Annotated Bibliography
Graham Meikle edited by Megan Boler
Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in hard times Whacking Bush: Tactical Media as Play
Graham Meikle Is an Author and Professor of Film, Media Culture, and Journalism at University of Sterling in Scotland. He is currently working on a book called Media Convergence. He is the author of many essays and books on media activism and culture including:
Future Active: Media Activism and the Internet (Routledge 2002);
Freedom Dreams: Politics and Alternative Media on the Net;
A special issue of M/C Reviews (2002);
Electronic Civil Disobedience and Symbolic Power (2008);
Interpreting News (Palgrave Macmillan 2008)
In Whacking Bush Graham Meikle explains how the controversial Bush administration combined with Web 2.0 technology created the perfect environment for the Youtube/ remix generation to emerge. Cheep DYI media is often made by those who feel aggravated by or excluded from public policy and social discourse and need an outlet. In this chapter Meikle explains how “tactile media- exploits the potential of new communication technologies for this purposes. He defines tactical media as satirical, mobile, relevant, temporary, novel, and ephemeral. Meikle believes the remix aesthetic has become the fundamental logic of all cultural production because it emphasizes creativity as a mater of reworking, restating, and recombining culture. Thus it is an essential rewrite of history, through the consumer’s eyes.
Meikle discuses ‘play’ as important to capturing peoples attention and engaging people in discourse. He emphasizes the importance of this participation in media as the roles of citizens. Meikle’s historical reference to this type detournment dates back to the Situationests ideological persuasion in the 50’s and 60’s. Their concepts were in line with the post modern movement, “to stop seeing things thought the eves of the community, of ideology, of family, of other people…to take oneself at the starting point.
Noam Chomsky (more on Chomsky here)
Media Control: The spectacular achievements of propaganda
Noam Chomsky is considered on of the most important philosophers of the last century. A professor of linguistics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1955, he is known as the father of modern linguistics. Chomsky’s research spans from the cognitive functions of the human brain to political since and media and communications. He has been a political dissident since the 1960 speaking out about the mass media, political corruption, and the power of propaganda. During the Vietnam War he became one of the prominent critics of the USA’s domestic and forging policy. His contribution to the literary world is epic. Chomsky is an extremely controversial figure as he has accused the media of being a educated elite grope trained group that are mere puppets for the government, who are intern the puppets of the wealthiest two present of our nation. He has fallen under attack from even his would be supporters for defending freedom of speech even for suspected Natzy sympathizers. Chomsky’s stile of writing and lecturing is extremely didactic and often shocking in its cool and unsettling explanation of the harsh realities of democracy. His pointed media and political criticism has influenced generations of students and educators as well as political dissidence and over all social awareness. Some of his other books are:
Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media
Failed State: The abuse of Power and The Assault on Democracy
On Nature and Language
Imperial Ambitions: Conversations On the Post 9/11War
Objective and Liberal Quartet
The New Military Humanism: Lessons from Kosovo
Chomsky On Democracy and Education
In thins Media Control Chomsky summarizes the history of mass media, propaganda, their central role in government control over citizens in the democratic nation of the USA. He insists that the role of the media is to inform, “the bewildered heard” what to think and feel. This ‘manufactured consent’ is important to the democratic governments for two reasons. To maintain the illusion of a free society, will still keep the people on their side even though their policy hurts the average person. Propaganda is the control medium used in democracies to manipulate the population into compliance, as apposed to forcible controlling them as a dictatorship would.
It must be understood that this is not simply a natural progression in media and journalism. This type of control was conceived of as a way to insure the government had the freedom to justify, orchestrate, and enforce its own agenda. The sentiments of the ruling and specialized classes during the Woodrow Wilson administration was that the rest of us are not intelligent enough to realize what is good for us. This theory continues today and thus we serve our function best as ‘spectators’.
