thomas
Sorry, not much time lately other than for quick yuk yuk posts.
Let me address your most recent post...if you'd like to press anything earlier, please feel free.
Quote:blatham wrote:
Significant viewer capture there. To me, it doesn't matter how a monopoly on communication (particulary of political views) arises, whether through a state mechanism or through a corporate monopolization, the consequence would be the same.
In your opinion, does the validity of those views make any difference? For example, I'm sure there once was a "Journal of Ptolemaic Astronomy", a "Medical Bleeding Letters", and the "Marxist Economics Review". No doubt diversity in their respective fields decreased when these journals went out of circulation. What I do doubt is that this loss of diversity is, by itself, deplorable, and that the government ought to have stepped in to preserve these diversity-enhancing magazines.
Validity IS important, but it seems to me surely best achieved (even established) via a JS Mill 'marketplace of ideas' context. Such a marketplace will see some magazines, or whatever, disappear and others appear. As popularity and validity aren't identical, there will be instances where more valid/valuable sources fail and others succeed. So, as you say, " I doubt a loss of diversity is, of itself, deplorable". I doubt it too, in that absolute sense.
But I'll wager you allow for some state controls on monopoly in business or technological development. And though the desired end isn't diversity itself, it is diversity that forwards the liklihood of whatever ends you have in mind.
That points to a dilemma in modern media for me. On the one hand, newstands, the digital TV universe, and the internet together yeild more diversity of voice than anyone, including Mill, ever dreamed. To my mind, that's a clear good. But it doesn't tell the whole story, because it doesn't acknowledge monopolies - or uniquely priviledged positions- which might function to reduce diversity.
If I correctly understand US and European government complaints against Microsoft, a part of those complaints pointed to the strategies MS had implemented which sought to place their products in a uniquely privledged position. Do you grant no substance to these complaints as regards likely negative consequences arising?
Television news, radio, and print news (newspapers) hold a uniquely priviledged position. They are far and away the news sources most available, most tuned into, and most influential. So it's not surprising that political entities seeking control of media voices (and partisan dominance) head straight towards newspapers, radio and TV. Last weekend, for example, Dick Cheney gave a speech saying he didn't watch network news other than Fox, which, he said his experience showed, gave the most truthful rendition of things. The same weekend, Ralph Reed (past head of Christian Coalition and now part of Bush campaign) gave a speech saying he never watched network news other than Fox which, he said his experience showed, was the empitomy of veracity in news. (As an indication of shift in media, he also advised republicans to use the internet for political news and activism...and if you've looked at sites like NewsMax, you'll appreciate the echo-chamber nature of the right wing internet). But, when you get to Alterman's book, you'll get a notion of how much money and design lies behind Republican/conservative moves to control TV, radio and print press, precisely because of their priviledged postion and influence. The consequences for actual diversity of view and speech have been profound.
Quote:blatham wrote:
Five corporations now control something like 90% of North American media (I think that is the right figure) and, if Mr. Powell's preferred policy of further dereg at the FCC succeeds, there will be a further monopolization. What ought we to do when it gets to two? Or one?
Start your own newspaper. If that's too much trouble, start a weblog. And most importantly, have something to say so that people want to read it! Making the government handicap your competition because nobody voluntarily listens to you is a losing attitude.
Au contraire. The losing attitude has been 180% otherwise than you suggest. A bazillion blogs, unread, are effectively meaningless.
Quote:blatham wrote:
The 'rights' a government possesses arise, in my view, from what the community sees fit to give it. So if Canadians preponderantly hold that their government ought to be able to put in controls on communication, then such a right is clear, if reversable.
Surely there must be limits to this argument. For example, fifty years ago, the citizens of the Southern States preponderantly held that their government ought to segregate public toilets and public schools, and restrict blacks' ability to register for voting. Sure, from a strictly legalistic point of view, the state governments had the right to do this. But this doesn't change the fact that from an ethical point of view, they didn't.
I'm sure you and I agree about this when it comes to the civil rights of blacks before Martin Luther King. The difference is, I think the same logic applies to a person's right to choose their TV channel, and you don't.
I agree that there are limits to this argument, and your example is a fine one. Ethical considerations, and laws which represent those considerations, form a valid and necessary wall against majoritarian idiocies and fads. But your second paragraph here is naughty (bad thomas!). If a marketplace is so contructed as to effectively hide, minimize or eradicate all but a certain variety of TV channel (or viewpoint), then 'choice' becomes a sham. That's not quite so critical in choice of an internet browser, but it is critical in political dialogue. Picking a morning paper to read, when your options are Pravda One, Pravda Two, Pravda Three and Pravda Four, isn't much of a choice.
Quote: blatham wrote:
Again, the point is not restriction of viewpoint, but rather the availability of multiple viewpoints...of establishing some regimen of regulations which will promote multiple viewpoints.
And again -- newspapers and websites, where the regimen is practically complete laissez-faire, show much more diversity than TV, which is quite tightly regulated. What does that tell you about the relative desirability of the two regimens?
You assume two things here: TV is less diverse than print, and the cause of this is a greater quantity of regulation over TV.
On diversity, the question can be confused simply because the two media are so different. So, for example, there are far more representations of sexuality on TV than in the daily paper. As regards political voices, the print medium demonstrates a much deeper level of analysis than does modern TV. But it wouldn't be accurate at all to attribute that difference to regulations. Susceptibility to advertiser preference and demands, and the sound-bite nature of TV are the more proper culprits here. Though I wouldn't exclude some correspondence between regulation and diversity in TV, I don't perceive it.
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We might ask "what is the proper role of TV, radio or newspapers as regards political reporting?" One could hold, as you may, that they have no 'proper' role - that TV, radio and newspapers are merely and only business enterprises, like tobacco, coke, or armaments. If so, I don't agree.
We can also ask, if we posit some greater role than widgit production and dollars in someone's pocket, "how might we measure how well news media are functioning?" Then, a proper measure might be something like "how informed are the citizens?" In September of 2003, precisely two years after 9-11, the Pew Research Centre found that 7 out of 10 Americans believed that "Sadaam Hussein played a direct role" in the attack on the WTC.
