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  • Showing only topics in ~talk with the tag "media". Back to normal view / Search all groups
    1. How much does a creator's worldview influence whether you use their tech or consume their media?

      Watching the drama around kagi unfold and it has me wondering how much you take into consideration a creator's view on things like homophobia, sexism, racism, etc. when deciding to use a product....

      Watching the drama around kagi unfold and it has me wondering how much you take into consideration a creator's view on things like homophobia, sexism, racism, etc. when deciding to use a product. I think most of us have a bar somewhere (I would imagine very few on this website would ever consider registering on an altright platform), so where is that bar for you? What about art? Have you boycotted JKR or dropped your opinion about Picasso because they're transphobic and misogynistic respectively? Is it about the general vibe of a product or piece of media, or are you more discerning? What goes into this decision and why?

      48 votes
    2. On media outlets frequent use of the term "Iranian-backed"

      Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthi rebels in Yemen, and militias in Iraq and Syria. Whenever western media outlets speak of these groups they seem to prefix the term Iranian-Backed. I'm...

      Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthi rebels in Yemen, and militias in Iraq and Syria.

      Whenever western media outlets speak of these groups they seem to prefix the term Iranian-Backed.

      I'm starting to raise my eyebrows a bit at how universally the term is being used. It feels almost mandated. My understanding is these are indeed supported financially and materially by Iran, but they also very much operate independently. So the extent of the relationship is unknown or at least debated.

      Does this strike anyone else as odd or suspicious? Is this use fair and justified?

      My mind can't help but wander to the laying of a propaganda foundation for direct conflict with Iran.

      23 votes
    3. Lost media

      One of my favorite rabbit holes is lost media. There are two definitions for how it usually comes up: first is media which is considered lost or otherwise inaccessible. The second isn't...

      One of my favorite rabbit holes is lost media. There are two definitions for how it usually comes up: first is media which is considered lost or otherwise inaccessible. The second isn't necessarily lost for sure, but simply relatively obscure media people can't identify. A lot of searches start with people recounting some vaguely traumatizing memory of some TV show, movie or book from their childhood, which can then turn into a vicious hunt that takes years to solve. The most famous example is probably the "Clock Man" which played a big role in drawing general attention to the concept of lost media.

      Famous examples include the early seasons of Doctor Who, London After Midnight (and many, many, many other silent films), the first Superbowl, an extended version of the ending of Freaks, the original 9-hour cut of Greed... You can find countless ongoing searches today for all sorts of media ranging from songs to video games to commercials and even commercial bumpers.

      It's a fun rabbit hole, particularly when you look into the searches themselves and how media gets found. Does anyone have any particular pieces of lost media you're looking for or invested in, or a search or piece you just find interesting? Feel free to talk about cases that have been found, too!

      44 votes
    4. What are some things you do "the old fashioned way," which might come with unexpected benefits over the modern, "improved" way of doing things?

      My examples have to do with tech/media, but it could be anything - old fashioned or "outdated" ways of cooking, communicating, hobbies, or mending things rather than replacing them, etc. Owning...

      My examples have to do with tech/media, but it could be anything - old fashioned or "outdated" ways of cooking, communicating, hobbies, or mending things rather than replacing them, etc.


      Owning DVDs

      Earlier this year my husband and I had an irresistible urge to watch the masterpiece film that is Shrek. I hoped that one of the most popular animated movies of all time would be available at no charge to me, but of course it was not on Hulu, HBO, Netflix, or included with Prime. So that's great, I'm paying something around $50 a month for all these libraries of media, and somehow find myself paying extra whenever I want to watch something specific. Fair enough though, that's part of the deal I guess.

      We decide to rent the movie on Amazon for $5. A couple years ago, I'm pretty sure renting movies like this was more around $2-3 and they've been slowly bumping it up. Okay. Everything gets more expensive. We try to start streaming the movie, and Amazon gives us this pop-up that says they've detected the hardware we're streaming it on (it's apparently a bit outdated,) so it's going to choose a specific version of the movie for us, one that didn't use some new technology related to streaming quality. That's fine in itself, but it just got me thinking about how much control these streaming companies have over all of this. My TV is at least 15 years old, works perfectly fine, and I don't see myself replacing it anytime soon. My imagination went the dramatic route, picturing a future where Amazon and its ilk will only stream to newer computers/TVs, either for a legitimate technological reason, or because they've struck a conniving secret deal with the TV manufacturers. Again, dramatic I know, but my point is just the general idea that these companies make all the decisions with streaming; we own and decide nothing.