Chomsky brakes down the basic principals that have directed our democracy since WWI. The ‘ruling class’ the ‘specialized class’ and the ‘bewilder heard’. The first class is farely obvious consisting of an elite few in government who are also among the wealthiest in the nation. The second or specialized class is a larger group of educated individuals who’s job it is to disseminate information to (or thinking for) ‘the bewildered heard’. This third group is the rest of working class America. Their only real purpose is to do the bidding of the ruling class, through manual labor, going to war, and occasionally lending their vote to the ruling class. But this idea of voting is obviously a symbolic endeavor and is usually left up to the specialized class.
Chomsky discusses how effect the mass media is in perpetuating these class by distracting most of us with celebrity gossip and football. We are directed toward the yellow journalism of tabloids while the ruling class wreaks havoc, mass genocide, and terror on countries who disobey them and can not defend themselves. Chomsky gives many examples of incidences where the US has terrorized countries killing ten of thousands of civilians to gain control of their governments. The list of these places is familiar as every one of them is portrayed in our media as terrorist states. The repetition of this well designed fear mongering, with out fail, is able to turn pacifists populations into warmongering, fear driven, herds. His point in discussing this propaganda epidemic is to point out that the same recipe for ware has been used on the America public rite up into the Iraq War. As long as we are distracted by the fear of bad guys out there we are distracted enough not to see our failed education, health care, and economy. In precisely 100 pages Chomsky is saying, wake up America you have been had.
Scott Gant (more on Gant here)
We Are All Journalists Now: The transformation of the press and the reshaping of the law in the Internet age
Scott Gant is an attorney of constitutional and media law in Washington D.C. He is a former counsel for The New Republic and has written for The Washington Post. Gant graduated from Harvard University. He is an advocate of citizen journalism and fights for the first amendment rites of bloggers.
In his book We Are All Journalists Now Scott Gant porpoise a new look at journalism and the first amendment in the digital age. The Internet has ushered in a new era of journalism that is remnicint of the early self made journalist who contributed so much to the founding of our democracy. Before news became a profitable corporate enterprise that is. The rapid growth of the blog spheres has changed the direction corporate journalism and is redefining what mass media has a monopoly on. Gant sees this as a positive progression towards a more democratic society and closer to what our founding fathers had in mind for a free press. In order to insure this evolution to reach maturity he believes that the privileges the official press has must be extended to the ‘common person’. For instance, ‘professional journalist’ have exemptions from generally applicable laws like court subpoenas, this is known as a “shield law”. The purpose of it is to protect witness’s confidentiality when required. He supports a very broad definition of journalism to include citizen journalism not just people who are employed by news agencies. Gant’s view on the expansion of the definition of journalism is not a popular one amongst the mass media as privileges are just that, special rites that do not have to be shared with others who are not “insiders”. Herein lies the problem; in order for journalism to serve its purposes non insiders must be able to take part in the reporting process. Considering that the Internet has presented all of us the ability to be journalists it is imperative to open our eyes to this unquestionable change in the direction of reporting, and deal with it responsibly instead of trying to repress it.
Frank Kofsky
Lenny Bruce: The Comedian as Social Critic and Secular Moralist
Frank Kofsky (1935 - 1997) was an American Marxist historian, author, and Professor of History at California State University, Sacramento. He was a passionate musician and wrote numerous books on jazz concerning the avant-garde during the 1960’s. His understanding of political theory, his love of jazz, and his appreciation for those willing to speak out for their beliefs, led him to write this book on Lenny Bruce, a very controversial stand up comedian in the 1950’s and 60’s.
Kofsky's other work includes:
Harry S. Truman and the War Scare of 1948: A Successful Campaign to Deceive the Nation;
Black Nationalism and the Revolution in Music (1971);
Black Music, White Business: Illuminating the History and Political Economy of Jazz.
Frank Kofskys dedication to the art of jazz and its under appreciated artists lead him to defend the controversial stand up comedian Lenny Bruce. As Kofsky tell it Lenny was a matter for the struggle to free speech. He was revolutionary comedian/rabbi like performer who’s articulate social commentary and jazz influenced stile of speaking came in the form of jokes. This was unheard of in the 50’s and 60’s. While playing the fool, this court jester was able to comment on the unspoken truth of the time period. His favorite taboos to confront were racism, segregation, religion, government, drugs, gays, freedom of speech, jazz, and eventually his court cases.
