F2C, part 3

Open Wireless

Rich Miner, Google: Talking about Android, an open development platform for mobile application. "There is a stifling on innovation in the mobile space... because the ecosystem is a closed one. If you're trying to invent... applications... openness by just publishing APIs is not very open.... The level of control that these platforms maintain prevents [actors] from innovating."

More back channel chatter:

Frank P.	herrding cats is one thing, controlling the speed is something else
Russ N.	When is the next squeaker?
Brett G.	We're gonna need a litterbox.
Iz W.	shameless client promotion: electric sheep on android http://draves.org/blog/archives/000549.html
Frank P.	every android's dream
Russ N.	Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
alex i.	this is all cool stuff but I feel I know most of it already

Back to Rich: They expect to ship phones by the second half of this year, after which they will release the code under a license. Since announcing Android, the message of openness is resonating through the industry, and, to a certain degree, other players are trying to compete on openness. "Google feels comforted that the message of openness... is going to take root, and it will be difficult to dislodge it.

Michael Calabrese, New America Foundation: NAF has been working on a concept of wireless Carterphone.

About the 700 MHz auction:

- AT&T & Verizon won 90% of the spectrum. In a consolidating, oligopoly, auctions can actually hinder new entrants.
- Verizon started up it's open network rhetoric, qualifying them to be a big winner in the auction.

"In the early 1920s, hundreds of organizations attempted to share the airwaves... but obviously the technology was not ready... [Now] what's scarce is government licenses, not spectrum. 90% of spectrum is not being used most of the time." What we need are "smart radios and a light-touch licensing regime.

This article looks like a good read on the new model NAF is proposing. Also, these:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/feb07/4892
http://www.radioscape.com/
http://meraki.com/

Tim Wu couldn't be here (bummer), so David is inviting a few "lightning talks" from innovators in attendance.

Rochard Wright, Google: "I can't say anything about whether Google is happy about the auction results until Thursday at 6:01 pm... However, someone has called Google a 'happy loser...' Michael did a great job giving the overview, [but I can add] That Chairman Martin, to his credit, have been supporting this effort... to create some momentum for these unlicensed spectrum band."

I always thought Republicans should get into this, because it is less "Big Government" regulation. Too bad they (and many Dems) are such sellouts to the NAB.

Brent Glass, Lariat.net: www.brettglass.com/F2C.

F2C, part 2

Open Fiber

Dirk van der Woude, John St. Julien, Adam Peake, Tim Nulty, moderated by Jim Baller

Dirk, Amsterdam Broadband: "Yes, we can." Amsterdam's telecoms are owned 40% US, 30% UK, other non-Dutch firms 16%.

Look out for Fraudband.

In France, the law says that cities are explicitly allowed to roll out fiber networks. Cologne has 2 parallel fiber networks.

Taking a break from the very techy, accented presentation that is overly reliant on a slide show that nobody can read, I'd like to mention that the back channel here is really juvenile. I'm probably one of the youngest 5 people in the room, but to read this thing, you'd think it was packed with 19 year old boys with a chemical dependency on Red Bull. For example:

alex i.	dirk dirk
Frank P.	farms in berkeley?
Mike W.	But wait Dirk, TomTom is impossible. Only Garmin produces GPS
Brad T.	Moooooo
Tree S.	i think i have this genetic thing going on where i can't really hear anything he's saying and i'm looking over my shoulders for the dogs
Richard B.	I want my MTV.
Gregory M.	who let the dogs out?
Tree S.	sorry. just thinking outloud.

Such a weird contradcition between a hardy comprehensible presentation and a painfully comprehensible back channel. Just saying. Not to mention, Dirk went on way too long.

Adam on the Japanese broadband "miracle."

1) Traced back to the 1996 Telecoms Act.
2) Incumbent who bought into the idea the IP networks were good.
3) The open network model can work, if the conditions are right.

What are the conditions?

