New Media ( Chapter 8

in Text)

Definition & the Information Revolution

Changing economics
Changing regulation
Social Issues
Social Challenges:

The Knowledge Gap

Surveillance and loss of privacy
Sharing and Market Hacktivism
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History of New Media

Since 1970s, but especially 1990s, nations concerned with the
information highway
Treated the Internet like an 1840s challenge of the telegraph
Concern that to remain competitive in a global trading economy,
nations needed to wire up
Provide businesses, workers and consumers access to the
Internet for education, retail, entertainment
Frontier metaphors often used
Essential for economic transformation away from industrial to service/
information economies: the so-called innovation agenda
In Canada, wired telco/cable providers dominated agenda: wireless
only now emerging

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Building the Internet

Nations regulate telecommunications internationally:
agree on bandwidth of electronic transmission, spacing
of satellites, sharing of costs/ interconnection
Also develop technical standards for interconnection
( IP protocols such as MP3)
This is the international standards role of nations,
businesses and technical experts in creating a market
for technology, and ensuring consumers dont buy
technology which will not work
Business play a bigger and bigger role influencing this
shadow world of standards: citizens underrepresented
But: companies still need states to rule on standards
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Definition of New Media

Digital communication
Used in the production, distribution and
reception of communication
Involves use of new communication
networks: Internet as mass medium

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Information Revolution
Digitization: using computers to
store,manipulate and transmit information in
form of speech, text, data, and video more
cheaply and faster than every before.
Networking: distributed, fast digital networks
wired and wireless
Convergence: refers to merging of what were
three separate industries: telecommunications,
computing, and electronics or broadcasting
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Characteristics of New
Media
Convergence of telecommunications
and entertainment/broadcast media
industries
Wire or wireless communication
Point to point or addressable
Interactive ( two way) ( now multiple
conferencing)
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Characteristics Continued
Interpersonal: ie. The terrain of telephony treats
telephone calls ( discretionary contact between two
consenting persons) as PRIVATE not PUBLIC
communication ( where telco distributors are not
responsible for content of message)
Multiple: can be Mass/Broadcast which is PUBLIC
communication ( broadcasters are responsible for
message in exchange for spectrum monopoly: hybrid
character)
Now a grey area of semi public/private communication (
can monitor cell phones, amass, monitor and store
unprecedented personal communication)
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Digital Communication
Where image text or sound is converted into binary
numbers- ones and zeroes ( 0/1)
Digital codes can duplicate, track store or play back
complex kinds of content
Strong when combined with ever greater chip capacity
in computers, and bundles of glass fibre ( fibre optics)
capable of carrying large quantities of information
Current revolution: the Digital Video Disk
DVDs: higher resolution, no rewinding,now coming
recordable for storage and intending to replace CDS
Also: wireless Internet ( games on the cell phone)
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Implication of
Digitization
Drive to animation and special effects
Actors worried about cyber simulators
replacing them
Domination of nature: totally simulated
worlds?
Question of authenticity of image

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The Role of the Media in

the Age of Digital
Reproduction
Walter Benjamin, a noted cultural scholar, suggests that the infinite

reproducibility of the communication product ( CD, video, internet) due to

its low marginal cost of duplication changes the nature of the work of art
But western capitalism has conceived of the realm of ideas and
expression as proprietary
Books, stories or photos may be copyrighted so they belong to the author
and no one may borrow or copy them without permission, attribution or
payment

The high risk nature of entertainment ( so called hit rule) calls for imitation
or clones in popular culture ( riding the next so called fad or wave)
Infinite reproducibility, repackaging,repurposing and presenting
information as original
There are many pressures on news or entertainment manufacture for
cutting corners on production: ethical standards to prevent recycling
content and presenting it as original are weak digital watermarking is a
weak barrier
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Technical Potentials of
the New Media
Costs of production dropping: makes
media creation more accessible ( digital
camera and access to the net)
Costs of distribution down
Interactive// less hierarchical
Fastermore global

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The Internet
What: a vast network of high speed wires and
satellite relays linking computers worldwide
No central hub: thousands of computer nodes (
it is highly distributed)
Uses a type of switching that is hard to trace:
designed after WW2 in the RAND corporation
to avoid worldwide military attack
Now used for: email, commerce, chat lines,file
sharing etc.
Sometimes synonmous with on line world
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Components of the
Internet
World Wide Web
Internet Service Providers (AOL Time
Warner; Sympatico,Telus, Shaw@Home,
AT&T)
Portals ( MSN)
Browsers: Explorer, Netscape
Search Engines and directories ( Google,
etc)