      Ultimately, I realized I could have easily found a DVD of Shrek for $1-2 at practically any used bookstore, and I would have not only saved money, I would have avoided giving my money to Daddy Bezos, and gained ownership of a fairly permanent copy of the movie. And what could be better than the ability to watch Shrek on repeat for the rest of my life?

      So basically my husband and I have started a DVD collection. We have date nights at used bookstores and pick up all kinds of unexpected treasures. Childhood favorites we had forgotten about, classics we haven't seen in years, DVDs with extensive special features, some with really nicely designed packaging. For some reason, browsing the DVD shelves is like the fun version of scrolling aimlessly through endless streaming catalogs and not being able to decide what to watch. It reminds me of one of the greatest joys of growing up as a child in the 90s - getting to go to Blockbuster (or in my neighborhood, "Mr. Movies") and frolicking around with your friends/siblings, physically checking out the cases, and debating over which ones are the best (Mom is on a budget, after all.)

      I have been pleasantly surprised by how novel and enjoyable it has been.


      Owning Music

      My second thing started when I realized I really want to spend more time away from my phone. I've also been jogging recently and have been annoyed/confused about what to do with this massive phone that I want with me for music (I try to buy small phones but they barely exist anymore.) Probably inspired by my recent "discovery" of the joys of DVDs, I decided to spend $25 on a tiny, simple mp3 player that clips onto my clothes. A music player that isn't also a social media machine which is connected to the entire world and every human being I've ever known, at any given moment. Just music.

      Then I realized that I haven't owned any music (or paid any artist directly for their music,) in at least a decade. I genuinely didn't even know where to buy music at first. The last time I bought music, I was 17 years old and hadn't yet freed myself from the Apple/itunes ecosystem ("freed" myself from it, right into the Google/Pixel ecosystem, of course.) Someone suggested Bandcamp, as when you buy music on there it comes with the option to download mp3s. I've had fun discovering some new artists on the platform. And although I really like supporting artists directly, to make my collection a bit more frugal I've started picking up a couple cheap CDs when we go shopping for DVDs. I just export the music as mp3s with some free software. I'm not an audiophile, and the quality seems just fine to me. Next, I think I'll visit my parents and get some mp3s from their boomer CD collection.

      All of this also prompted my husband to dig out an old hard drive of his, which we found had a massive goldmine of all the music he listened to in college (and he had/has fantastic taste in music!) Some of my favorites, plus all kinds of random bands and genres that I wouldn't necessarily think to seek out on Spotify, but they're in my lovely collection now, so why not listen? :)

      (A bonus to exploring the old media was finding some ridiculous photos and memes he had saved from college. Bless him and his radical vulnerability, I couldn't believe he was willing to browse the hard drive with me while having no idea what was on it. Thankfully for him, it was mostly just good music, along with photos of sharks with large human teeth photoshopped onto them. He is so pure.)


      The DVD/MP3 thing seems like a no brainer now that I've tried it, and I'm sure it will seem silly to some of you, but it simply didn't occur to me for years. Maybe something about my age - being 31 years old, the transition to streaming media happened just about exactly when I graduated from highschool and became an adult. I had no personal DVD collections to bring to my first apartment, and I certainly wasn't going to buy any - Netflix was all the rage, around $8/month, and practically no one actually paid for their own account. And having only purchased one or two physical CDs in my life, I did have a large mp3 collection from iTunes and Limewire as a teenager, but that died pretty quickly once we moved from iPods to phones for music, which happened around the same time. I think I transferred MP3s to my first one or two phones and lost them after that.

