Delete or Debate: The Slippery Slope of Censorship

The moderation of online conversation is an issue that walks an extremely fine line, with the ability to effectively censor offensive or inappropriate material but also cause offense through obscuring such material. I find myself often leaning towards the latter as an individual diametrically opposed to censorship in all forms, but particularly online. I thoroughly enjoyed Couldry’s (2009) exploration of ‘voice’ and the idea that it is imperative that the varying voices of individuals not only be broadcast, but also heard. This is my key objection to anything but the most basic forms of moderation online; I believe that everyone has a right to have their say and that harsher forms of moderation compulsorily enforce subjective views on what is offensive or inappropriate.

I frequent a number of automotive forums, have played video games online since I was young and am an active user of numerous social networking sites and through this experience I have been made acutely aware of both the need for moderators and the ways in which their power can be abused. While basic editing or removal of posts that are intended to cause controversy can keep conversation on track, the ability to perform such actions can easily be abused. This is where the point I made during this weeks tutorial is based; that I believe in allowing users to self-moderate through an open forum where individuals can make their point and rebut others. If something is deemed offensive don’t remove it, allow those who are offended to articulate what it is that offends them and debate the validity of the material. Of course whenever someone tries to raise a view such as this, extreme examples such as child pornography are used to dismiss it but one has to remember how slippery the censorship slope can be.

References:

Couldry, N 2009, ‘Rethinking the politics of voice’, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, vol.23, no.4, pp.579-582

Awareness Mode: Enabled, Equality: Disabled

As with a number of topics BCM310 has brought to my attention throughout this semester, the social exclusion of disabled individuals was one that I had not considered in depth other than always seeking to be fair, inclusive and unpatronising towards such individuals in my daily life. Goggin and Newell (2007) made me question how apparent advancements in society’s acceptance and understanding of disabilities have not brought about greater accessibility or the proliferation of ‘inclusive technology’ despite the rapid technological advancements we see elsewhere. Being shown clips of sign language interpreters being cropped out of media broadcasts in the lecture further enraged me and now like when someone makes you aware of the fact that you are breathing and blinking subconsciously (gotcha!), I can’t stop myself from thinking about it and considering an endless list of examples of things that I take for granted but from which those with disabilities are thoughtlessly excluded. Making matters worse is the fact that technology is readily available to level the playing field in a number of these examples but isn’t implemented because it isn’t profitable or because the issue is easily swept aside in favour of one that affects us able-bodied folk.

Similar to last week, tutorial discussion quickly evolved to the broader issues at play; to the topic of how the disabled function in society in general, focusing on unpacking the social awkwardness that stems from trying to be accepting of an individual’s differences but ultimately doing the exact opposite. Similar to a point I raised on the topic of racism, I believe that this social awkwardness stems from issues attached to disability and not disability itself and that the only way that we as a society can move past it is by making such trivial things as your appearance or impairments non-issues. Living inside every disabled body is a unique individual and that is all that should matter in a society that so proudly boasts progress and acceptance.

References:

Goggin, G and Newell, C 2007, ‘The Business of Digital Disability’, The Information Society: An International Journal, Vol.23, No.3, 159-168

The Sky is Blue, The Grass is Green and I Am White

Coming from an Anglo-Saxon background, the notion of popular media being dominated by ‘white’ characters and culture was one that I had admittedly not put much thought into previously. After consulting the readings (Dreher 2014, Kalina 2012) I felt as if my eyes had been opened, retrospectively reviewing the media I consume on a daily basis and recognising how rare it is that races other than my own are given screen time. Multiculturalism is a value at the core of Australian culture and I greatly value the opportunities I am offered every day to socialise and share experiences with individuals from cultures different to my own. I find this to be the most fulfilling aspect of my employment as a bartender in a suburb known for its eclectic collection of ethnicities and flicking on the TV after another shift while writing this blog post, I can’t help but feel that I’m viewing what is supposedly a societal mirror through a sea of bleach.

Of course as with any discussion of racial issues, racism as a whole must be discussed and that is basically where our tutorial discussion took us. During this discussion I was able to assert my belief that the best way to eradicate racism is a cyclical approach, heading back to the days of being able to describe someone by the colour of their skin but with discriminatory connotations removed. At the beginning of this post I describe myself as Anglo-Saxon but I have no idea if my ancestors were part of the migration from continental Europe to Britain in the early 5^th century and frankly, I don’t see how such a description says anything about my character. I find terms like the classic ‘African-American’ more offensive than calling someone black as it makes a number of assumptions about a person’s ancestry and suggests that it somehow influences who they are today. Only once we as a society learn to accept that skin colour is a large portion of our aesthetics, move past the awkwardness forced upon us by political correctness gone mad and use this colour as a purely descriptive term removed from prejudice can we truly create a world without racism.