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Rate of Diffusion
Each generation of technology ( telegraph,
telephone,radio, satellite to cable TV, VCRs) had an
increasingly rapid rate of diffusion
Key is where it reaches mass or majority ( 60% or
more) of consumers.
Internet has done so within one decade: only other
technology to do so, but not quite as fast were the VCR
and cell phones
Now well over 75% of Canadians have access: that
number rises to 100% under 25
The Internet the fastest techology in rate of social
adaption
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Impacts
Changed the way we work
Accellerated space time compression:
globalization processes
Convergence of computers and distribution
allows greater efficiency of control and
communication
Much cheaper to sell via Internet than in person (
1/100th cost per transaction for banks, airlines)
Average person is now estimated to spend 187
hours a year on line ( source: Penguin Media and
Information 2003)
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Social Transformations
of the Internet

Utopic Visions

Breaks oligopoly power

Allows user control over media
selected, compiled, used
Provides new forms of social
connection beyond space based
New communities of interest may
form ( beyond borders)
Together with other technologies
allow development of artificial
intelligence/body/intelligence
augmentation
A Democratic Realization

Dystopic Visions
Reinforces and extends it ( US
controls 65% share of world Internet
server hosts)
Keeps user in invisible walled
gardens
Has enabled social predation: largest
use for pornography /weapons and
illicit drug/and stalking on line
New market intelligence aggregating
in unprecedented scope: data
shadows and on line surveillance
Few use the Net for political news,
mobilization: while alt.news and other
organizations are growing:
commercial search engines bury
them so they are difficult to findthus
an authoritarian politics continued,
not a democratic one

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World Wide Web

Between 22 and 800 million sites less than
half indexed
Main search engines:

Google (500 m page estimate)

Alta Vista294)
Yahoo
Iwon,
Northern Light
Fast
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Industry Structure
No one owner of Internet
ISP providers route through a tangled web of other providers
One dominant PC software manufacturer: Microsoft ( Internet
Explorer)
Decade long anti trust suit settled out of court
Like AT&T, US Department of Justice concerned about dominant
market power, and predatory competition

Until 1990s, little competition between telephones and cable

companies: now starting
Late 1990s a wave of Stock Speculation and large scale mergers
for dot com sector just before its crash
AOL ( which owns Netscape) tookover Time Warner: sign of new
technology surpassing old
Emergence of little known Netscapes of Power
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Ideology of the Internet

Electronic Freedom
Foundation

Neo liberal/New Media

Free
Egalitarian
Decentralized
Ad Hoc
Open and peer to peer
Experimental
Autonomous
Anarchic

Media Oligopolies ( Incumbent

Media)
Social Responsibility model: but
self not government regulation
For Profit
Hierarchical
Systematized and Centralized
Planned
Proprietary
Pragmatic
Accountable
Organized
Reliable
Source: Richard Campbell, Media
and Culture, 41.

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The Business Case for

On line Start Ups
Sector characterised by rapidly falling costs
Transistorization etc.
Costs for average computer falling 30% per year ( just 0.01% of costs
in 1970)

E commerce applications growing, but still less than 5% of

retail( slower than supposed)
Personal messaging ( email) very high
Use for Information /Research high: but rise of subscription media
( eg. Newspaper on line, growing only among global travel
segment)
Drive to get video downloadable for entertainment (video cell
phones banned in washrooms)
Still largest volume of business is porn worldwide

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Globalization of the
Internet
US has privatized domain names but retained control
over their allocation
This is a sore point for Europe and other powerful
economic regions
Internet content providers are estimated to be 98%
English, 87% commercial, and dominantly US in origin
Other foreign governments now trying to:
Invest in promotion of infrastructure
Offer government services on line
Promote the development of indigenous services
( eg. Canada: New Media Content Fund at Telefilm and the
Canadian Television Fund)

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Canadian Shape of
Convergence

Links telecom and broadcast and news

No computer sector
Does link portals and so on
First impacts of convergence have been to
de-localize news and media production
Consolidation of media production
Centralization in a few cities
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Regulation of the
Internet
Canada s CRTC decided in 1999 not to regulate the Internet : to
leave it to open competition
Australia and Europe are taking very different directions
1996 US Telecommunications Act ( calling for deregulation) is
opposed world wide:
It is essentially impossible for one country to act as a content
gatekeeper for a world community Michael Epstein, quoted in
Campbell, 57.