      Anyway, in a world increasingly impacted by enshittification, with companies relentlessly pushing towards the breaking point of what we will tolerate when it comes to how we spend our time and money, I'm sure there are other "hidden in plain sight" realizations I'm missing out on.

      106 votes
    5. Do you think news media even exists today as a separate pillar of democracy?

      There used to be a time some decades ago when media was often touted as a separate pillar of democracy, as in it was supposed to keep checks on the govt of the day. Mass Journalism was a...

      There used to be a time some decades ago when media was often touted as a separate pillar of democracy, as in it was supposed to keep checks on the govt of the day. Mass Journalism was a professional branch of study or course in universities (probably still is?) and it used to be highly principled. In fact, being principled was often thought of as a quality of journalism more than anything else!

      But in today's world, I see that changing a lot. Most media houses across the world are state controlled media, you can see it from the kind of stories they come up with, etc. More than that, media has directly become a function of electoral politics, you'll hardly find any content which relates to society or the ordinary working class human, as separate from electoral politics.

      You'll hardly find any media house vehemently or openly criticizing its own country's govt (though funnily, each will be criticizing other countries' govts and/or based on ideology!). Even when the criticism is there, it's in a very controlled and nuanced form. It's not so difficult to make 2+2 equals 4 here?

      This didn't used to happen in earlier decades. When I grew up watching Doordarshan TV, there was hardly any news at all in India - except for that one 9:00 PM news show which came once every day, that was in fact a quiet and peaceful world to live in! This constant bombardment of political news has become a problem. I think, we need news which is people centric and talks about the issues of working class citizens. Do you think such a kind of media will ever evolve?

      17 votes
    6. Does anyone read a weekly printed news publication? If so, which and why?

      I was nervous to post this in ~news, because it's more of a question than a story, but here goes. I'm looking to turn down the temperature, pace, and volume of my news consumption habits, as well...

      I was nervous to post this in ~news, because it's more of a question than a story, but here goes.

      I'm looking to turn down the temperature, pace, and volume of my news consumption habits, as well as limit how much time I stare at a screen (I do that enough professionally). I've recently experimented with subscribing to fewer, higher-quality news sources and getting them delivered via RSS*. This works pretty well, but I'm still left looking for something even slower. Something like a weekly news publication, which is delivered once a week in a print format that I can read away from a screen.

      I've subscribed to Sunday papers in the past, but it's too much and there's a lot in it - I think I'm looking for a little .. less. A slimmer publication, fewer pages. Almost as if someone selected the top five to seven stories covered on the Wikipedia current events page in the week, then wrote a few thousand words apiece on each. Something I can make it through with my coffee on Sunday mornings in a few hours.

      Does anyone do this or have recommendations? If so, what do you read and how would you assess that publication? I think I've tried a fair number in the past, but I will take anyone's suggestions. Thank you so much in advance.

      --
      *I use Reeder for macOS / iOS - which is great btw, and it's shocking how much of the modern web still supports RSS. Highly recommend folks reconsider RSS in general.

      38 votes
    7. What are some of your favorite melodramas?

      From Wikipedia A modern melodrama is a dramatic work in which the plot, typically sensationalized and for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodramas...

      From Wikipedia

      A modern melodrama is a dramatic work in which the plot, typically sensationalized and for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodramas typically concentrate on dialogue that is often bombastic or excessively sentimental, rather than action. Characters are often flat, and written to fulfill stereotypes.

      Contemporarily, we use the word melodrama for narrative works that go to great lengths to induce certain kinds of emotion at all costs, to detriment of the internal cohesion of both plot and characterization, often in a manner that some consider cheesy, corny, or excessive. All soap operas are melodramas, as are many movies and TV shows. Some melodramas are cheap and fail to achieve their effects, while others can be more rich and even sophisticated. In a way, many mainstream stories are, to some extent, melodramas, even when there are other, more salient genres. There's melodrama in action, crime, and science fiction.

      Here are some examples of what I consider more or less contemporary melodramas:

      And here are some stories that are not melodrama, but contain a whole lot of it:

      7 votes
    8. What are the main news sources in your country?

