Quick, Progressives Have to Become Players in the Global Media Game Before Corporations Control the Whole Thing

By Jeffrey Chester, TheNation.com. Posted June 5, 2008.

As progressives gather in Minneapolis for the fourth annual National Conference for Media Reform, the fast-moving digital media marketplace should be high on their agenda. A record wave of mergers, acquisitions and significant investment from venture capitalists is raising alarms about the impact these new players will have on a long-term social and political reform agenda. Since there's no evidence these investors are interested in anything but profit, it's up to progressive organizations to become players in the global media game.

Corporate giants are on a global digital shopping spree. Google, Microsoft, and Time Warner are gobbling up leading digital media companies (the current fight between Microsoft and Google for control over troubled Yahoo is an example of this trend). Venture capitalist investment in new media start-ups, including mobile social networks and broadband video platforms, is staggering. It reflects a keen corporate awareness about how a global generation of young people now communicate and promises to have a profound influence on the future of the Internet and other digital services.

Progressives should be especially concerned about how corporate investments affect the diversity of digital ownership. The time is right for progressive organizations to develop sustainable, revenue-generating broadband news and entertainment services. This would enable media reformers, long relegated to the sidelines, to join the game and "counter-program" the mainstream informational culture. As political organizing increasingly moves online, progressive Internet TV channels and mobile social networks will be crucial tools for advocacy and constituency building. Digital media can also generate huge revenues. Income from such new ventures could help to transform the hand-to-mouth fundraising efforts that often mark our media production and activism activities.

The leading online companies and Fortune 500 advertisers are hard at work monetizing the key business model for digital media -- interactive advertising. A sophisticated apparatus that tracks our online behavior and delivers compelling and personalized multimedia marketing messages will suck consumers into an ubiquitous environment that presents us with the right ad at the right time. From mobile phones to social networks to broadband video the online "media and marketing ecosystem" will become an ever more powerful force in our lives.

Young people -- whom the industry has dubbed "digital natives" -- are squarely in the digital marketing cross-hairs. Microsoft, Viacom and major advertisers have long been engaged in well-funded research to ensure they develop deep relationships with young audiences. Marketers are well aware of the power of sites like YouTube, MySpace and Facebook to forge social and political identities and they are doing what they can to make sure young people are immersed in brand messages -- whether playing games, using instant messaging or writing or reading blogs. Hispanic youth are a prime target, identified as early adopters of such technologies as mobile phones.

Advertisers recognize that they and other "urban youth" can be used to promote consumption trends among other groups. The progressive movement would be making a serious error if it cedes our young people to a corporate culture that will use its tremendous resources to foster self-engagement instead of political activism.

Even with the possibility of a new, more sympathetic leadership in the White House and Congress, public policy change alone is insufficient to ensure that progressive values can survive in the global media marketplace. Even with network neutrality -- an "open" Internet -- companies in the forefront of operating the new means of communications will become dominant forces in our society. Congress won't be able to ensure that progressives control a sustainable series of digital outlets -- from broadband video channels to mobile social networks.

So the question is this: do progressive organizations have the courage to get into the game? Will they have the creativity to engage in a well-coordinated series of pilot projects and initial ventures (including expanding what has already developed online), to perfect business and ownership models that help create a diverse and socially responsible ecosystem of our own?

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Jeffrey Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy (www.democraticmedia.org).

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