1) We don't have a cable industry
2) The legal system is not litigious, NTT didn't spend it's resources and time in court fighting
3) Regulator stuck to its policy
4) There was a national policy of ubiquitous information or network society
5) Japan doesn't have a good broadcasting industry; programming is poor; limited pay-per-view market. Opportunities for people who want to invest, in IP video distribution (I guess), is great.

What is the Japanese view of network neutrality?

1) IP networks should be accessible with ready access to applications and content
2) Support E2E
3) Users should have access equality


Tim on Burlington, VT fiber network: Broke grown in '05, first customer '06, being profitable in '09, four years after initial funding was received with 5000 customers. Muni telecom can be profitable for cities.

1) Universal - it's like water. The economics work much better if you do it that way from the beginning.
2) Open Access: The government should offer retail, but be prepared to make the resource available on a non-discriminatory basis.
3) Financially self-sufficient
4) Future-proofing: forget DSL, cable modems. Build something that will last for a long time, at the fundamental investment, but also upgradeable.

Now, Tim is taking the model across Vermont. Can you do fiber to the home in rural areas that meets the above stated goal? The biggest problem is that no rural town is big enough, so look to working together as an assembly of 20-30 township. It's an organizational problem, and a problem convincing financiers that this inter-organizational entities can handle it.

The measure to move forward are receiving 100% votes, in one township it dipped to 80%.

In the interim, there is a lively discussion about how we've reached our broadband capacity. Within minutes someone pipes up "I have IDed the perpetrators IP address!"

John, Lafayette Project : "I'm of 2 minds. The Geek/Wonk says there has got to be a way to get this machine to work. The Historian/Activist is more interested in the root of these things, expects contingent outcomes that are hard to maintain and require constant democratic work." We'll be hearing from the Historian/Activist.

"The real problem is that we are not being treated with respect... not like citizens of the Net." He says we're more like serfs, with the providers acting like the lord of the land. "Look at [your service aggreements] and this is roughly your condition... They can kick you off for any reason...They don't have to follow their own rules consistently." While, the Geeks and the Wonks want a technical solution, but we want to be citizens.

To solve the feudal system "We had the Enlightenment, then we had a Revolution."

"Lafayette is one of the most conservative cities in one of the most conservative states in thsi corporate-beholden country... and it happened there."

How did it happen? First, the geeks convinced the financial leadership to put in a fiber link, just for wholesale, government, big business use. The deepest malcontents were already saying they should provide retail to the home, and they lost, until a few people who remembered the argument but forgot who said it. The malcontents organized a grassroots campaign. The assumption was that the old boys club would run the show, but the opposition was so virulent, that they faded from the playing field and left it to the grassroots, and they won, 2-1.

"We are going to get a network that is going to be one huge intranet." Citizen-citizen speeds of 100 mb, offering the basic tier at a 20% discount to the incumbents, with a wi-fi network on top that won't have to be meshed. "We're exploring... the digital divide issue... The current plan is to put, in every cable box, internet access as well... The end result of that everyone on the system in a huge swath of the town who never had that kind of connectivity before."

Q&A:

Q: Japan is facing big problems with their system - pollution, viruses. Policy makers are proposing a closed fiber, next generation, IPv6 solution that might close out all the retailers.

Adam: We always move through phases of new problems and solutions.

Mary Beth, NATOA: "We in Portland are trying to build an open-access community network. How do we build the momentum in the "glassroots? How do you educate populace & electeds to make this happen?"

Tim: You have to address "Who's going to pay for it, and if you [can say] 'not you. It will be a financial investment that will be paid back from the services'" then you will win.

Other resources:

http://www.benkler.org/SharingNicely.html
http://gordoncook.net/wp/
http://www.carlotaperez.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_telegraph
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_capital vs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_capital

Freedom to Connect (F2C), part 1

I arrive in time to hear from Donna Edwards, formerly of the Arca Foundation and current candidate for the US House of Representatives from Maryland.

Where Donna lives in MD, she only has access to dial-up! Her talk is about access inequity. "When I think about public policy... we can't just hope that the... service providers will do right... we actually have to legislate and mandate this stuff. It's not efficient for some companies to reach out to some communities.... How do we develop technology policy that works for our most vulnerable communities? "

Q&A:

From David I: "There is a representative of the McCain technology policy team in the room, Jim Baller."