      Here in Brazil we have: Globo, the generic "centrist"/neoliberal TV news outlet. Used subtle methods of backing a right-wing candidate in the 90s who then ruined the Brazilian economy and...

      Here in Brazil we have:

      Globo, the generic "centrist"/neoliberal TV news outlet. Used subtle methods of backing a right-wing candidate in the 90s who then ruined the Brazilian economy and (apparently) massively exaggerated the Car Wash operation, even if Lula did something wrong.

      Record, which is owned by the largest evangelical Church here and I'd imagine is often a mouthpiece for them.

      Cultura, which is the only traditional news outlet here that can actually be called left-leaning, and I don't think they are as ostensibly "moderate" as the American news outlets, which is good.

      Band, which is the one all about showing all the crime all the time, presumably to justify the law and order policies as opposed to welfare to it's viewers.

      From here we have various (mostly but not entirely) right-wing and religious 'news' channels.

      Online there are news outlets like Nexo, El País (for Brazil) and the international news outlets which will occasionally cover the big Brazilian news stories, but I don't think most of them are very popular, at least among most people who, for how divided we are, aren't that political, especially if you aren't a Bolsonarist or Leftist.

      14 votes
    9. Do you read 'old news'/article archives?

      Asked because I like the idea of reading about the past and feel unsatisfied by r/history and r/askhistorians mainly because reddit's search isn't that great and those subs have a much wider scope...

      Asked because I like the idea of reading about the past and feel unsatisfied by r/history and r/askhistorians mainly because reddit's search isn't that great and those subs have a much wider scope than most news archives.

      I'm gonna do this on a Q&A format. Note that "old news" doesn't need to be news articles, it can be blogs for example.

      If you read old news/articles, where do you get them from/find them?

      What kind of "old news" do you read?

      What historical period do you tend to read about?

      If you're reading an article about a historical event you remember, how does your memory tend to compare to those articles?

      How often do you do it?

      What do you think about subreddits like r/twentyyearsago, since they're basically trawling through those news archives?

      7 votes
    10. If you read any news sources/publications for more specific/alternative subjects, what are they?

      Tl;dr typical news sources tend to prioritize political and governmental events and the things that surround them, like economics and social issues, even if they cover everything, and by covering...

      Tl;dr typical news sources tend to prioritize political and governmental events and the things that surround them, like economics and social issues, even if they cover everything, and by covering everything they probably stretch themselves thinly among what they don't prioritize. (At least that's how it feels.)

      A few examples of what I'm thinking of are:

      Foreign Affairs, who focus specifically on geopolitics

      The Scientific American, which focuses specifically on... science.

      Aeon, which seems to focus on "the humanities". (vaaague.)

      So... what are your examples of news sources/publications like this that you follow?

      8 votes
    11. Podcast discussions & recommendations! What are you listening to?

      Tildes has had a couple of threads about podcast recommendations in the past, but most of them are over 18 months old now, and podcasts are always evolving, and we have new members who may not...

      Tildes has had a couple of threads about podcast recommendations in the past, but most of them are over 18 months old now, and podcasts are always evolving, and we have new members who may not have participated in those threads before—I certainly only picked up podcasts in the last few months.

      So. Three questions!

      • What podcasts are you listening to?
      • What podcasts have you dropped, or picked up, in that time?
      • If you had to recommend a couple of podcasts to others, which shows would you pick? Why do you recommend them? Got a favourite episode?
      28 votes
    12. How could we regulate biased/lying media outlets and aggregators without encroaching on good ones?

      I find this to be a pretty important question when news organizations like Fox News are literally aiming to help the Republican Party to stay on power, CNN and MSNBC promote centrist candidates...

      I find this to be a pretty important question when news organizations like Fox News are literally aiming to help the Republican Party to stay on power, CNN and MSNBC promote centrist candidates and media aggregators ranging from r/the_donald to r/chapotraphouse banning anyone who opposes them. Thing is, these are the most well known examples. How could we tell faulty media sources and aggregators apart from good ones in mass? Do you think that's possible?

      15 votes
    13. What are some things other people dislike that you quite enjoy?