Hate and offensive contents are of growing social concern

( especially sexual predation on the Net)
1996 US Communications Decency Act made it a felony to transmit
obscene, indecent, or harassing material on the Internet where
children might see it: struck down n grounds Internet no different from
a book store: not like broadcast ACLU v. Janet Reno, 1998)23

Rise of filters/ ratings? On line entertainment

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 Hacktivism
Development of Open Source Code: Linux which is free open
source operating system challenges Microsoft
File sharing coops of the type of Napster ( trading MP3s)
growing
junk and growth of viruses
Romantic vision of small content providers surging on the net
Eg. The garage bands now can find an audience; the poet
self publish, the digital video camcorder allow the production of
broadcast quality documentaries for $20,000 versus 1.2 million
in the TV industry
A technologically optimistic view: technology as emancipatory,
revolutionary shattering the powers of entrenched business,
cultural authorities
What Winseck in the courseware calls fantasy
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Intellectual Property
Law
Part of Intellectual Property Law
Governs the realm of inventions ( Patent
Law) and brands or names ( Trade Mark
Law), Trade Secrets ( Commercial Law)
and Copyright

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The Canadian Copyright

Act
protection
For the life of the author plus 50 years
Where the creator has the sole right to perform the creative act,
grant permission or a license to reproduce it, or copy it.
What is not copyrightable:
Facts but the compilation of them ( i.e how they are interpreted, is)
Ideas- unless they are manifest in a drawing, paper, or written form
( see Vivian and Maurin, page 365)

Copyright: important in book publishing, sound tracks to films,

films, music
All TV and radio based on copyright payment to the performers
they use
Increasingly important in international trade, all forms of academic
expression
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Canadian Copyright
Agencies
CANCOPY: 130 courseware
SOCAN

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US Digital Millenium
Copyright Act ( 1998)
Computer users who copy or distribute
the digital expression of others without
their permission are liable to prosecution
ISPs may avoid liability if they police and
remove offenders
Arose because of spread of MP3 ( a
digital compression technology)
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Napster
Before 1999, just 5 companies, court cases on
price fixing underway
Developer launches Website wi 2 mi per day
Called P to P networking
Allowed visitors to search for files on other MP3 users hard drive
and download to burn their own CDs: control over compilation
shifts to consumers
freeware: since Napsters server did not house or archive the
music, the owners thought they were exempt from copyright law
and reasoned that prosecution should happen at the individual
level: since so dispersed and large ( estimated in the millions a
month) it was believed it was not possible to enforce the law
Napsters early success launched a wave of imitators: Gnutella, I
mesh and XXX

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The Napster Case (see

Fleras: 262)
Musical Recording Industry argued Napster
infringed copyright even Metallica!
Damages estimated in the millions
Refused to admit free sampling in fact
increased exposure to music: eventual
purchase
Lined up a number of musicians to argue that
the financial damage was to artists ( not the the
multinationals)
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Napster defense

An information source
Not housing or copying
Intention to move to a subscription service
Struggled to settle out of court
Agreed to charge a monthly fee
Purchased by Bertelsmann
Lost Case
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Effects of Napster
Now usurped in the market ( Morpheus , Kazaa and others) but
trying a comeback
Victor? : to large companies:

BUT they introduced 2 tier pricing to allow new artists to break in

They reduced price of CDs
More services experimenting with subscription and transaction fees
Major transformation in Music Happening

Victor? To consumers

Forcing a major rethink of copyright

Hierarchy of value: new versus brand artists merit more protection
Should IP be free? It takes a community to raise an artist.

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The Argument
Fleras: intrusion of commercial interests
and government regulation has
compromised the regulatory potential of
the Internet
McLuhan: the inception of a new media
casts into sharper relief the premises,
priorities and power relations of existing
media ( page 249).
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Crucial Questions
Should those who control the medium
also control the message?
Cases: GayTV and Shaw Cable
BCE /CTV and Independent Film
Sympatico(Bell) and Oliver Hate Site

Issue is: will gatekeeper show

preference/discriminate against
competitors, or evade responsibility?
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The Consumers Guide to

the New Media
1.Question Everything that is seen, heard or
read in new media. ( no FDA)
2. Conclude almost everything is to make
money for someone.
Assume everything is a potential threat to your
privacy:
Source: John Pavlik The Structure of the New
Media Industry: in The Media Entertainment
Industries, Allyn and Bacon, 2000.
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The Myth of
Convergence
Not new
Since 19th century
Telegraph and global news agencies born
together ( Winseck)
AT&T ran RCA/Films until State department
busted it
In Canada today, we have one of the most
consolidated media systems in the world, with
a high degree of cross-media ownership

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Risk and Political

Economy Game
Inventors of new technologies generate new patents ( ham
heaven)
When market become established: patents bought or litigated
( crisis of capital for development)
Incumbent industries either block development or buy out new
technology
If new technology threatens core business of old, then predatory
behavior, or massive buyout
If new technology too risky, then businesses buy not make new
service.
Thus new technologies rarely challenge the incumbents, but over
50 years can see major change in owner players: market efficient
at reducing risk and adapting to change