References:

Dreher, T forthcoming 2014, ‘White Bread Media’, The Media and Communications in Australia

Kalina, P 2012 ‘Diversity still out of the picture’, The Sydney Morning Herald, March 1, accessed 10/5/2013, http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/diversity-still-out-of-the-picture-20120229-1u1jg.html

DRM Drives Recalcitrants Mad

While discussing the internet’s Feudalisation, this week’s area of research raised a topic I have been passionately outspoken about since it’s inception; digital rights management and the way it inconveniences the end user to the point that they are driven to piracy. The following comic produced by Randall Monroe of xkcd perfectly illustrates my main gripe with this intrusive and ineffective form of copyright protection.

http://xkcd.com/488/

In the current digital market, obtaining your preferred form of media through legitimate channels leaves you with a product inferior to that you would find on any number of so-called ‘pirating’ websites. Did you enjoy that song you bought on iTunes so much that you wish to load it onto your MP3 player not produced by Apple and listen to it on the move? Too bad. Feel like watching that DVD you purchased while overseas in a country that is in another arbitrary ‘region’ to your own? Good luck. These are just a few examples of how new technologies are being hamstrung to the detriment of users who chose to not take the much easier route of downloading content illegally.

Doctorow (2012) outlines the two key problems with DRM that have been obvious since it’s first implementation in the early 90s and are still issues today; the inconvenience they cause the average users who attempt to operate with legitimacy and the ease with which even the mildly tech-savvy can get around them. Akester’s (2009) empirical study into the conflicts between freedom of expression and DRM raises a number of relevant examples, such as the experience of Lynn Holdsworth, a visually impaired individual who purchased a digital version of the Bible through Amazon.com and was refused a refund after DRM prevented her screen reader application from providing an audio file. After lengthy discussions with both Amazon.com and the publisher responsible for the e-Book, Lynn was left with no alternative but to illegally download a copy of the work (Akester 2009, pp.47-49).

In our tutorial we discussed legitimate forms of attaining content and Charlotte made the point that by downloading content illegally, I was taking money out of the pockets of producers. While this might be true, I morally object to paying for anything, digital content or any other product, that I am then forced to use in a particular way. I’m sure the day will come when digital distribution networks are finally up to scratch and at that time, I will happily lay down my micro-transactions and pay for what I consume. Until that day comes however, I say; power to the pirates!

http://thepiratebay.sx/

References:

Akester, P 2009, ‘Technological accommodation of conflicts between freedom of expression and DRM: the first empirical assessment’, University of Cambridge, accessed 3/5/2013, http://www.law.cam.ac.uk/faculty-resources/summary/technological-accommodation-of-conflicts-between-freedom-of-expression-and-drm-the-first-empirical-assessment/6286

Doctorow, C 2012, ‘Lockdown: The coming war on general purpose computing’, weblog post, Boing Boing, accessed 3/5/2013, http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html

Analogue's Allure Obscured By Digital Determination

Discussing traditional university structures and their relevance into the future during this week’s tutorial, I found myself leaving feeling surprisingly positive about my time at UoW ­­­­and at a polar opposite to the bleak vocationally-oriented outlook I demonstrated in last week’s post. Prior to the tutorial I worked my way through the set readings, beginning with Arvantikis’ (2009) utopian dream of knowledge democratization, making educational material freely available to all for the purpose of creating a new form of biopolitical knowledge production that would treat education as a cultural commons. I am all for the distribution of knowledge of any form to anyone motivated enough to consume it but I thought this dream was still a fair way off, that was, until I came across The Cost of Knowledge movement. This online petition implores academics to boycott journals that oppose the free exchange of information and charge exorbitant subscription fees, namely Elsevier, and after reading the blog post that spawned this movement (Gowers 2012) along with an article celebrating the 10,000 signature milestone (Neylon 2012), I couldn’t help but feel appalled that this is how a number of the sources I use in everyday university research come to be published.

I was further dismayed by the worrying trend of universities outsourcing academic labour and moving away from the tradition tenure model as outlined by Schell (2009) and by the time I got to the end of Miller’s rant (2010), I couldn’t see a clear future for the form of tertiary education I am currently participating in. It wasn’t until I arrived in Charlotte’s tutorial that my view was reversed, with class discussion making it obvious to me that a purely online approach is just as ineffective as an educational approach based solely around the canon of yester-year and that a combination of both is the best way for education of all kinds to progress into the future. Furthermore, this discussion made me value the uninhibited, intelligent debate only available in a physical classroom and has made me aware of how much I missed intelligent debate with intellects similar too and greater than my own during my two year leave of absence.