      Could be a game, book, movie, song, etc that is generally considered subpar. Personally, I quite like a lot of Eminem's new music, although I know it's an unpopular opinion. It certainly doesn't...

      Could be a game, book, movie, song, etc that is generally considered subpar. Personally, I quite like a lot of Eminem's new music, although I know it's an unpopular opinion. It certainly doesn't hit the same highs and there are a lot of stinkers but I still think some of it is quite good and worth a listen despite the circlejerk. I've also been playing Just Cause 4 lately, and although it certainly isn't a masterpiece and I will say the story is below the others, to me Just Cause was never about the story. It's about getting in there and just having fun causing chaos and generally messing around.

      37 votes
    14. What are reliable sites for thoughtful content from a non-American perspective?

      I came across a site about Chinese tech and video gaming and found it very Buzzfeed-y with its headlines and writing. It made me wonder what are the websites that curate a standard of thoughtful...

      I came across a site about Chinese tech and video gaming and found it very Buzzfeed-y with its headlines and writing. It made me wonder what are the websites that curate a standard of thoughtful articles, essays, discussion, etc. and aren't part of the American internet scene.

      I don't care what language it's in, what it's about, what country specifically it's centered on, if it's community-centric or not. If you have a suggestion, let's hear it.

      Edit: An example I have is The Blizzard. It's really a subscription-model digital magazine (about soccer) but you can read various articles online.

      21 votes
    15. Prompted by a recent post, I asked myself: is collecting digital media really considered hoarding?

      From this Tildes post https://tildes.net/~music/7vc/anyone_still_listening_to_music_with_files_instead_of_streaming I started thinking. To me, curating my own collections so that I can experience...

      From this Tildes post https://tildes.net/~music/7vc/anyone_still_listening_to_music_with_files_instead_of_streaming

      I started thinking. To me, curating my own collections so that I can experience them only makes common sense. And I also journal on what I read, watch, and listen to. I've known a few hoarders in my life, who enlarge their homes to house tons of material things that they'll never use and can't throw away.

      In my own case, I'm slowly winnowing down the hundred or so CD's, books, and movies I own just because they take up space and I don't want my kids having to have a massive garage sale when I die. And I really like that I can have a whole library basically on an old phone that holds an SDHC card.

      So is obsession/compulsion with digital media the same as physical hoarding? Is it just as harmful? And how do I class the tons of emails, mostly work, that I don't bother to throw away because it's just too time consuming? The same thing goes for family and self snapped photos. To me they're in a different category altogether.

      Am I the biggest, most hypocritical minimalist ever? Is there such a thing as non-material materialism? What are your justifications for or against streaming vs. accumulating?

      19 votes
    16. What does the online / social media world look like to you, what would you want?

      Some of you may have heard that Google+ will be shutting down in August, 2019. Though much criticised (including by me), the site offered some compelling dynamics, and I've reflected a lot on...

      Some of you may have heard that Google+ will be shutting down in August, 2019. Though much criticised (including by me), the site offered some compelling dynamics, and I've reflected a lot on those.

      I'm involved in the effort to find new homes for Plussers and Communities, which has become something of an excuse to explore and redefine what "online" and "social" media are ("PlexodusWiki").

      Part of this involves some frankly embarrassing attempts to try to define what social media is, and what its properties are (both topics reflected heavily in the recent-changes section of the wiki above).

      Tildes is ... among the potential target sites (there are a few Plussers, some of whom I really appreciated knowing and hearing from there), here, though the site dynamics make discovering and following them hard. This site is evolving its own culture and dynamics, parts of which I'm becoming aware of.

      I've been online for well over 30 years, and discovered my first online communities via Unix talk, email, FTP, and Usenet, as well as (no kidding) a computerised university library catalogue system. Unsurprisingly: if you provide a way, especially for bright and precocious minds to interact with one another, they will. I've watched several evolutions of Internet and Web, now increasing App-based platforms. There are differences, but also similarities and patterns emerging. Lessons from previous eras of television, radio, telephony, telegraphy, print, writing, oral traditions, and more, can be applied.