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The Critical Political Economy View:

Lost in Cyberspace by Dwayne
Winseck
Sees Intellectual Property Disputes as masking the
larger problem: oligopoly of power and control
Internet now dominated by big players, not an ideal
perfect competition
Convergence not new: 19th and 20th century waves and
predicted in Canada since 1971
In Canada:

Rogers allied with Microsoft and AT&T

CanWest: news and TV and radio
Bell Globemedia, CTV,Expressvue, Globe and Mail and
Sympatico, largest ISP
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Impacts of Cross Media

Ownership
Now vertically and horizontal
companies can control all
aspects of message
Should those who control the
medium also control the
message?

Yes: allows economies of

scale, more money reinvested
in content, better assumption
of risk, more choice and
convenience for consumers
No: debt means less
investment in content, loss of
jobs, avoidance of risk, less
choice and higher prices for
consumers ( Winseck, 326)

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Canadian Argument

Canada does have more choice among services

Highest level of cable, cell, Internet penetration in G-8
Chronic shortage/ market failure in high cost production
Shrinking public investment in non commercial or community media
Indicators News
More news services, fewer private foreign news bureaus, more reliance on
wire services; diminishing number of jobs

Indicator Entertainment
Digital channels not allied with big Canadian companies on verge of
bankruptcy
Cant get carried by cable companies, or carried at too high a wholesale rate
Services high level of repetition( estimated more than 66% reruns)
Lag of asymmetry: late on video file swapping, speed of video downloads

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Winsecks conclusion
In short, there is a resilience in the old media
that will not yield
Incumbents battle new entrants and either buy
them up or forge partnerships, or force them
out of business
People still mostly rely on TV for their political
information
Internet works to extend and conserve existing
market dominance in cyberspace
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Netscapes of Power
Must watch netscapes of power: rise of
gatekeepers and walled gardens
Trend to bundling services for convenience
Styling information services for personal
preferences and not challenging these ( narrower
and narrower homogenous taste communities)
Technologies of discrimination: owner preference in
placing subsidiaries at front of retail shelf and
burying competitive service providers
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Fleras: Rhetoric and

Reality ( p.269)

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Rhetoric & Reality

Subversive/Freewheel
Egalitarian
Anarchic Power to the
People
Globalizing
Free
Empowering and
Enlightening
Diversity

Corporatized/Control
Ehaves/Ehavenots
Authoritarian power to
the dollar
Americanizing
Marketing and
Advertising
Make Money
Conformity
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Social Issues:
Surveillance
Network architecture is now smart
Before, telcos did not know the content of messages
Now, they do. Bits are monitored, stored in charting
flow and effective service
Nortel and Cisco can establish network architectures
which:
Identify each traffic type-Web, email, voice, videoand isolate
the type of application even down to specific brands, by the
interface used, by the user typeand individual user
identification or by the site address (winseck:331)

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Surveillance 2
Rise of cookies ( spies on content, personal
information and preferences jeapordizing privacy)
Technological potential of building a complete data
shadow of the consumer, to better market to them
Emerging self regulation of services
Eg restrictive private contracts for use, limiting video
downloads, for example, in absence of regulation permitting it.
Or: @Homewide open powers to remove offensive matter
which is too prone to authoritarian censorship

Still major fights: first over spam ( reaccessing your

email accounts, and next data shadowing/market
surveillance)
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The Walled Garden

AOL Time Warner term
Disney too
Keep users within designated zones for as long as
possible ( Winseck, 335)
How?
By creation of content and service menus, organization of
hyperlinks, bias of search engings, network architecture,
promotion, content synergies,elimination of bypasses
Creation of walled gardens: safe, predictable, branded
Eg: Disney assumes role of immigration officer in AOLs world:
if people enter their site, and then leave AOL, contract can be
cancelled ( Winseck, 336)
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The Information Gap

Rest of the World is less than one-tenth on the
way to cyberspace
Vast continents ( Africa) left out of global
information highway
Rich consumers and those educated elites the
first to embrace computers and the Internet
Poor, uneducated slow: many countries do not
have policies to help individuals(eg. Computers
in the home), although do help schools
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The Knowledge Gap

Information and Knowledge gap is widening:
despite mass penetration of the Internet in
Canada, still high levels of illiteracy, ( under
25%) relatively low levels of university
education ( several points below Europe), and
growing child poverty: estimates place one in
four to one in three kids below poverty level
Structurally higher levels of unemployment,
precarious jobs
Gendered landscape of technological control
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