References:

Arvanitakis, J 2009, ‘The Autonomous University and the Production of the Commons, or, “Pirates were like Ninjas, they Learned to Use their Environments”’, Toward a Global Autonomous University, The Edu-factory collective, Autonomedia, New York, pp.154-156

Gowers, T 2012, ‘Elsevier — my part in its downfall’, weblog post, Gower’s Weblog, accessed 17/4/2013, http://gowers.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/elsevier-my-part-in-its-downfall/

Miller, R 2010, ‘The Coming Apocalypse’, Pedagogy, vol.10, no.1, pp.143-151

Neylon, T 2012, ‘Life after Elsevier: making open access to scientific knowledge a reality’, The Guardian, 24 April, accessed 17/4/2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2012/apr/24/life-elsevier-open-access-scientific-knowledge

Schell, E 2009, ‘Online Education, Contingent Faculty and Open Source Unionism’, Toward a Global Autonomous University, The Edu-factory collective, Autonomedia, New York, pp.114-118

If Everyone's A Journalist, Then What Am I?

This week’s reading and tutorial discussions revolved around participatory journalism; an increasing trend that has seen the role of content creation shared with users who would traditionally be defined as part of the audience rather than solely disseminated through top-down channels. Institutionalised journalism has historically existed independently of society, objectively observing events from the outside and reporting their findings. Over-time, society has become more complex and it is this complexity that has spawned participatory journalism.

Institutionalised media outlets inherently wield the power to select the information they process and distribute and in a hyper-complex society, this will of course result in unavoidable gaps and silences in reported issues. Quandt (2011) raises the concern that “journalists might manipulate information or take sides as they move through the various news production stages” and that this potential abuse of power operates with information that is generally inaccessible to the public. Furthermore, popular interest is becoming increasingly fragmented, spawning highly specialised topical interests that require individualised information that is simply outside of institutionalised media’s abilities.

This is where participatory journalism comes in, mobilising would-be journalists to have their say on issues that they are contextually specialised in and democratically benefitting journalistic independence through an expansive pool of voices. Of course, including these new journalistic voices into a heavily entrenched medium is going to be difficult, if it is even going to happen at all, and it is in this interesting time that we find ourselves as media students who will soon be seeking a career in the industry. The future of journalism in a shifting media landscape has been called into question and after finding myself back at university due to the publishing company I worked for not being able to keep up in the digital age, I for one am nervous.

References:

Quandt, T 2011, 'Understanding a new phenomenon: the significance of participatory journalism', Participatory Journalism in Online Newspapers: Guarding Open Gates at Online Newspapers, Wiley-Blackwell, West Sussex, pp.155-176

Time Flies When You Don't Prioritise

With the month of April ticking over this week, I thought it would be a good idea to at least familiarise myself with what will be required for my BCM310 assessments, namely the Research Proposal and subsequent essay. As this is to be based on the topics discussed between weeks 4 and 12, I decided to have a look through the subject outline and skim through the required readings for the weeks to come. After coming to the end of these readings, I decided that the topic I am most interested in is one that I'm already quite familiar with and one that I discussed in last week's blog post; the need for Australia's classification guidelines to be brought in line an ever-shifting media landscape dictated by rapid technological convergence.

I have a number of other assessments due in the coming week and have decided to prioritise them as April 15th is still some time away. Still, this brief research into the first assessment has made my path of action clear. Over the next week or so I will need to begin collecting sources from all sides of the argument for media classification reforms in Australia. Even at this early stage I'm quite confident that I will continue to side with the recommendations made by Flew (2012) but I know personally that my opinions are always open to change after the discovery of new evidence and I look forward to tackling this issue in depth.

References:

Flew, T 2012, ‘Media classification: content regulation in an age of convergent media’, Media International Australia incorporating Culture and Policy, vol. 143, pp5-15

Media Regulation Policy Anything But Regular

This week’s research focus on media regulation and analysing the policies that dictate it was one that I found particularly interesting in that I have viewed Australia’s classification guidelines as out of touch with the contemporary media landscape for quite some time. Technological convergence has radically changed the way in which media is consumed and Flew’s (2012) recommendation of platform-neutral regulation is one that made a lot of sense to me. Furthermore, the suggestion of a clear scope for what must be classified, especially in reference to online media outlets that prolifically host user-generated content such as YouTube, is the first one I’ve come across that seems genuinely applicable to the unique issues presented by the online environment.

Another area of policy change that I took interest in during this week’s research was the planned changes to Australia’s Foreign Actor Certification Scheme and the discussion of the Save Spaces for Aussie Faces (2011) website’s response in our tutorial. Although the group’s protests initially seemed reasonable, after examining their flyer outlining the proposed changes I came to the conclusion that the Australian television and film industries have taken a harsh protectionist stance in the past and that these changes are long overdue. It is my belief that opening Australian entertainment industries to increased foreign investment and participation can only lead to further growth and that opposition to this from inside the industry is counterintuitive to their supposed cause; creating jobs for talented Australians.

References:

Flew, T 2012, ‘Media classification: content regulation in an age of convergent media’, Media International Australia incorporating Culture and Policy, vol. 143, pp5-15

Save Spaces for Aussie Faces 2011, accessed 26/3/2013. http://aussiefaces.org.au/

Office for the Arts, accessed 26/3/2013. http://arts.gov.au/