[DMCA-Activists] Gillmor on Information Producers

[Seth Johnson]

(Forwarded from Interesting People list.  Article text pasted below.  --
Seth)


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [IP] Dan /mor column
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 12:55:51 -0400
From: "Dave Farber" <address@hidden>
Reply-To: address@hidden
To: "Ip" <address@hidden>


-----Original Message-----
From: Dan Gillmor <address@hidden>
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 08:50:52 
To:Dave Farber <address@hidden>
Subject: Fyi

http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/001654.shtml

The broadcast culture assumes that most of us are "consumers" of mass media.
We are merely receptacles for what Hollywood, the music industry and even
our local daily newspaper decide we should view, hear or read.

The post-broadcast culture is a democratization of media, and it comes at
things from the opposite stance. It says that anyone also can be a creator,
not just a consumer. There's a world of difference.


-------------------------------------

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/

---


> http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/001654.shtml

 
Democratizing the Media, and More 


by Dan Gillmor
January 11, 2004 


During Super Bowl week later this month, a political advertisement will air
on some TV stations. That's no big surprise, given that the Iowa caucuses
and New Hampshire primary are about to kick off voting in the 2004
presidential nominating race.

But this particular commercial wasn't made by a high-powered ad agency for a
well-funded candidate. The ad, to be selected from 15 finalists in the "Bush
in 30 Seconds" contest sponsored by MoveOn.org, was created by an individual
or a small team of regular people.

The competition finalists are citizen-activists, and their work is just one
more public demonstration of a still underappreciated evolution. Personal
technology is undermining the broadcast culture of the late 20th century.
It's putting tools that were once the preserve of Big Media into the hands
of the many.


The broadcast culture assumes that most of us are "consumers" of mass media.
We are merely receptacles for what Hollywood, the music industry and even
our local daily newspaper decide we should view, hear or read.

The post-broadcast culture is a democratization of media, and it comes at
things from the opposite stance. It says that anyone also can be a creator,
not just a consumer. There's a world of difference.

This evolution hit the print world in the mid-1980s, when desktop publishing
spurred an array of new magazines, newsletters and other print publications.
Then the Web arrived, spurring even more variety in what remained
essentially a modern version of printed news and information.

Also in the 1980s, musicians started using technology to create and record
music, augmenting and ultimately bypassing some of the most expensive parts
of the process. In the 1990s, as computers grew yet more powerful and the
software added features, digital music appliances, such as stand-alone hard
disk recorders, hit the market to the delight of professionals and motivated
hobbyists alike.

Video has taken longer to hit the sweet spot financially and
technologically. But now, in the early 21st century, it's arriving for real.

Not everyone is an artist, of course. Not everyone has a journalist's
curiosity and ability to pull together disparate facts into something that
resembles a coherent first draft of reality. Not everyone can play an
instrument or sing on key. Not everyone should.

But it's exciting to realize that anyone who wants to try can do so.

Print has moved the furthest. Not only can people create Web sites with
relatively little effort compared with what it used to take, we now have
tools that make it almost as easy to write on the Web as read from it.
Weblogs, in particular, show what can happen when the readers become writers
-- spurring on a vast global conversation.

Music has made enormous strides, but digital music products have not been
easy to use for the most part. That's why I'm so intrigued by GarageBand, a
piece of software Apple Computer will start selling this week.

If GarageBand is as excellent as it looked when it was announced last week,
it will bring music-making to a new crew of people, and to a new level of
user-friendliness.

Video, too, is getting easier to produce, and the equipment you need to make
good-quality videos is getting downright affordable.

Wes Boyd is co-founder of MoveOn, a left-of-center organization that has
been a pioneer in online political advocacy. He says he and his colleagues
are impressed by the passion and quality that has gone into the "Bush in
30Seconds" spots, both for the ideas and, in many cases, the technical
execution. (The winning spot will be announced Monday in New York City.)
Whether you agree with the ads' sentiments or find them appalling -- and
they are harshly critical of Bush -- you will have to agree that they
compare well, in terms of impact, to spots by the pros.

"I'm excited about turning the broadcast medium back on itself," Boyd says.

Should traditional big institutions -- in the media, political and corporate
worlds -- feel threatened? Only in part, if the post-broadcast model means
more choice at less cost for what they do expensively today.

Smarter folks will understand the enormous opportunity it represents. They
can start listening, really listening, to what people are saying. And they
can dip into the vast pool of creative talent that exists outside the usual
channels.

If I were running a political campaign of any size, I would be asking my
candidate's supporters to send in their best ideas and home-brew
advertisements. Campaigns already are starting to converse with and listen
better to their supporters, via Weblogs and other media.

Businesses could learn something, too. Eric von Hippel, a professor at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management who has
done insightful research into innovation, spotlights the valuable role
played by what he calls "lead users." These are customers who like a product
so much that they're willing to spend their own time helping to improve it.
Maybe businesses should ask their customers for ads, too, and pay for the
ones they use.

The entertainment and news businesses -- the chief purveyors of the newly
democratizing stuff we call "content" -- will have to modify their
traditional gatekeeping role. I'm not sure they will make this conceptual
leap, in part because it's also a business risk.

If they don't, look for others to offer a platform. Who, for example?
Consider: One of the options in Apple GarageBand software is to save your
newly created piece to an MP3, or to your iTunes music library. And you can
save a video to a DVD. Suppose Apple let you save your new song, or your new
movie, to the iTunes Music (and, someday, Video) Store, too. It's a thought.