Jim: "I am not involved in any way with John McCain... What David's referring to is an article I wrote evaluating the candidate's positions on broadband policy." Jim ranks the candidates like this: Obama, Clinton, McCain. The paper is here.

Micah Sifry is talking about a dialog that Durbin held on a conservative blog. It sounds like overall, the conservatives on the blog understood broadband as a target for government investment. The ones who came on just to insult Durbin were routed to a separate thread."

Sifry: "We don't have good tools yet for mass deliberation... The process is broken. No one seems happy about it. What would do that would be different? The Obama platform talks about wikis and other tools? What would that look like in practice?

Alec Ross (Obama technology policy consultant): "Some of the Obama campaign's talk about how it would use... social networking tools.. etc. Technology tools are used to keep dialog in the pen... What's nice is that... within the Obama campaign... that's often where the policy people engage... people are actually dipping into the blogosphere... on myobama.com... [they're saying] last night I spend an hour [looking online] and these were good ideas. In terms of how this would work [in governance]... you have to turn to the people developing policy is to say "part of your ob is to get in there and see what people say. it is a qustion of attitude more than what's the best widget."

Donna 'I've been connected to technology for 30 years... Technology is just a tool. It's not a substitute for real engagement..."

Matt Stoller: "I come from a position of relative privilege and power... As we think about technology and deployment of technology through governance... I haven't seen much help from technologists in the political process... How are you going to devolve power to people who don't have it... Not just technology- it's about literacy; it's about nutrition."

Alec: Clinton pulled the Connect America plan after Art Brodsky took it apart and Mat Stoller blogged about it.

Q&A

A different David Isenberg: What can Congress do to incorporate or at least solicit the stuff that is available outside of the government, since NGOs are doing a better job creating transparency?

Alec: The candidate is not talking about the government directly empowering the grassroots. "...third parties are likely the folks who are going to get the information and do something with it. Part of what a President Obama would do is put data and information out there..." for these actors to work with. "By giving the information to the grassroots, they will have the means to use their power more effectively."

Micah: The OMB contacted OMB Watch, usually its adversary, about licensing fedspending.org for $600, saving the taxpayers something like $13 million.

Charles Benton: "Donna is the godmother of the Media and Democracy Coalition... That was a great contribution... We are most thankful for making that happen... Alec, I read this weekend Obama's technology platform. A major section of this paper says, 'employing technology and innovation to solve the nation's most pressing problems' This is the heart of this document... What can we do between now and the next administration to really develop the case studies, the facts, to make this connection between the technology and the needs it can meet to serve the values of equality and excellence, and to save us money?"

Alec: "What's been interesting to me is to learn what makes campaigns care about things.... It's remarkably simple. There is a lot of blogging and communications power in this room, and it gets noticed... When [sombody} digs into something and the community shares it, it gets noticed... [Campaigners] need good information, distilled down. If there's good research, sharing it with the campaign matters."

Donna: "Candidates care about things people say in their communities. [When I was campaigning and walking the neighborhoods] I remember only one person at one door who asked me about Net Neutrality, but people asked me why there kids don't have better access to technology, business people asked me about how to jump start their business into the 21st century." The way we talk about technology isn't necessarily how people experience it.

Matt: "Be precise about how you talk about power. For instance, it wasn't Congress who gutted the Office of Technology Assessment, it was Newt Gingrich. Don't grant presumptions of goodwill to political actors who don't deserve it."

Tom Mandle, entrepreneur: "What the hell is the matter with the word 'entitlement." The kids in that school are entitled to that technology. That said, governments are not founded on trust."

In the back channel, people decided that the Strange Bedfellows Coalition would be a great organization name. Apparently, www.strangebedfellows.org is available.

Some other resources that came up:

punchclockmap.sunlightprojects.org
http://www.customizegoogle.com/

LMDJ, part 4

Internet Equality

Christina Gagnier is talking about Net Neutrality.

"Net neutrality advocates haven't done a good job framing the debate" in terms of digital inclusion.

