television than the John Seigenthaler had in print. Only the fairness doctrine was different in his time. The moderator says that management has a great fear about the Net will take over older media.

John Schwartz says he does not think there is any kind of conspiracy. He compared the newspaper itself to a bunch of unsupervised children with many different views.

John Seigenthaler poses the question: As he observed television over his career, he first saw as a reporter that content drove everything. As a publisher he saw economics as driving everything. He sees the New media as taking over the old as simply economics.

Bill Kovach, former editor of The Atlanta Journal and Constitution from 1986 to 1988, says that the paid for advertising radio as we know it today subsequently shaped television when it came to be. We are moving into a world where all communications are the same; video, voice and print. It is changing the world, even the whole concept of the nation state is changing. How do you create a political hearthstone for 250 million people? How will democracy be shaped?

Sander Vanocur says that Roselvelt knew how to create a hearthstone for thirty million people. The radio was a unifying instrument for the whole country. There was a strength of the voice. Today there is a dilution of voice. This will cause us problems for democracy because there is a tower of babel for communication.

Mike Godwin says there are two ways to unite people. The first is through shared experience. Then people had opportunity to listen, but not to speak. When the constitution was crafted the cost of speaking was relatively low. You had to buy a printing press, but not Time Warner. You need a pluralism. We should submit to a tower of babel because it gives us more voices.

Sander has never seen so much expression nor so much discontent. He saysWhitman would now say not "that I hear America singing," but "that I hear America Kvetching." Kovach says he thinks he hears America kvetching because we had marginalized lots of people.

Donna Hoffman thinks that we need concepts like advertising in traditional media which supports entertainment. Moderator asks if it unfair to say that entertainment will drive the development of the Net. Bill Kovach talks about how the entertainment attractions for advertising dollars will drive decisions in large corporations. John Schwarz says each media has channels that we turn to during the day and we use these channels for different things. Some are better, some are worse. Moderator does not think that any of the traditional media could survive without entertainment. Mike Godwin says lots of people are switching media to some degree. We are going to have more choices in entertainment which will not necessarily be a commercialized Hollywood version.

Mike Godwin says that in the web there is generally no way to respond such as with hate speech. John Swartz you now survive or fall on the basis of your own words on the Net.

Sander says the shared experience through the computer is a different kind of experience, not better, nor worse, but different. He does not think people will give up one for the other. Mike Godwin says that he thinks the online experience can be as rich as any other.

John Schartz says computers are cheap, they are the Bic pens of the 1990s. He is not worried about people getting information, but wanting it. Mike Godwin says information rich and information poor is an issue in the short run, but not in the long run. It is a cultural and educational problem.

Sander says we are awash with information. What we need is knowledge. We can information from everywhere, so much so that it is meaningless. It needs to have an editing session. We suffer from the wash of information.

Moderator asks if the previous core of professionals will be useful in the new media. Donna says that we desperately need mechanisms for reputation on the Web. Godwin says the reason we have had an ethic of professional journalism, because of the immense power they had. Now people have more chance to answer back. We will always have a need for professional journalists for quality of reporting. Many other people will be able to become the New York Times and Washington Post without the high startup cost.

Brad Templeton thinks that links will become an important part of professional journalism. People will become more accountable for things that they say. Professional journalism will still be important but they will be more accountable. Sander says that our politicians are currently accountable, if we don't like what we do, we vote them out.


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