The Revolution will not be Televised

I'm here to talk about an article Ryan pointed out to me on Clay Shirky's blog, called The FCC, Weblogs, and Inequality. It's certainly an interesting article, which makes a decent distinction between three possible characteristics of the media world: diversity, freedom, and equality. Ryan seemed to be arguing, when I talked to him, that the example of weblogs showed that the best way to order the media landscape was in favor of diversity and freedom (forgive me if I've characterized you inaccurately, Rydog), which equals deregulation. It also appears to me that Shirky is leaning in this same direction. I think they're wrong.

Scarcity is the key difference between the weblog landscape and the landscape of newspaper and radio (the two traditional media outlets that I'm going to confine this discussion to). Shirky touches on this difference, but fails to give it an honest hearing.

I take it as a given that the public's taste, as a whole, is decadent and untrustworthy. I think this is simply true (if anyone would like to argue the point, go ahead; I feel confident that I can defend this position adequately); decadence is antithetical to the existence of a media landscape that is seriously concerned with substantive issues and their adequate presentation/representation. The majority of people in this country would not be dismayed if PBS, college radio, and so forth were eliminated in favor of a Clear-Channel-esque conformity and uniformity of formats (i.e. top 40, urban, talk radio, modern rock, classic rock, and country). Thus, market forces cannot be trusted to preserve diversity in a realm where scarcity is active, but regulation is not.

But what about the blogosphere, says Shirky, it is confined to diversity and freedom, which has produced radical inequality but not a mind-numbing decadence. Two facts protect blogging from the decadent taste of the public, I think. First, Blogging is so cheap for the blogger that it is protected from the public's market power by the nature of the medium. There is no such natural protection inherent in the realm of newspaper or radio. In fact, there is an extreme level of scarcity existant naturally in both formats: scarcity of readers and advertisers in newspaper (a certain critical mass must be achieved to have a viable business) and scarcity of airwaves and listeners in radio (with airwaves being the more critical limitation for this purpose). Second, the readership of the blogosphere is compositionally biased in favor intellectually-aware people, unlike radio, or to, a slightly lesser extent, newspaper. Do we really think that InstaPundit and Andrew Sullivan would be such giants in the blogging world if the blogging world were not biased towards the intellectually elite and politically informed? We should note, I think, that the internet as a whole medium is not so: the taste of the public is still decadent, but the readership of the blogosphere is an elite, self-selected group with considerably less decadent taste. I contend that, if the composition of the radio-listening public were identical to that of the readership of the blogosphere, NPR would not require public funding, but be economically self-sufficient.

These facts, however, do not exist in the realms of these two more traditional media outlets, and thus do not protect them from the decadence of public taste. This is why diverse and free is the proper way to 'regulate' the blogosphere, but diverse and artificially equal (with a consequent pinch of artificial freedom) is the best way to regulate the realms of print and radio. I maintain that neither true freedom nor true equality will be achieved by government regulation. So, though equality of mass of consumers and consequent economic viability cannot be mandated, it can and should be compensated for by government regulation: whether positively, as in the case of the public funding of NPR, college radio, and so forth, or negatively, as in the case of laws which prevent one company from owning too many traditional media outlets in any given region.

[I think that it should be clear that the argument that Shirky attributes to some fans of diverse and equal ("we can expect at least some members of the "diverse and equal" camp to advocate regulation of weblogs, on the grounds that the imbalance between Glenn Reynolds of InstaPundit.com and J. Random Blogger is no different than the imbalance between Clear Channel and WFMU") is not one that I am in favor of; I think that it is a great thing that the blogosphere can exist in such a manner that diversity and freedom are upheld in an atmosphere free of regulation. I just don't think that this will work for more traditional media outlets which are more constrained by market principles.)

Somehow I'm not impressed

Yeah, so I was sick and I didn't have time to put anything here because I was working on my senior paper proposal and other papers and things. But its ok because I'm not so bad now.