His provocative social commentary was too far head of its time. He was doing bits like How to Entertainer Your Colored Friends at Parties. In this particular bit he and a black friend, usually from the band, would act out a demeaning conversation reviling the black stereotyping that permeated white culture. This “shocking” commentary was intended do ruffle feathers while producing enough entertainment value for the audience listen to the unspoken truths they all needed to hear. It was very clear that his stand up routines were for himself and the band members. If the audience “dug it”, grate! If not, they didn’t have to be there. This from 1953-1966 rite after the McCarthy hearings in America (a time of grate silence and persecution in American history). His struggle for freedom of speech on the sage was essential to the way in which our political commentary of today plays its self out. Politicians today are indebted to the comedians for there public appearance on their shows. But in Lenny’s time, there were no protections for him to speak freely in public about theses taboos. Having begun his stand up career in burlesque parlors, Lenny stile of comedy was not for the fain of hart. He was prone to profanity and racy humor but was too opinionated an in touch with social issues to waist the opportunity of at spot light on easy sex jokes.
Lenny’s career changed dramatically when he began gaining mainstream popularity and cleaning up his act, for TV only. His mockery of the catholic church, his unabashed abuse of drugs, and his use of profanity led to his eventual down fall. When Lenny’s outspoken bar room banter began getting too much positive attention and developed a cult following, he was run into the ground and eventually exterminated. He went form making $1,000 a night to beibg black listed in clubs from coast to coast.
Lenny was fallowed by plane clothed police who would arrest him for any for letter word uttered in public. This led to the infamous “the obscenity trials” that eventually left him completely broke, paranoid, obsessed, broken. In 1966 he died of a drug overdose after being found guilty of using inappropriate language in a NY State night club. He was sentenced to 4 years in jail but did not live long enough to serve the sentence. According to Frank Kofsky the legacy of Lenny Bruce is his fight for freedom of speech, a new medium of social discourse; and a lesson learned about what happened in the 60’s when a person dared to defend his first amendment rites.
Lawrence Lessig
REMIX: Making art and comers thrive in the hybrid economy
Lawrence Lessig a Professor at Stanford law. He has become very well known international over the last ten years for his work to educate the world on the failings of copyright extension laws, the strangle hold that they have on the cultures implementing them, and their serious need for reform. He has written multiple books on web 2.0, hybrid economies, creativity, and copyright. Lessig is one of the founders of ‘The Creative Commons’, an on line library where artist, writers, and alike can submit there original work to an open source comuinty for reappropriation and reuse. In 2007 Lessig announced that the next ten years of his life would be spent fighting corruption in politics and policy makers. He believes this is the only viable progression of his work since common sense reasoning, the threat of cultural suppression, and sound economic advice has not changed copyright policy. “In the US, listening to money is the only way to secure reelection. And so an economy of influence bends public policy away from sense, always to dollars” (Lessig’s Blog). He won the Free Software Foundation's Freedom Award, and has been named one of Scientific American's Top 50 Visionaries, for his work on the issues of copyright that online culture faces today. For more information on Lessig click here.
Lessig’s books include:
Code Version 2.0 (2007)
Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity (2004)
The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World (2001)
Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (1999)
Remix is the latest Lessig's arguments to update business models to the digital age. He reaches out to people to consider what the copyright wars are doing to our children. His worries about children today growing up labeled as thieves and not caring. Instead of condemning this sharing culture Lessig asks us to consider rethinking the implications of theses kids growing up unflinchingly braking laws they deem to be unjust. There are many social and theoretical problems in continuing down this path. He encourages our culture to begin working with a new hybrid economy that includes the sharing of art and ideas.