      I've got far more questions than answers and thought I'd put a few out here:

      • What does online or social media mean to you? Is it all user-generated content platforms? Web only? Apps? Email or chat? Wikis? GitHub, GitLab, and StackExchange?

      • Is social networking as exemplified by Facebook or Twitter net good or bad? Why? If bad, how might you fix it? Or is it time to simply retreat?

      • What properties or characteristics would you use to specify, define, or distinguish social or online media?

      • What emergent properties -- site dynamics, if you will -- are positive or negative? What are those based on?

      • What are the positive and negative aspects of scale?

      • What risks would you consider in self-hosting either your own or a group's online presence?

      • What is/was the best online community experience you've had? What characterised it? How did it form? How did it fail (if it did)?

      • What elements would comprise your ideal online experience?

      • What would you nuke from orbit, after takeoff, just to be sure?

      • Are you or your group seeking new options or platforms? What process / considerations do you have?

      I could keep going and will regret not adding other questions, but this is a good start. Feel free to suggest other dimensions, though some focus on what I've prompted with would be appreciated.

      19 votes
    17. US jobs report - The numbers we do NOT talk about

      I almost posted this in ~news but wasn't really sure so feel free to move the post if I got it wrong. The new jobs report is out: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm I consistently...

      I almost posted this in ~news but wasn't really sure so feel free to move the post if I got it wrong.

      The new jobs report is out:
      https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

      I consistently feel like the media just runs with the unemployment rate and ignores the other very important numbers. I think that the economy isn't really "booming" for ordinary Americans and I think that the numbers in the job report that aren't widely talked about are eye-opening.

      These numbers used to be talked about a LOT more immediately after the 2008 recessions and during the OWS protests.

      To be clear, I'm happy the stock market is up but I don't think it's "trickling" down all that much.

      Some examples:

      Long-term unemployed are not finding work:

      The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was little changed at 1.4 million over the month; these individuals accounted for 22.9 percent of the unemployed. (See table A-12.)

      There are ~4.5 million people who are working part-time who want to work full time, and that number is rapidly growing with ~250,000 added since last quarter:

      The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) increased by 263,000 to 4.6 million in September. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been reduced or they were unable to find full-time jobs. (See table A-8.)

      More than 1.5 million American's gave up looking for work:

      In September, 1.6 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, essentially unchanged from a year earlier. (Data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See table A-16.)

      19 votes
    18. Moving from advertising-supported media to a sustainable, high-quality, alternative -- some light reading

      This is a complex issue and one that's hard to address succinctly. It gets into the larger matter of media and its role and interaction with society, which is profound. This includes political and...

      This is a complex issue and one that's hard to address succinctly. It gets into the larger matter of media and its role and interaction with society, which is profound. This includes political and social elements going far beyond consumerism and consumption, though those are part of the dynamic.

      For a short answer: advertising is not the only problem, but is a large component of a set of conflicts concerning information and media. It both directly and indirectly promotes disinformation and misinformation, opens avenues to propaganda and manipulation, and fails to promote and support high-quality content. It also has very real costs: globally advertising is a $600 billion/year industry, largely paid out of consumer spending among the world's 1 billion or so wealthy inhabitants of Europe, North America, and Japan. This works out to about $600/year per person in direct expense. On top of the indirect and negative-externality factors. Internet advertising is roughly $100 billion, or $100/yr. per person if you live in the US, Canada, EU, UK, Japan, Australia, or New Zealand. The "free" Internet is not free.

      And the system itself is directly implicated in a tremendous amount of the breakdown of media, politics, and society over the past several years. Jonathan Albright, ex-Googler, now a scholar of media at the Tow Center (and its research director), Columbia University in New York, "Who Hacked the Election? Ad Tech did. Through “Fake News,” Identity Resolution and Hyper-Personalization", and editor of d1g (estT) (on Medium).

      [S]cores of highly sophisticated technology providers — mostly US-based companies that specialize in building advanced solutions for audience “identity resolution,” content tailoring and personalization, cross-platform targeting, and A/B message testing and optimization — are running the data show behind the worst of these “fake news” sites.

      (Emphasis in original.)

