Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Who controls what you get to see and hear?
For my first blog post of the new semester I was thinking about whether or not to wade into the shallow water and write about Lady Gaga as post feminist icon, or dive into the deep end of the pool and write about "net neutrality," a topic that you may not know much about and one that I recognize isn’t nearly as interesting. But here goes…There is something a foot in world of content delivery that I think warrants greater awareness and understanding, and because it relates to a term like “net neutrality” that may be difficult to understand, consumers tend to avoid issues related to online gatekeepers - those companies that get to control what you see or hear. I think what peaked my interest in the subject was when Comcast, which has a vested interest in non-neutrality, purchased a 51% share of the NBC television network. This is an important development, because Comcast is pretty much a utility; a delivery system in which signals are sent from originating systems to your home or mobile device. NBC, in addition to its role in “over-the-airwaves” broadcasting, is a content developer. The current issue regards the Federal Communications Commission’s ability to impose “net neutrality” on Comcast, the nation’s largest cable TV and Internet operator. Who are the other players on the other side of the field? They include Google and Skype to name just two. If net neutrality is imposed on Comcast, then Google will have the ability to deliver content across what has been referred to as the “last mile,” which is the euphemistic term for the cable that pumps content through your town and the trunk that goes to your home. Without “net neutrality” Comcast and similar providers become the sole gatekeeper of what you get to see and hear in your home, including over the Internet. This issue isn’t going to go away too soon, as it will be tied up in the courts for a long time. What strikes me as interesting, however, in the reasons I think Comcast purchased NBC. Personally, I don’t think they care about the broadcast channel; they’re concerned about the content that NBC can provide their ever growing control over cable TV and the Internet. I don’t think broadcast TV is going to go away anytime soon, as it is still a great venue for “cultural” events like the Super Bowl. But the future is clear and it isn’t over the airwaves. The question remains, however, regarding who gets to control over the pipeline that delivers content to our homes and the content itself.
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I never considered who was controllin what I was seeing. I may have been naive in thinking that it was each television network that was responsible for what we see. It was not until after doing our group project on media conglomerates, that I realized that it was only three to four major companies controlling my media intake.
My project focused on Disney. Before doing this assignment I thought that Disney was a family-orientd company that had my best interests at heart. I was shocked to find out how much control that they have over what I see and hear. These conglomerates have the ability to control what I see. Although the FCC does the regulating, they do not create what I see. These conglomerates own various forms of media from theater, to television, to newspapers. If the conglomerate has a certain perception then evrything they produce will reflect their values and it is biased.
Another important thing to note is the idea of censorship. In the United States we have a large amount of autonomy of what can be shown on the television and Internet. In today's world I find it interesting that there are still places that censor media. Google recently cut ties with China because China was censoring the Internet. (There were other reasons that contributed to Google's decision, too.) Growing up in a Westernized culture has allowed me to see things from the media that many people are censored from in other countries. However, most of what I see is still filtered and controlled by these large media conglomerates.
This leaves me with the question: Is anything really objective today?
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