Christina works with Mobilize.org.

"Comcast has decided to stop its traffic shaping practices with BitTorrent" in the past 3 days. "I met with Richard Clark of AT&T.... his argument was that net neutrality will hamper innovation and crush the provider industry."

Christina mentioned the Save the Internet Coalition, and how net neutrality brings together pro-choice groups and the Christian Coalition.

A participant told us that her provider, I think she said it was Charter, has been offering her faster bit rates for $5/month. Of course, Time Warner has already moved in the direction of tiered internet access.


Tracy Rosenberg, Media Alliance: There is a FCC hearing on Internet equality coming up soon at Stanford, and we have 900 seats to fill. Information about the Stanford hearing is available here.

"When we are talking about the word 'equal,'" we have to talk about access and the digital divide. "Digital inclusion" is how we talk about what we are doing about the digital divide.

2 models to consider:

1) Content creation/empowerment programs/citizen media/DIY media. Unfortunately, we have a distribution problem.

2) Neighborhood technology centers: "Are these programs meeting a need for social justice."

"How do we in sure a neutral playing field... how do we get to a sustainable Internet reality that sustains social justice?"

Some possibilities:

• Getting high speed Internet access into more people hands: "We should have a conversation where this is a public infrastructure."
• Muni wi-fi: but we have problems with the model of relying on companies. There's not much money to be made, as in public utilities. We have seen some successes. Check out One East Palo Alto, but it has been funded by Hewlett Packard.

Also (my note), look at this map of muni wifi projects. Be warned- it's flawed, but helpful.

"Part of what we have to do is.. take on the responsibility to create little pockets of infrastructure... If there's a little armada of community tech infrastructure projects, then maybe we really do have an alternative media movement that can compete for hearts and minds."

"Sometimes the reality on the ground gets ahead of public policy stuff." For example, pirate radio created the opportunities that led to Low Power FM radio.

Q&A:

Christina mentioned the flawed Broadband for All? report issued by the Public Policy Institute of California.

There's a lively discussion about the rising (I'd say rhetorical) tension between Net Neutrality and intellectual property. On this subject I'd submit David Byrne's recent Wired article for emerging musicians navigating these new complications. Other resources: Larry Lessig, Creative Commons, the Future of Music Coalition, and the Independent Online Distribution Alliance.

LMDJ, part 3

Rep Solis said that if Martin and the FCC won't convene a media diversity committee "maybe the Congress is going to have to take a swipe at it."


Q: Is there a way to protect net neutrality and intellectual property?

Jon: Publishers get licensing fee. Every ISP should pay a licensing fee, $2-3/subscriber.

LMDJ, part 2

First panel: Have the media undermined our democracy?

Moderator: Tracy Westen, University of Southern California.

Rep. Hilda Solis
Kevin Uhrich, Pasadena Weekly
Brad Friedman, bradblog.com
Alex Nogales, National Hispanic Media Coalition
Jonathan Taplin, University of Southern California

Rep. Solis: "We have a long way to go to making access available..." especially for communities of color. "I am very concerned about the DTV transition... I still ahve not seen a coupon that is in different languages that explains when and how to use it." Solis' constituents approach her for clarification, and they are badly misinformed about the transition.

I never would have guessed that Congresswoman Solis would be someone who says "By golly," but she is.


Kevin: "I want to talk about... the bloody revolution that is occurring right now in the world of daily newspapers.... There is a flipside to this." Alternative weekly papers are making money. Check out aan.org and www.altweeklies.com. "This is where I think that women and people of color have really found a voice.... Is the media destroying democracy? Maybe a little bit, but the media is doing a good job destroying itself."


Brad: "The polite conversation we have here, in Congress... I'm here to say it has not worked... I have been called one of the Paul Reveres of the election integrity movement... If I had [a horse] I would ride it down these stairs crying out 'corporate media has failed... corporate media has failed!' And if the corporate media were here, they would probably take a picture of that... The bad guys have figured out how to game [all of our tactics]... They have figured out that they can go to certain academics who will say whatever needs to be said." Brad is naming names: Jeffrey Milyo University of Missouri is, apparently, a hack who says that when the MSM covers Iraq that Democrats are getting their issues covered and that photo IDs for voting. What a broad range of expertise! "There is a truth, and we need to start reporting it."


