What Price Democracy In Web 2.0?
July 30th, 2009It’s been a long time since I’ve posted here, but the wheel turns and once again I find myself without an avenue to vent my spleen.
This time it’s the market economy. Or rather the unregulated, unfettered market economy.
Since the Economic Collapse and Global Recession the market economy has come in for a bit of a kicking.
In “the popular press” this is mainly because a few rich bankers have made squillions by ensuring big piles of the public’s money was deposited into their bank accounts, even if they mucked up.
However the unfettered market’s influence upon life goes a lot deeper into society and touches our very spirit to such an extent that we may not realise until it’s pointed out to us.
Take journalism, for example.
Journalists by and large pride themselves in being able to report events independently. This is a professional ethos which overrides any political, social or editorial bias.
So while I may hate rabidly right or left wing papers, I can always trust the journalists there to report news fairly and accurately. It may then be spun editorially, but that’s a different matter.
Then there’s the investigative journalist. These are a different breed to the common-everyday news journalist. It would be unfair to say they look to dig the dirt, but they do seek to question and challenge authority, to out hypocrisy wherever it is found.
That sounds horribly like moralising, but who among us expects our favoured politicians to be morally WORSE than the general public?
Raise your hand… no, no one? So we’re agreed our politicians have to be “better” than us, and so have to be held to account in the public gaze. This is what journalists do.
Key fact: no national newspaper in the UK has been self-sustaining for, oh, donkeys’ year. All are supported by a benefactor (owner) who puts in more money than they get out.
So, in short, sales and advertising revenue never meet the cost of running the paper.
This was what was so special about The Independent when it was launched. It had an owner who would support it, but it was “independent” because that owner would exercise no editorial control over the paper’s content. Quite an eye opener when you think about it.
However, for all the brassy blares and trumpets of national papers’ exposés of a model’s sex life, a pop star’s drug habits and some MP’s duck pond, this is not where democracy rests. It rests in the even more impoverished backwaters of the local rag.
Why? Because to be shamed in the national press is nothing for someone who holds power: a politician, businessman, academic, or suchlike. You can ride that out.
But if your local paper decides to get hold of you: expose the fact a highly regarded local figure has been having an affair/sniffing coke/laughing at the locals’ stupidity, then it would be curtains.
Hi Ho Silver! Electronic Democracy To The Rescue!!
Actually, no.
But wait, isn’t there this electronic online web thingamy which is much much cheaper to run? Yes, but it has one crucial drawback .. it relies wholly upon advertising.
The Times, The Telegraph, The Mirror, The Mail (deep breath) The Observer, The Sunday Times, The … oh witchamwoosit; The South Bucks Star; Northants Herald; Durham Trumpeter .. all of these are available online (I made up the local paper names by the way).
But they’re all available free — no subscription needed. That means their only source of revenue is advertising.
All but a few local newspapers are owned by national or international media companies. These papers are being culled because they bring in no national kudos, and even less revenue.
And so the heartblood of democracy starts to sputter out from it’s severed arteries.
Can You See What It Is Yet?
However this reliance upon advertising brings in different questions.
For instance, a tweet went past me earlier today which said, in paraphrase, “Sigh, will there ever the a communication technology which doesn’t attract spammers?”
My answer is “No, so long as that communication technology relies upon advertising”.
In the brave new world of Web 2.0 spammers are simply amoral advertisers. It would take a braver man than me to draw a dividing line between the two, and I suggest that someone who could draw that line deserves a stonkingly well paid position in a government of their choice.
In the meantime, my local town-based radio station recently closed. Redundancies: about 10. Service to the community: priceless.
I live in South Buckinghamshire: our only alternatives are BBC Berkshire (ummm.. wrong county) or BBC Three Counties (Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire) (umm .. wrong counties!!).
So we have no local radio. None. Zippo. The only way to find out how bad traffic is .. is to get into your car.
Do you want it to be the same for your politicians and businessmen .. that the only way you find out how corrupt they are when they’ve retired with squillions of taxpayers’ money safely stashed into their bank accounts?
This pattern is going on across the UK and it’s lifeblood is draining out of local communities. It’s local paper which keep local politicians honest. Without them…..
The Government Doesn’t Care About Democracy
The final nail in the coffin has come from the Government’s “grand” commission on Digital Britain , whose chair recently announced that:
The Commission’s role and expertise do not lend themselves to examining the health of local newspapers or isolating the impacts of specific local authority practices on commercial bodies. This element of Digital Britain invitation appears better suited to regulators with a specific competition remit.
Please read this quote very carefully. It says alot more than you may think at first glance.
Remember what I said before about journalists priding themselves on always being accurate and fair? How can you be accurate and fair if you are regulated … can a regulated body attack the people it is regulated by?
This is the quandary which is forever landing the BBC (the only wholly regulated news outlet in the UK) in trouble, and they have no advertisers.
Imagine the scene if you had both regulators and advertisers vying for editorial influence .. who would win? The people who make the rules, or the people who pay you? Think long and hard before answering.
The truth is there is no such thing as a free press..
… and except for a few examples there never has been. Everyone has a point of view, but the wonderful thing about mass media to date is that they have been free to express that opinion.
However, tabloid journalism and reality TV have started a trend when sensation in a story is more important than substance.
If, under the current model, journalism becomes wholly web based, journalists will have to ensure their stories promote the interests of the advertisers, because that drives traffic, and therefore the pay packet.
And if that happens we will have reached the zenith of the market economy, where commercial interests override those of public interest, What wonderful irony in the depth of a recession.
As Dominic Cooper, General Secretary of the Chartered Institute of Journalists recently said,
last week a council publication in Cornwall closed after 11 months at a cost of £700,000 to taxpayers – but unless their overall effects are studied the question still remains: What price democracy?
Now, I don’t want state run newspapers
But nor do I want newspapers whose sole rationale is to ensure advertising revenue (”traffic”, in Web 2.0 speak) dictates their editorial policy.
Somewhere there has to be a level head, someone who can understand that supporting local newspapers and the democratic principle which they represent is more important than simple commercial gain.
If this person isn’t found, and fast, then we may we rewinding very quickly to the feudal landlord who can control and punish all who speak against him. The unfettered market economy.