[Air-l] Technology & Tolerance

[Gina Neff]

On a related note, the role of the Internet on the political orientation of
news is being hotly debated among U.S. conservatives and liberals. In part
because the Federal Communications Commission is gearing up to loosen
ownership restrictions on mass media outlets, right and left have been
debating whether mass media still need to be as tigthly regulated with the
advent of the Internet. What's interesting to see in this debate is the way
the Internet is thought of as increasing access to the political ideas of
those making the argument. Yesterday's New York Times ran an article that
made an liberal McChesney-ite argument by saying that the Internet
challenges corporate media domination. This weekend Edward Lynch made a
similar argument from the right by saying that the Internet challenges
liberal domination of the media. IMHO, what's being left out of this debate
is the variable of who owns Internet news outlets, the probibitive expense
of constantly updated news, and the effects of the Internet crash on news
online.



links to both below...

best,
gina

Gina Neff
Department of Sociology
Columbia University




http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/02/business/media/02MEDI.html
NY Times 12/02/02
Fewer Media Owners, More Media Choices
By JIM RUTENBERG


For decades, public interest advocates have successfully argued for
stringent limits on the number of newspapers, radio stations and television
outlets that a company can own.

They have summoned images of Citizen Kane, or worse, Big Brother, warning
that without strict regulation a few powerful corporations could take
control of political discourse while homogenizing entertainment and
defanging news.

But the advocates are now facing an issue that is much more complicated
because despite consolidation, media choices have expanded exponentially
through technology. Now the typical American can watch Britain's BBC News,
among others, on television and choose from tens of thousands of news Web
sites, from Al Jazeera, based in Qatar, to The Times of India, based in New
Delhi. As a result, federal regulators are questioning whether fears of
corporate media domination have become obsolete.
....

http://www.freelancestar.com/News/FLS/2002/112002/11302002/799472
Democrats' old ally, Big Media, being drowned out by new voices

EDWARD LYNCH is chairman of the political science department at Hollins
University.

Date published: Sat, 11/30/2002

ROANOKE--Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said at a recent press
conference that conservative talk radio is responsible for threats to public
officials. Daschle provided no evidence even for the existence of threats,
and no evidence for any connection to talk radio.

His statements are probably no more than a reflection of the shock,
bewilderment and bitterness engendered by the role of alternative media,
such as talk radio, in the Republican sweep in the 2002 elections. For the
first time in more than 50 years, liberals are no longer the unchallenged
"gatekeepers" of this nation's news. ....