Alex: "The media tells us who we are, what we are, and what we are worth." This is not working out very well for Latinos. "the FBI has reported that hate crimes against Latinos is up 25%... and it starts with hate speech.... unless we curb these excesses, this country is not going to live up to its potential... Right now our biggest push this year is to mitigate the excesses of these hate groups."


Jon Taplin: "You are in a world of a broadband duopoly." Taplin thinks it's a waste to have municipalities creating a third wire into the home. We should just be subsidizing access.

Universal Service Fund goes to fund the private jets of providers in Montana.

He also thinks we should restore the Fairness Doctrine, restore "true" public access and fight AT&T, and make Net Neutrality a critical issue, as well as privacy. "The rich will have access to an on demand, private walled garden and the poor will be bombarded" with personally targeted advertising.

This is a great and energetic crowd.

Local Media, Democracy, & Justice: A Southern California Regional Summit (LMDJ)

Here I am at conference 2 of 3 in 5 or 6 days. Jon Bartholomew of Common Cause is giving the introduction.

Jonathan Adelstein is giving the keynote. He started in with a pretty good joke: "I flew for 5 hours, and it's only 5 degrees warmer here than in DC. I thought I'd get a better bump than that."

"This is the center for creative..they're is a special understanding about these issues." "People are consuming 8 hours of media a day... [media] produces 1/6 of the economy."

"When you look at critics of our movement...they say 'there is so much diversity, the Internet, 300 cable channels'... Broadcast radio and television... is still the dominant channel of news and information."

"Real breaking news is being replaced with breaking gossip...." One study showed that local civic affairs coverage makes up only 1 percent of offerings. In reference to how many ab-buster infomercials we get instead: "We may be getting tigheter abs, but we're getting a flabby democracy."

He brings up a rule change I wasn't aware of. In 1995 the FCC repealed the 25 year old Financial Interest and Syndication Rules, or fin-syn, rules that forbid the big networks from owning the programming they played during prime-time, which created the vibrant independent television studio sector that is more or less decimated now.

In recognition of the importance of local activists: "We really feel the wind at our back from people like you."

Q&A

Kathy from Common Cause: What are the 3 things we can do after this meeting?

• Congressional resolution of disapproval of the lifting of the TV-print cross-ownership ban - help us move it forward
• We need to form an independent media diversity committee
• Create real public interest obligations for the digital age
  

(Side note- NAB is suing the FCC over enhanced disclosure)

Q: How do you foresee the change in the administration changing the FCC?

A: In the event that McCain wins, he has overseen the FCC in Congress, but has a deregulatory bend, but he has supported the minority ownership tax credit; he has a thoughtful communications policy team. More hopefully, both Democratic candidates support the resolution of disapproval, Obama supports a diversity committee. It's important that we get the right FCC in to interpret the public interest provisions of the new cross-ownership rules.

You can call Adelstein's office at 202 418 2300, ask for Rudy Brioche.

A Link List to Media Policy Resouces, Amazing Community Media Projects

Hoping to supply Media Re:Public attendees with some starter resources on important question of public interest media policy work and vibrant community media projects that should be supported, I submit this link list:

• Allied Media Projects
• Allied Media Conference
• Manhattan Neighborhood Network
  
• Youth Channel
• Media Mobilizing Project
• People's Production House

• The Future of American Communications Working Group
• The threats to Network Neutrality
• Community Broadband
• Low Power FM Community Radio
• Public, Educational, & Governmental Cable Access
• Media Diversity
• Stopping Media Consolidation

The Media and Democracy Coalition

Media Re:Public, part 8

It's 2013: Do you know where your news is?

Paul Steiger, ProPublica. Doing investigation, especially focusing on the abuse of power. In 2013, news will be delivered principally electronically. The beauty of our organizations is that we are funded with the expectations that we will take advertising money.