Lessig points out that this technology is important for our culture precisely because we have so much access to media. He insists that web 2.0 technologies and open source media networks are vital to “read write” culture. We must be allow to reappropriated and reinterpret the information we digest everyday. This technology is allowing us to become active producers of media not just consumers.
Language has been transcribed for thousands of years. This coded form of language has been the most respected means of self expression and communication in the modern age because of its long history. The reason there are so many inconsistencies in copyright law, when comparing quotations and sampling, is because cinema and music recordings are still in infancy when compared to writing. Theses audio and visual languages are not given the same credence as written language, yet! A quotation is nothing more than a literary ‘sampling’ of an authors work. If we are to say that sampling digital media is a criminal offence even after credit is given to the ‘originator’, then any one who has ever used a quite without authorization and compensation to the writer is equally guilty. For consistency sake we must acknowledge these two methods of building on what has come before us as being equivalent. So why not treat them the same legally? Lessig bevels the future of our economy and culture lies in embracing these technologies. Remix is a viable form of reflexive sociopolitical commentary that is necessary and impossible to exterminate. His arguments for “fair use” and “creative commons” outline a more economically and socially conscientious approach to the ownership of ideas and cultural artifacts. His definition of remix as a form of “literacy” is an important point because the ability to utilize our vast digital library for self expression will be increasingly me important.
Lessig advocates to "free use" not faire use, as he describes the latter as merely a fancy way of saying you have the right to an expensive layer and a trial.
Kembrew McLEOD
Freedom of Expression: Overzealous copyright bozos and other enemies of creativity
Kembrew McLeod is an American journalist, performance artist, activist, and music historian. He is a satirical protester of corporate greed and their control over words. In 1997 he trademarked the phrase “freedom of expression” which he then used to attack AT&T with a cease and desist letter when they tried to use the term for a marketing ploy. “McLeod claimed that the use by AT&T of his registered trademark could lead some consumers to infer a connection between his publication and AT&T” (The New York Times). Though the case was serious to a cretin existent the real point of it seems to have been to point out the constraining principals of tirade mark and copyright wars today. McLeod is also a Performance protester who uses the internet along with crowd engagement, to bring light to political wrongdoings that go un checked. An avid music lover, he has written for Rolling Stone, the Village Voice, and Spin, Mojo, and advocates for sampling freedom. His activism took the form of a traveling art show called Freedom of Expression in the Corporate Age which traveled through New York, Chicago, Washington, DC, San Francisco. Currently McLeod sis a professor of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa and is working on a documentary about “the history of sound collage, digital sampling, and intellectual property law, titled Copyright Criminals: This Is a Sampling Sport."(Wikipedia)
Freedom of Expression is an out rite attack on corporate control over our language, culture, creativity and commerce. Through his analysis of trademark and copyright laws today, we learn about the extreme corruption that goes on in the ownership wars. From the exploitation of human genes to the vast restrictions on our freedom of expression, greed in our capitalist economy has made a mockery of your rites to access and respond to our own culture. McLeod chronicles the concept of intellectual property. He explains the positive and negative effects it has had on societies since it inception in the early eighteenth- century. He argues that the original uses for intellectual property rites is long forgotten and has become the antithesis to the cultural progress they were intended to help advance.
McLeod believes that corporate greed in the entertainment industry is suffocating our cultures creative progress in the name of capitalism. He points out that copying technology has been persecuted every time a new medium has come around. Those afraid they will lose money and control of intellectual property are always at the front of the attack, using money and influence to control the distribution of our cultural heritage. Time and time again those who apposed coping technologies have been proven wrong as the profit margins always improve with the advances regardless of “piracy” and opposition.
He points the finger at corporations like Disney who, if they had it their way, would have outlawed reading allowed, sharing books, and watching your own copy of a move more than once. Media giants have predicted the apocalyptic demise of the move and music industries because of inventions such as radio, television, cable, the VCR, and now it’s the digital technologies that will ruin the fabric of our art culture.