      A Media Reader

      By way of a longer response, I'd suggest some reading, of which I've been doing a great deal. Among the starting points I'd suggest the following, in rough order. Further recommendations are very much welcomed.

      Tim Wu

      The Attention Merchants is a contemporary version of the media, attention, distraction, disinformation, manipulation, and power game that's discussed further in the following references. If you're looking for current state-of-the-art, start here. Ryan Holiday and Trust Me, I'm Lying is a 2012 expose of the online media system. For an older view, Vance Packard's 1950s classic (updated), The Hidden Persuaders gives perspective both on what methods are timeless, and what's changed. A 2007 New York Times essay on the book gives a good overview.

      Hamilton Holt

      Commercialism and Journalism (1909) is a brief, easy, and fact-filled account of the American publishing industry, especially of newspapers and magazines, at the dawn of the 20th century. Holt was himself a publisher, of The Independent, and delivered this book as a lecture at the University of California. It gives an account of the previous 50 years or so of development in publishing, including various technologies, but putting the greatest impact on advertising. I'm not aware that this is particularly well-noted, but I find it a wonderfully concise summary of many of the issues, and a view from near the start of the current system. Holt includes this quote from an unnamed New York journalist:

      There is no such thing in America as an independent press. I am paid for keeping honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. If I should allow honest opinions to be printed in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation, like Othello's, would be gone. The business of a New Yourk journalist is to distort the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the foot of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. We are the tools or vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. Our time, our talents, our lives, our possibilities, are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.

      (An HN commenter reveals that this was John Swinton.)

      Jerry Mander

      Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. This is a 1970s classic that's held its value. Mander is an ad executive himself, though he took his talents to the Environmental movement, working closely with David Brower of the Sierra Club.

      Adam Curtis

      BBC documentarian, most especially The Century of the Self (part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4), and Hypernormalisation. These documentaries, the first a four-part series, the second a self-contained 2h40m single session, focus on media and propaganda. The first especially on Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud (Bernays' uncle), advertising, and propaganda. The second on Vladimir Putin.

      Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky

      Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. The title itself comes from Walter Lippmann and his earlier work, Public Opinion, which is something of a guide to its manufacture, and the genesis of "modern" 20th century media. The notion of mass media as having a political economy is a critical element in answering your question. That is: media is inherently political and economic, and advertising and propaganda (or as it was rebranded, "public relations"), all the more so.

      Robert W. McChesney

      McChesney has been continuing the exploration of media from a political-economic perspective and has an extensive bibliography. His Communication Revolution in particular discusses his own path through the field, including extensive references.

      Marshall McLuhan

      Particularly The Gutenberg Galaxy and The Medium is the Message.

      Elisabeth Eisenstein

      Either her book The Printing Press as an Agent of Change or the earlier (and much shorter) article that pressaged it, "Some Conjectures about the Impact of Printing on Western Society and Thought: A Preliminary Report" (more interesting than its title, I promise). Eisenstein draws heavily on, and improves greatly on the rigour of, McLuhan.

      Generally: Other 19th and 20th century media scholars and writers

      H.L. Mencken, I.F. Stone, and perhaps Walter Lippmann and John Dewey. Mencken and Stone are particularly given to shorter essays (see especially The I.F. Stone Weekly Reader, The Best of I.F. Stone and his New York Review of Books articles) which can be readily digested. Mencken's "Bayard vs. Lionheart" whilst not specifically concerning advertising largely describes the crowd-psychology inherent in mediocre or pathological social-political outcomes, and is a short and brilliant read. Mencken has a long list of further writings.

      Edward Bernays

      Especially Propaganda and Public Relations. Bernays created the field of public relations, and largely drove the popular support of "democracy" (a WWI war bonds advertising slogan) in favour of the earlier "liberty". For Stone, I cannot recommend his Day at Night interview (~1974) highly enough. 30 minutes. Bernays' New York Times obituary makes interesting reading.

      Charles-Marie Gustave Le Bon

      The Crowd: A study of the popular mind. "[C]onsidered one of the seminal works of crowd psychology." Wikipedia article.