Jonathan Taplin, USC Annenberg: we will be struggling over commercial overload & personal meta-data making each of us a target. There will be a 2 worlds, one for the rich, personal walled gardens, that is ad-free. The other world that advertising will be so pervasive, you will be accepting a 15 second ad before a phone call.

Jennifer Ferro, KCRW: Devices will come together. For public radio, we need to look at our content differently.

Zittrain: So, will your license to broadcast be irrelevant?

Ferro: Not irrelevant, just deemphasized.

Media Re:Public, part 7

Media Re:public is hosting this back channel. I got into this conversation with Sasha Costanza-Chock.

Nathan: For Ron C: how can cable access centers reach out to, connect, and collaborate with the world of new media and user generated content? There's a tradition there that needs to connect!
schock: Check out Manhattan Neighborhood Network, and Denver Open Access. They are great examples of public access connecting to new media.
Nathan: Absolutely! But why are MNN, etc the exception? How can we port those models to PEG/access more universally?
schock: Well there's one thing the funders might think about :) Support extending those models around the country.

Media Re:Public, part 6

Understanding the Media Ecology

Michael Smolens, dotSUB, is making crowdsourced video translations available globally.

Example:

• Pangea Day, a 2006 TED Prize winner

"Language is not an impenetrable barrier."

Richard Vega, Yahoo News: "How do we incorporate [Yahoo's holdings- Flickr, del.icio.us, etc] into Yahoo's 2008 election coverage?"

Torey Malatia, :Vocalo: A hyper-local social networking site that incorporates a radio station, 89.5 FM in Northwest Indiana and Chicago. This is an exciting model and one that LPFM and other community radio stations should look at. As I understand it, they webstream user-generated content all the time, and offer a number of shows on air that curate from the online offerings a collection of content that contrast differing perspectives on issues.

Lokman Tsui, Anneberg Upenn & Ivan Sigal, USIP:

How are NGOs becoming a new player in the information supply chain? In less developed markets, news organizations had underdeveloped staffs, so they were already using a citizen journalist model for news gathering.

Ron Cooper, Access Sacramento! Yay, PEG! Ron is an ambassador, asking the Media Re:public to engage in the AT&T U-Verse fight.

Media Re:Public, part 5

John Kelly, Parsing the Political Blogosphere.

John is involved with Morningside Analytics, which I will look into further.

Some beginning comments of interest:

• Blogs are a key to the networked public sphere
• Communications research needs overhaul, our current methods misunderstand society: society doesn't fall into variables. Kelly uses network analysis
  
• we've always been a networked society; now we know it (Thank you!)
  

"If you don't like colorful dots, don't invite me to speak at your conference."

"There is an elite structure in political blogging that isn't demagogues yelling at each other." They blog on law and policy.

Q&A:

Taplin: Talk about how communications research needs to change?

Kelly: Comms research studies the poles of human communication (mass vs interpesonal), but it's the intervening levels, which has been the province of sociology, especially social network analysis.

Q: Why does linking behavior matters? How do they correlate to real social relationships?

Kelly: Historically, in SNA, we were looking at formal structures like families or clans. The relationships between what you represent and the social phenomena are more fluid now, and there are decades of work ahead of us to work that out.

Media Re:Public, part 4

Q&A:

Q: How do we reconcile the new world of abundance and the experience of the commodification of freedom, which would seem to rely on a world of scarcity?

Castells: Business is in the business of free communication. There is a dialectical relationship between making money on freeing communication and the undermining of systems of control.

Weinberger: Uncomfortable with the word "commodity" applied here.

Suro: There's no dichotomy between abundance and control or oligopoly.

Media Re:Public, part 3

David Weinberger, Berkman Center:

Teaches "The Web Difference" course, co-wrote the "Cluetrain Manifesto", Small Pieces Loosely Joined, Everything is Miscellaneous.

Metaphors:

The Web is an ecosystem: It's too comfortable, "Everything works out."

The Web is pro-am: uses money as the distinguishing mark. It's really about quality, not money.