The biggest travesty in the world right now, as far as I'm concerned is in Alabama. Gov. Riley's proposal to reform the medieval (read: tax the poor and spend on the rich) tax system there was defeated last Tuesday (I think it was Tuesday) by a large margin. This is ridiculous, because it was mostly defeated by a collusion of (a) rich, white Protestants who wanted to keep their wealth and couldn't care less about the inconvenient parts of the Bible and (b) powerful, black interest groups who were so revolted by the white, Protestant governor that they couldn't care less about his attempt to help the impoverished people of Alabama. Which group is more pathetic? My money is on group A, because these are the same people who care so passionately about displaying publically the Ten Commandments ("God is here," a man said, his voice seeming to tremble. "God is in this state."), but they can't be bothered with what God himself calls "true religion." Disgusting. This is what happens, apparently, when a Christian in Alabama's government becomes motivated to do more than just paying lip service (read: posting copies of the Ten Commandments while ignoring the poor) to his faith.

At least we Christians have the secular press to remind us of our hypocrisy (a quick search of Marvin "Tellin' the Truth to the Prodigal Press" Olasky's World "Right behind Newsweek, US News, and Time in terms of readership [and quality, but we won't tell you that]" Magazine's website turned up exactly zero mentions of this).

Entry Burnt Sienna

(its finally here...)
This is a very interesting article, which theorizes that the Western political scene is seeing a left-to-right shift such as the one that saw the liberal Republican party of the 1860s become the conservative voice of the 1940s.

The Virgins and their wings

Josiah has brought it to my attention that I failed to write anything about Cash's death: this is because I was too busy listening to Johnny to write about him. Alright that's not entirely true because I was also going to Yo La Tengo in Atlanta, but I listened to Cash on the way. And they opened with a cover and dedicated one of their last songs to him. It made me wonder how many other bands all over America were doing the same thing... its amazing how much an impact on people one artist can have. I've never been a huge Cash fan, but I've appreciated him ever since I was turned onto him through Mike Ness (of Social Distortion) in high school. I suppose I should make like everyone else is and posthumously update my album collection with a little Cash. Aaron Mesh said it best already.

In the meantime, though, everyone should make like a lime and head to the nearest venue to catch Yo La Tengo before they stop making music. I haven't been so impressed since I saw Crooked Fingers back in March or April or something like that; all three Yo La's are phenomenal, and the band utterly defies simple classification.

Entry Black

This Sunday I had the privilege of worshipping with University Church, a PCA-affiliated but independent house church in Athens, GA. I will be moving to Athens in December, hopefully, to be near to my fiancee and hopefully so that I can start master's work next fall. So, it is wonderful to find such a community of believers in the place that I intend to live soon (Jess, of course, will be going there every week from now on). I can't say that I've ever been in a church discussion that had some much honest, intelligent disagreement in an atmosphere that was still fully loving. I almost want to leave Covenant now just to start going there.

Anyone who likes the Flaming Lips should check out Steve Burns -- he's not as wacky as they are, but its as close as anything else. Mighty Little Man is the catchiest song of the week, as far as I know (though it is only Monday).

Entry Grey

Today, the Hackensaw boys say:
If your woman is stubborn
and she got cold feet
take her to the laundry-mat
and wrap her in a sheet
if your woman is triflin'
and she got no love
take her to the river
and wash her in the flood

Entry Violet

Today, Descartes says "as for the atheists, who are generally posers rather than people of real intelligence or learning..." (Meditations, from the dedicatory letter)

Finally, a substantitive critique of atheism.

Entry Purple

Internet reading for today:

1. America's Best Zoo Exhibits (with special love for Birmingham)

2. Michael Moore - Unfortunate poster boy for dissent, yes...
Exhibit A
Exhibit B
Exhibit C

3. John McCain on Iraq (if only he had been the Republican candidate in 2000... I might have voted, since I might have actually preferred one of the presidential candidates). Now I'm not convinced that McCain is right, but he is right to point out some of the problems with what Bush is doing (or not doing):

"Conversely, a forced U.S. retreat from Iraq would be the most serious American defeat since Vietnam" - I think this is probably correct, but I am worried that Bush seems to miss this (on the basis of his actions, not his rhetoric).