Media Democracy and the Dummies on TV

• By
• Hilary Henegar

Image by Adbusters

In today's increasingly noxious media environment, Media Democracy Day Vancouver puts the power of information and collaboration in the hands of the public it's meant to serve

Tuesday, sick and at home in bed, I had nothing but the Internet and the boob tube to keep me entertained, which meant I got to spend the whole day with the news teams of NPR, CBC, CNN, MSNBC and the local stations for non-stop coverage of the U.S. mid-term elections.

Minus the public outlets, the news broadcasts were almost unwatchable, using elaborate 3D graphics and blaring sound effects to slap viewers across the face with up-to-the-minute details about the Tea Party this and Christine "I'm not a witch" O'Donnell that. There was so little actual information being relayed that I found myself lulled into a sort of stupor, dumbly staring at the flashing colours parading across the screen, not noticing that the Brand Power lady lives in a commercial and not Wolf Blitzer's studio.

Flipping back to CBC Newsworld or NPR, I had to adjust to the sensory under-load, almost surprised to find actual news content. Information I cared about. Facts that had been checked. News not from a pundit or a former car show booth babe, but from a journalist, a smart one even. How novel. 

The information gatekeepers

While we're fortunate (is that the right word?) to have the CBCs and NPRs to challenge the trend, they are certainly the rare breed. Publically funded (well mostly anyway), they still produce news we can trust. But two news organizations are hardly enough for one continent. Nor do they have the capacity to serve the many communities, big and small, across Canada and the U.S. that are starved for good, solid information about the issues where we live. 

So we turn to the Internet. The Inter-what? The Internet. Sorry, what? Speak up, I can't hear you! It sounds like a kajillion sites are all talking at once.

Yes, the Internet. It's a crowded space these days, a veritable petri dish of information pushers disseminating, collaborating and obfuscating data, analysis and ephemera of all stripes.

But in this new media age, our access to that information, unfettered by the reach of the traditional gatekeepers—i.e., mainstream media and the corporations that prop them up—is increasingly under threat. And a growing community of media democracy advocates are working to ensure those gates remain open.

Media democracy about who controls the airwaves

Media democracy is a funny term. One I've had to struggle with a bit to fully wrap my head around. Basically, it's a set of ideas based on the premise that free and open access to information is the basis for a free and just society.

As such, media democracy means wresting mainstream media from the hands of said corporations—and the government agencies nestled in their back pockets—and putting it back in the public domain, where it can serve the people of that democracy.

"For centuries, people have talked about the way that the different kinds of media we live with—whether newsprint, radio, television, cinema or the Internet—can act in some sense as 'public spaces' where citizens can come together to share thoughts and opinions and debate ideas," says Tyler Morgenstern, head coordinator for Media Democracy Day, taking place this Saturday, November 6, 2010, at the downtown Vancouver Public Library.

"There's a lot of connections between this idea of media as a tool and space for debate and how we think of a democratic society as one that supports diverse, challenging, dynamic and critical discussions about the state of our world."

Of course, the Internet seemed to promise such a venue. But considering the election day coverage, it's no surprise the extent to which the corporate oligarchy, in the form of the media empires that own and operate the infrastructure and tools for broadcasting, has are already moved in to usurp that freedom of access that ensures our autonomy.

Media Democracy Day and pay-to-play Internet access

Since 2001, the annual Media Democracy Day (MDD) has served as a day of action to empower media makers and citizens alike with the toolkit for understanding how media shapes our perception of the world and our own rights, protesting the kind of cable news stream that drools decrepit information about important democratic processes, and ultimately reforming media to respond to the needs of the public, to which it is accountable, for information that serves our diverse needs. 

This year, Tony Burman of Al-Jazeera English opens the all-day event, which brings together important keynote speakers, interactive panels and hands-on workshops. 

"Media Democracy Day Vancouver... brings people together to question the media landscape, and to transform our media system for the better," says Steve Anderson, national coordinator of OpenMedia.ca, a Vancouver-based national non-profit working toward an open communications system in Canada and the driving force behind MDD as well as the Stop The Meter and SaveOurNet.ca petition campaigns.

The latter is gathering support against companies working to replace the open network we're used to exploring on the Internet with a "gatekeeper network" in which certain content and services are accessed faster than others. The former is a petition against the telecom companies' recently bestowed power to install meters to monitor and eventually charge us for our Internet usage, much in the way smart phones are charged (e.g., data plans). 

In both cases, the Internet is becoming a pay-to-play landscape where both content providers and consumers must pay for the "privilege" of communicating information we now take for granted as free.

Junk information as plentiful as junk food

A gatekeeper network would render the online media landscape to something resembling the current bottom line-driven food system. The cheapest food is the most plentiful, easiest to access and worst nutritionally, its producers compelled to grow monocultures of corn and soy that do little to actually feed people and its providers receiving huge government subsidies and custommade legislation that help big agro business maintain the kind of market share and economies of scale that keep, for example, supermarket shelves stocked with various incarnations of corn and soy (e.g., cereal, frozen dinners, drugged up chicken breast) that continue to result in obese people with diabetes, heart disease and, bizarrely, malnutrition.

Apply this same model to our information pathways and you get poorly informed, non-conversant citizens who don't have the ability to think critically or question bad reporting and corporate propaganda. (I'm looking at you, FOX News.)

"It is more important to harness the power of our media to bring us together into open debate than ever before," says Morgenstern. "To do this, we have to make sure that our media is made for citizens and communities first, not just for profit; we have to make sure that everyone has access to the means to both use and create media..."

Anderson agrees, "MDD is crucial because it both educates citizens about the shortcomings of our media, whilst also providing a focal point for people who want to work to make our media system more open, innovative, independent and participatory."

MDD is also the place to create such a media system, he says, by supporting the production of independent and public media, and discussing the politics and biases that exist in the mainstream. 

"And we have to work hard to make sure that our media creates positive social change, social inclusivity and remains vibrant, dynamic and creative," says Morgenstern, who hopes to see media blossom into something much more nurturing of a democracy purer than even America's founding fathers had scripted. 

"If we don't, we risk losing not just a space of political debate and discussion, but a space where we can see, engage with and create alongside others to make the world a better, more just and more beautiful place."