The Web/media is information flow: The fundamental role of news is not information.

The Web is abundant: Control doesn't scale.

In the age of abundance the struggle is over the metadata- what matters and how it matters.

I have to say I'm having a hard time following Weinberger's argument.

Media Re:Public, part 2

Roberto Suro, USC Annenberg:

Is making the point that we should decouple journalism as a social act and as an enterprise. Also, he wants to discuss the terminology, making a distinction between participatory journalism and the journalism of participation. Participatory journalism "networks of people and institutions collaborating..." in the exercise of journalism. The journalism of participation"is the forms of journalism that foster participation in a civic space."

"We must ask what are the outcomes... We must look for outcomes beyond simple participation..." Does it make participation more representative or not, government more effective or not?

Media Re:Public, part 1

Framing the discussion: Manuel Castells, USC Annenberg; Roberto Suro, USC Annenberg; David Weinberger, Berkman Center.

Castells: Democracy is a derivative of power relationships, which are the foundational elements of all societies. "Whoever prevails in the field of power relationships defines what society is." Power is related through coercion and/or the construction of meaning in mind.

If the construction of meaning is a key source of power, then communication is key as the source of meaning construction.

(I'm excited that I am hearing Castells in person for the first time and also that nothing he is saying is new to me).

"Social movements act on the mind more than on politics... They act on the way we think."

In emphasizing the construction of meaning, how much does Castells diminish coercion as a force of domination? There has to be a way to think about, and maybe measure, the distribution of vulnerability to power mechanisms, so that we can learn the degree to which power relationship vectors such as poverty/wealth, male/female/other, etc. change the ratio of vulnerability of any given individual. I would argue that if one is affluent, educated, and otherwise empowered, the coercive power of large institutions (state, military, policy, market, church) is diminished, while if one is poor and vulnerable, one's exposure to these coercive forces can make vulnerability to meaning construction besides the point, in proportional relation to one's disenfranchisement. The point, in other words, is to resist a determinist idealism in the intersection communications and political theories as expressed by thinkers like Castells, but I still love Castells.

"Politics is media politics... Media are the field of construction of power relationships. It is essential to transform everything in... the media, especially mass media."

"The infrastructure... is also owned by the corporate world." Thank, you Manuel Castells, for making my job later today much easier.

"The key thing... is you have to transform freedom into a commodity, and that's where the business... Hackers and entrepreneurs... create more and new communications networks."

'The key political function of this [model] is to distribute access to the network."

John Palfrey from Berkman just called Castell's talk "hypnotic" and called for an unpacking of the idea of the commodification of freedom.

Angelinos for Equitable Accesss to Technology

Yesterday, I met with Davis Park and Daniel Mayeda, who organize together under the banner of Angelinos for Equitable Accesss to Technology (AEA2T). AEA2T was involved in fighting for the public interest in the California state franchising process.

Currently, they are proposing to city and county officials that LA use a portion the PEG funding that the California state franchising law provides to build 30 Community Media Access Centers (CMACs) to create community content for public access cable and Web distribution sites. They are proposing a model of smaller, cheaper, more nimble facilities that respond to the particular needs of populations of smaller geographical areas than the standard PEG access center model which typically provides one (sometimes) large facility for each service area. They offer a San Francisco facility as a model: http://communitymediacenter.net/.

Davis also told me about Little Tokyo Community Wireless, a service of the Little Tokyo Service Center (LTSC), that provides free hot spots all over Little Tokyo. LTSC has a number of low and mixed-income buildings in the area and use a fiber line running into one of these buildings as their wi-fi network's access point to the Internet.

NetSquared Announces Mashup Contest Winners

You can see the winners here.

Unfortunately, none of media activists community proposals got in the top 20 (actually 21, because of a tie). There are some great proposals among the winners. Thanks to everyone who got online to vote for our community's proposals!

Radioactive Gavin Testifies in Oly

PT pal, Radioactive Gavin, wants you to check out his January 30th testimony before the Washington House Technology, Energy, and Communications committee.

