The Medium is the Movement

Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left at 4:27 AM on May 6, 2008.

Is there a progressive movement? This question has seemed particularly relevant over the last two weeks, as support for Barack Obama has washed away apparent long-standing principles of the movement: do not legitimize Fox News and Democrats should become more partisan. Now, apparently, we need to go on Fox News as much as possible and we much ditch partisanship altogether. If the Obama campaign can change the principles of the movement so quickly, perhaps there isn't a movement at all.

Perhaps a different question is necessary: what is a political movement, anyway? Thinking back over the 20th century, the defining characteristic seems to be a large-scale political undertaking that not only had goals of changing governmental institutions, but that changed the way people lived by shifting the balance of power in other major institutions as well. A political movement seeks to reorganize society on a far broader level than simply changing governmental policy. Examples include:

• The labor movement fundamentally changed the economic structure of this and other countries by granting wage-laborers more power over the American workplace.

• In addition to expanding access to government, the civil right's movement sought to reorganize educational, housing and employment patterns throughout the country. Other examples from this time period include the Black Panthers and the "counter-culture," which were primarily organized around institutions other than governmental policy (law enforcement and cultural consumption).

• Radical Islamicist movements have worked to reorganize virtually every major institution in a given society, from education to religion to familial structures to cultural consumption.

A political movement always targets more than governmental policy change, since only changing policy would not alter the general framework of how people live in a given society. With that in mind, in what ways is the contemporary progressive movement going beyond seeking governmental policy change, and directly altering the way people interact with other major institutions in our society?

Looking over the major ideological institutions in America--the family, education, mass media, religion, and the workplace--the largest and most rapid changes are currently taking place in the latter three. By lowering the cost of information, the Internet has dramatically changed both the media landscape specifically and cultural production / consumption patterns more generally. Also, in terms of religion, nationally there is a broad movement away from self-identification as Christian, and even a dramatic re-organization within Christianity itself. Within the workplace and our larger economic structures, the rise of the Creative Class has had a major impact on the types of jobs available in America, and also on income inequality. This isn't to say that there are not major changes in other major ideological institutions like education and the family, just that the changes in the above three are far more pronounced in recent years.

Now, which of these three major changes can be identified a part of a "progressive movement?" The religious shifts don't really work, since the movement away from traditional religious identification and institutions is not organized by any group of people, and is simply happening on its own. Since it is at least partially a side-effect of a rising corporate power, income inequality, and de-industrialization, the rise of the Creative Class doesn't really work, even most members of the Creative Class tend to be progressive. This leaves us with the lower cost of information, and resulting explosion in cultural production, brought on by the Internet. Perhaps the de-centralization of mass media consumption, the public sphere interaction, and cultural production brought on by the Internet is the progressive movement. It is the clearest example of how daily life has changed in a progressive way over the last decade. The medium is the movement.

Identifying the medium, and the changing cultural and media consumption / production patterns it has created, as the progressive movement itself helps provide perspective both on Barack Obama and on policy priorities for maintaining a healthy movement. First, changing viewpoints that Obama's campaign has created about Fox News and partisanship will not be isolated incidents. Since the consumption and production patterns themselves are the major change, the movement is ultimately lacking in fixed precepts. We should expect other changes in the future, including an inevitable rejection of Obama's ideas on partisanship and Fox News. Second, in order to maintain a healthy movement and the positive feedback loops the movement creates for progressivism, telecom policy and net neutrality should be understood as top, non-negotiable policy priorities. If net neutrality is ended, then the contemporary progressive movement, along with all progressive policy and lifestyle changes it promises, will come to an end. The movement is not just dependant upon the medium, but is in fact embedded in it. If net neutrality is ended, it will shift control of the medium away from individuals with broadband access, and toward large corporations. If the movement is the medium, then control over the medium for the average Internet user must be maintained, and expanded, at all costs.

Finally, from a "medium is the movement" perspective, the choice between Clinton and Obama isn't really even a choice at all. It's Obama by a mile.

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Tagged as: progressive movement, networked public sphere