      Charles Mackay

      Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841). "[O]ften cited as the best book ever written about market psychology." Wikipedia article.

      I have yet to read all of these works, though they're on my list, and I've at least reviewed most of the works and authors and am familiar with major themes. Virtually all of these will lead to other sources -- books, articles, authors, fields of study -- by way of bibliographies (looking backward) and citations (looking forward). Among my favourite and most fruitful research techniques.

      This is also really just a starting point, though I hope it's a good one. Media isn't my field, or rather, I'd thought that, working in technology, it wasn't, but I've come to realise that (1) "information technology" is in very large part "media technology", and (2) the interactions of media systems and society, politics, economics, even culture as a whole, are beyond deep, and highly underappreciated.

      The role of mass media in the spread of early-20th century Fascism is a particularly sobering story. See "Radio and the Rise of The Nazis in Prewar Germany", and recognise that you could include cinema, magnetic audio tape recording, public address systems (it's hard to address three quarters of a million people without amplification). More recently, radio has been studied in conjunction with the 1994 Rwandan genocide. These remain extant issues.

      Bootnote

      Adapted from a StackExchange contribution.

      14 votes
    19. How would you theoretically go about mitigating the potential near-complete loss of archived audio and video media from 1990 to 2020?

      This article from last year provides an alarming look into the woes that media preservation (specifically audio and video) is facing this century due to a content explosion that shows no signs of...

      This article from last year provides an alarming look into the woes that media preservation (specifically audio and video) is facing this century due to a content explosion that shows no signs of slowing down. It’s not a new problem, as journalist Bill Holland showed nearly 20 years ago (warning, it’s a long read).

      To summarize: In the past, many predecessors to existing media studios did a bad job of archiving their collections of recorded material. In some cases they actively destroyed or threw out parts of their catalogs to make way for new material. This wiped out portions of the available media to be preserved, especially the older stuff. Now that most studios have improved their archival practices though, their remaining catalogs are facing a new foe: Moore’s Law.

      The problem with LTO (tapes) is obsolescence. Since the beginning, the technology has been on a Moore’s Law–like march that has resulted in a doubling in tape storage densities every 18 to 24 months. As each new generation of LTO comes to market, an older generation of LTO becomes obsolete… Already there have been seven generations of LTO in the 18 years of the product’s existence… Given the short period of backward compatibility — just two generations — an LTO-5 cartridge, which can still be read on an LTO-7 drive, won’t be readable on an LTO-8 drive. So even if that tape is still free from defects in 30 or 50 years, all those gigabytes or terabytes of data will be worthless if you don’t also have a drive upon which to play it.

      If the worst case scenario were to happen, this is apparently what it would look like according to “a top technician at Technicolor”:

      “There’s going to be a large dead period,” he told me, “from the late ’90s through 2020, where most media will be lost.”

      But not everyone is that worried, the article also includes this counterpoint,

      “Most of the archivists I spoke with remain — officially at least — optimistic that a good, sound, post-LTO solution will eventually emerge.”

      /u/boredop and I have been discussing the implications of this in the thread they posted a few days ago about a John Coltrane release, and in the course of that discussion they provided that second link to Bill Holland’s multi-part investigation (thanks!).

      So my question is this: What direct or indirect measures would you theoretically take to prevent or mitigate the loss of the vast majority of recorded media from 1990 to 2020? Should any measures be taken to preserve these cultural artifacts?

      By direct measures I mean innovations to physical archiving or storage methods. By indirect measures I mean public awareness, strategies for choosing what to save, workarounds, etc.

      23 votes
    20. What new media delineations or paradigms should replace the old ones?

      Movies, TV shows, and newspapers are just a few examples of the traditional media designations that dominated the 20th century. However, the digital revolution (and the internet in particular) has...

      Movies, TV shows, and newspapers are just a few examples of the traditional media designations that dominated the 20th century. However, the digital revolution (and the internet in particular) has rendered them mostly meaningless now because the analog boundaries that separated them are no longer relevant.

      Given the present-day proliferation of platform-agnostic content, what new designations or delineations do you think the world will (or should) adopt in the next century once traditional media is dead?

      5 votes