“Motion Picture Association of America CEO, has clamed that Hollywood would be brought to its knees by the digital anarchy perpetrated by twelve-year-olds”. (pg 11)
McLeod points out the only thing that these unfounded accusations do accomplish is the suppression of our personal freedoms. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Is a huge corporate interest origination that tried unsuccessfully to making books on tape illegal under intellectual property laws, effectually discriminating against the rights of blind people to take part in literary work. The list goes on and on.
McLeod argues the benefits of these copying technologies completely outweigh the problems. He sites the digital media, and social networking sites like Youtube and Myspace as having the “potential to disseminate a more diverse and democratic array of art than ever bubbled up through the cultural industries of the old”. (pg 279) This is precisely what media tycoons do not want because they make their millions being the middle man. They fail to mention that the sharing of music through mixed tapes has been the catalyst to explosive music careers for munitions such as The Grateful Dead, The Dave Mathews Band, and the popularity of hip-hop music over the last three decades. They don’t want people to know these things because then they wont be abele to use the argument that pirates are jeopardizing the artist ability to thrive.
This book is a call to action for people to fight back against the “Overzealous Copyright Bozos” by using our fair use rites boldly to win law suites in favor of the write to participate in the making of our own cultural heritage. He says that our habit of baking down from lawsuits makes us “complicit in letting our freedom erode”. For if we are not allowed to react to the media that bombards us every day we are “endanger of being banished to a world that is not our own and the word freedom will only be a word not a rite?
Richard A. Posner
The Little Book of Plagiarism
Posner, Richard A.; The Little Book Of Plagiarism; Pantheon Books; 2007
Richard Posner is an author, professor, and practitioner of Law. The New York Times called him "one of the most important antitrust scholars of the past half-century." He helped start the law and economics movement which combines economics and legal theory to determine the effectiveness of laws. He is hard to place in the liberal or conservative political parties as he does not vote or write along party lines. The author of 40 books on law, Posner is currently a judge on the Unites States Court of appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago.
In this book the author takes a look at the difference between plagiarism in the legal systems verses literary work. He outlines the economic imperatives of creativity, originality and parody within different cultures through out history. From Ancient Rome, to Shakespeare, to US politics today, Richard Posner takes us through the evolutionary shifts surrounding creative imitation and its market value. He lists VP. Joe Bidden, Shakespeare, Tom Swift, Martin Luther King Jr. and essentially any judge in the American legal system as plagiarists to explain why we accept some types of plagiarism and not others. This is a good read for anyone interested in the history of imitation and its relation to creativity.
The demand for originality is an economic phenomenon anchored in time and place. Just what originality means, however, remains to be considered. (Posner, pg. 73)
Richard Zoglin
Comedy at the Edge: How stand-up in the 1970's changed America
Richard Zoglin is a senior editor and writer at Time. He has also served as Time’s television and theater critic. Zoglin has been studying and writing about the entertainment industry for twenty years. This book illustrates his in depth understanding of the importance of comedy in the evolution of American culture.
In the historical shad of musical revolutionaries like, Bob Dillon and John Lennon, stand our cultural court jesters. This book chronicles the evolution of stand up comedy and its cultural significance from the 50’s to today. According to Zoglin the major shift in stand up comedy was happening at the same time Rock and Folk were tacking their place in political history. Zoglin chronicles how the pure entertainment comedy of the 1950’s became a viable platform for self expression, freedom of speech, and social commentary by the late 60’s. According to the author, these elements of comedic commentary were initiated in the USA by Lenny Bruce. Zoglin outlines how every major comedian since Lenny has possessed at least one of his unique performances characteristics. Still the generations of comics that fallowed were no less creative, inspiring, and original. From the political satire of George Carlin, to Richard Pryor’s shameless self-effacing rage against racism, to Rosanne Barr’s loud moth feminism; this book chronicles the history of standup comedy and it’s impact on American culture, politics, and freedom of speech.
Kalle Lasn
Culture Jam: How to reveres Americas suicidal binge
in progress