Assembling democracy

Imagine that you’ve been given a huge box, hundreds of yards on each side, filled with hundreds of millions of parts.  Imagine that you been told that it is your job to assemble all of those parts into a single functioning machine.

To your dismay, though, you can’t find any assembly manual.  Imagine your frustration!  It’s hard enough to assemble much simpler household products without their manuals.  Without instructions, then, how can you possibly assemble hundreds of millions of parts into a functional whole?

Just as there are hundreds of millions of parts in this hypothetical machine, there are hundreds of millions of flesh and blood Americans.  Together, we constitute a complex adaptive system of an unimaginably huge number of permutations of interactive possibility. 

A vigorous media is the instruction manual for our democracy.  It tells us how we fit together by telling us important things about each other.  A healthy media doesn’t merely tell us information. To accomplish this, it must also listen to the stories that matter to each of us.  A healthy media is necessarily interactive.

The decision to have vigorous media is therefore an affirmation that each person has a significant story to tell.  A free and vigorous media allows the people to become self-assembling parts of a Democratic whole.  When we are well-informed, we know the real-life possibilities for interacting with each other. 

To function smoothly and efficiently as a democracy, we often need to work closely together, in a coordinated …

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Ed Markey: A good friend for each of us who believes in a vigorous First Amendment

The American public has a friend in Ed Markey, the Massachusetts' representative who is the now the Chairman and the highest-ranking Democrat of the House Subcommittee on Telecomunications and the Internet. Markey knows media well. This video is proof. He knows that the telephone companies have one full-time lobbyist in…

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Media Reform Speech by FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein

And one more report from the National Conference for Media Reform from Memphis. YOu will not ever find a public servant who is more dedicated and more cool--If you haven't seen him before, meet FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4HlStH059M[/youtube]

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How to save the Internet: net neutrality (equal access)

This post is yet another entry summarizing proceedings of the National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis, Tennessee. The conference is sponsored by Free Press.

A panel presented yesterday was entitled “Saving the Internet.” [At his plenary speech, Bill Moyers has suggested an alternate way of designating this issue: “equal access to the Internet.”] At the panel presentation, Tim Wu summarized the concept of net neutrality issue. Tim is a professor at Columbia Law School who specializes in telecommunications law and copyright. In 2006, he wrote a book titled Who Controls the Internet.

Wu explain that the Internet is a meritocratic network. It is a place where we don’t need permission to speak. The aim of “net neutrality” is “to protect this no-permission” aspect of the Internet. The electric network of the Internet, itself, is a second form of neutrality. The idea is that any compatible device should be allowed to be connected to the network.

The function of net neutrality is to protect the Internet from incursions by phone companies and cable providers. If they had their way, the Internet will become like cable companies or “like the Chinese Internet,” where the provider tells you how you can use the network.

Wu previously worked with a telecommunications company. He was not proud of this, but admitted that his job was to try to sell ways to discriminate use based on content. Ironically, this is exactly what he is now concerned about. That is why he wrote a seminal paper …

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Nation Conference for Media Reform – Plenary Speech by Bill Moyers

For the past two days, I've been reporting from the National Conference for Media Reform in Memphis.  This conference is being sponsored by Free Press. Here is a link to the inspiring speech Bill Moyers delivered yesterday.  I've sketched some notes below, as well, but there is no substitute for…

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