Digital Media Marketplace: The Next Frontier for Media Reform

By Jeffrey Chester, AlterNet. Posted January 10, 2007.

On Friday, several thousand U.S. media activists will converge in Memphis to attend the Free Press group's "National Conference for Media Reform." Much of the conference is focused on current and upcoming public policy battles designed to help make this country's media system more democratic. Right now there is greater interest in media policy than we have seen since the 1960s.

Among the key concerns is fighting against the Federal Communications Commission's current plan to permit greater consolidation of our nation's newspapers and broadcast stations; battling Congress over the broadband Internet (network neutrality); and highlighting the lack of ownership of media outlets by women and people of color. These are important topics, but the real action it requires must take place outside of the D.C. beltway.

With network neutrality legislation now being introduced in the new Democratic-controlled Congress [VIDEO], it is likely that many attending the Free Press conference will leave Memphis feeling that fighting for its passage should be the progressive media movement's top priority. After all, hundreds of thousands of activists, bloggers and media makers just successfully fought to a standstill plans by the former Republican-controlled Congress to pass legislation giving phone and cable companies greater control over the future of the Net in the United States.

But our most urgent task is to proactively intervene to shape -- on behalf of progressive values -- the emerging commercial digital communications system. This will require a strategic intervention to create sustainable "new media" services that help harness the power of digital media to better promote social justice. Our digital media system will have the capability to help "define" political and social "reality" for the majority of Americans. Unless progressives can seriously "program" the new media -- in every community and across the nation -- we will face even greater obstacles promoting our agendas.

Critical moment of media transition

Urging that activists focus on a commercial communications strategy may sound strange coming from someone who has devoted much of his adult life to public interest media policy. But it's important to be strategic at this critical moment of media transition. A powerful and ubiquitous system delivering personalized and interactive content is emerging. Soon most of us will be connected to an "always-on" media system of communications -- via the principal "platforms" of PCs, cell phones and increasingly digital TV sets.

It's this new system we should be concerned about, as it will have the capability to influence the attitudes and behaviors of the majority of Americans. As Wall Street and the major media companies recognize, the distinctions between broadcast and cable TV channels and the Internet are beginning to disappear. The commercial media industry, fueled by the hundreds of billions spent each year by advertisers and marketers and also backed by Wall Street, is helping create what will be our new media reality.

They understand the power and the potential profits from this country's (and much of the world's) "converged" media system. They have strategically invested in this new system to help ensure they can play a leading role in the evolution of broadband (and reap the many billions in profits).

For example, there were more than $72 billion worth of entertainment and media mergers alone in 2006. That followed a spate of similar deals between 2004-2005 worth $244 billion, according to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (involving the content, distribution and technology sectors). The same study noted that there have also been 2,200 corporate alliances in the media, telecommunication, and technology sector since 2001. We all know that Rupert Murdoch's Fox acquired MySpace in 2005 for around $600 million (in a deal ultimately involving Google). Google itself spent more than $1 billion last year to scoop up YouTube (all of this to better serve the interests of advertisers, by the way).

But not much is known about the myriad corporate alliances designed to help determine our digital destiny, with giants such as Cisco, H-P, Microsoft, Disney/ABC, GE/NBC, Apple, Yahoo and Intel in various partnerships. Although the new media, including podcasts, broadband videos, and RSS feeds, now offer an explosion of alternatives, media diversity may really be on a short digital leash.

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Jeff Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy (www.democraticmedia.org) in Washington, D.C., a nonprofit group focusing on digital communications. His book "Digital Destiny: New Media and the Future of Democracy" was just published by The New Press.

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