Technoliberalism and the End of Participatory Culture in the United States

verfasst von: Adam Fish

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

This book examines whether television can be used as a tool not just for capitalism, but for democracy. Throughout television’s history, activists have attempted to access it for that very reason. New technologies provided brief openings, but these were often short-lived. This book elaborate on this history by using ethnographic data upon a new iteration of liberalism, technoliberalism, which sees Silicon Valley technology and the free market of Hollywood end the need for a politics of participation.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Chapter 1. Introduction: Liberalism and Video Power

Abstract

Buoyed by the marketing and academic hype surrounding Web 2.0, the trendiness of the term “democratization” peaked in 2005, according to Google Trends. Since then, the term has lost much of its original punch, as what was once radical about blogging, vlogging, tagging, commenting, and uploading has become mainstream and commodified. We are now quite familiar with the exaggerated claims of media democratization: amateurs aided by laptops, free time, cell phone cameras, and affordable internet connections would challenge politicians and professional journalists.

Adam Fish

Chapter 2. Histories of Video Power

Abstract

Photography was big business in the USA after World War II. When the high-resolution 16mm film cameras first came onto the market, they were made for the upper classes of the post-war era with the expendable income and leisure time to dedicate to learning the technology. Between 1947 and 1954, companies like Kodak, Keystone, Revere, and the Swiss company Bolex successfully marketed to amateurs cheaper and easier-to-use 8mm film cameras and stock. Cameras like the Revere 50, Bell and Howell 172b, and the Kodak Brownie 8mm were some of the first amateur-grade 8mm film cameras in this trend. Throughout the 1950s, amateur photography grew by 112.5%, the use of 8mm film cameras increased by 41%, and the shipment of these cameras swelled by 201%.

Adam Fish

Chapter 3. Liberalism and Broadcast Politics

Abstract

The video producers investigated here collectively challenge the socio-technical means of their professional livelihood through guerilla technological practices and policy oppositional models. They are not just broadcasters, pundits, television hosts, or behind-the-scenes waged producers. They are not just activists, seeking social justice for others. They are both broadcasters and media reformers who reform the technological and political conditions for their broadcasts. They dialogue on their future in meetings, panels, and in semi-private conversations. Their mission is how to achieve public goals such as improved democratic dialogue on private media systems while making a living. Throughout their history, video producers have modified their broadcasting approaches, how they addressed the public, and what reformist model they drew from in these pursuits.

Adam Fish

Chapter 4. Corporate Liberalism and Video Producers

Abstract

Proformation is a portmanteau of pro duction/re formation––technological and political action for public access to the means of production on information infrastructures, be they satellite television systems or the internet. Proformers produce information for those reformed infrastructures, be it television programming or internet content. Proformations are also political. The term addresses the hybrid culture of information reform and information production at the interface of infrastructural praxis and communications rights. Proformers believe that the ability to access information infrastructures is a human right (Sithigh, Routledge Handbook of Media Law, 2012). It is a project for “media democratization” (Hackett and Carroll, Remaking Media: The Struggle to Democratize Public Communication, 2006; Klinenberg, Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America’s Media, 2007; MacKinnon, Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom, 2012).

Adam Fish

Chapter 5. Technoliberalism and the Origins of the Internet

Abstract

During the 2000 and 2012 US Presidential campaign trail, former Vice President Al Gore and former President Barack Obama prominently celebrated how the US government had financed the development of the internet. While Obama defended the role of government against neoliberal anti-statism, Gore defined himself as a politician with visionary acumen. By associating themselves with technology of immense economic, scientific, political, and social significance, the two politicians hoped to elevate themselves to higher political office. And yet, summoning the internet on the campaign trail produced two of the most catastrophic gaffes for both of these politicians, as journalists willfully misinterpreted these claims.

Adam Fish

Chapter 6. Technoliberalism and the Convergence Myth

Abstract

I was in a taxi on way to my motel in Nicosia, Cyprus, when I peered out the window and saw a scrappy tent encampment under olive trees and, oddly enough, a large and tattered Iraqi flag. I immediately asked the driver to stop, and got out with my video camera, ran across the street, and I was suddenly in the United Nations (UN) “green zone” that separates the Greek Cyprus from the Turkish Cyprus. UN security towers hovered over me, the deflated tents, broken chairs, and four Iraqi men. I introduced myself and they told me their story on mini-DV tape. They had smuggled themselves here and were camping out, protesting for asylum or a work visa.

Adam Fish

Chapter 7. Silophication of Media Industries

Abstract

Throughout my fieldwork with Current and FSTV, I encountered video producers discussing “silos,” “partnerships,” and “intersectionality” in order to frame and solve problems. While these framing exercises assist different sectors to cope with the complexity of modernity, they also reveal the contradictions inherent in the capitalist/democratic system that simultaneously requires fluidity in collaboration and employment and fixity in markets, policies, and personnel. The discursive frames such as silos and intersectionality are mechanisms to rationalize employment directives in a changing and complex work world.

Adam Fish

Chapter 8. Neoliberalism and Terminal Video

Abstract

In the past several years, internet video has become big business with major studios and technology companies investing millions in talent and multichannel networks. Based on interviews with those leading the explosive internet video industry, this chapter investigates the liberal politics—or the lack thereof—of several multichannel internet and video networks and examines the practices of self-branding executed by video entrepreneurs. By 2015, the corporate liberalism that used to regulate television was now out-dated. This chapter charts how earlier desires that internet video constitute a socially liberal public sphere for participatory politics and amateur production have been replaced by a gold rush of acquisition, conglomeration, and monopolization. Internet video is less an open, generative, and democratized platform and increasingly one dominated by the logic of capital.

Adam Fish

Chapter 9. Toward the Beginning of a New Participatory Culture

Abstract

A 2015 survey discovered that nine out of ten people engage in “binge watching,” defined as watching more than three episodes of a TV program in one day (TiVo 2015). Original Streamed Series Top Binge Viewing Survey for First Time.

Adam Fish

Backmatter

Titel: Technoliberalism and the End of Participatory Culture in the United States
verfasst von: Adam Fish
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-31256-9
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-31255-2
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31256-9