Netsquared Contest, again

Josh Bretibart's roundup of essential proposals to vote for:

http://breitbart.wordpress.com/2008/03/20/vote-for-the-dei-mashup/

Update: MDC's Entries in the Netsquared Mashup Contest

As I wrote earlier this week, MDC has entered a "mashup" contest at netsquared.org, and we need your help to win and create a new tool that everyone working to make a better media system can benefit from. Please register at netsquared.org and cast your votes by Friday, 3/21! The whole process shouldn't take much longer than 10 minutes.

First off, thanks to those of you who have already gone to the site to vote, but please read on to make your vote count!

A couple of key things:

1) This is a great contest, but Netsquared hasn't made some of the rules clear, including the rule that everyone must vote for a minimum of 5 proposals and up to a maximum of 10. After you identify the 5-10 proposals you want to vote for, you must then hit the "cast your ballot" button and "submit your ballot" on the next page that comes up. I dug through the site to find the rules for voting, which you can read below.

To vote for the Coalition's proposal, go to http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/mapping-media-change-movement

2) Since you have to vote for 5, you should also definitely vote for a number of proposals coming from MDC-allied groups:

"Human Side of the Digital Divide" proposal submitted by Josh Breitbart of the Peoples Production House in NYC.

"Community Based DigiMapping" submitted by Eloise-Rose Lee at Media Alliance

"YourMediaWorld" submitted by Aliza Dichter's team at the Center for International Media Action

"Planning for the People" from Lauren-Glenn Davitian and CCTV Center for Media and Democracy

And if you need help choosing your next 5 votes, check these out:

http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/mapping-money-and-politics-maplight-org
http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/mykaroo
http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/mashup-social-actions
http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/knowmore-org-firefox-extension
http://www.netsquared.org/2008/conference/projects/opencongress-org-track-congress-social-data

So, join the Coalition voting block on netsquared.org! We believe that this project, which will let you put yourself and your organization "on the map," will help us all see our growing strength and address critical gaps as we build a movement that empowers people to participate in the media system that impacts their lives every day!

If you follow through, please send me a note (njames AT media-democracy.net), to let me know!

On the Road: LA

Next week, I'm hitting the road again. I'm heading to the City of Angels for a very interesting week. Some previews:

- Because of a contact I made at We Media in Miami, I was invited by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law to an event at Annenberg USC, Media Re:public, Participatory Media - Surveying the Field in 2008to join a discussion called "Supporting the Emerging Media Ecology." They still haven't put me on the agenda, but I'm one of the "discussants." They're going for something more interactive than a panel/presenter model.

- I'm sitting on the final panel, "Taking Back the Media: Challenges and Solutions," at Local Media, Democracy, and Justice: a Southern California Regional Summit.

- And finally, but actually firstly, I'm sitting down with some members of Angelenos for Equitable Access to Technology (AEA2T) to learn about their grassroots organizing work.

You can look forward to some nifty notes and impressions from LA soon.

MDC Submits a Mashup proposal to NetSquared

When the people I work with get excited about Web 2.0 stuff, I spring into action.

Case in point: last night we decided to beat the deadline today for a competition Netsquared is holding to support the development of new advocacy mashups, so with some help from Beth, Aliza D, Martha W, and Josh B, I turned this proposal out today: http://www.netsquared.org/node/7632

Check it out, give some feedback and VOTE for it!

Wired Magazine Maps US Municipal Wi-Fi

http://www.wired.com/special_multimedia/2008/st_atlas_1603

Wired.com uses a Google map on the web page, but the print edition has a much slicker design aesthetic that you might want to check out.

While I'm very happy that Wired has challenged the "Muni Wi-Fi is dead" myth to their large audience, there seems to be a flaw in their analysis and presentation. The main example I can pull out is that they have designated the Philadelphia network as "in operation." As we know from the New America Foundation's report on Wireless Philly, the truth of the matter is not quite as clear. This point calls the the entire presentation into question and makes it less useful as a potential education piece than it might otherwise be.

I would love to see a letter to the editor from a Philly or other Wi-Fi stakeholder praising the coverage and responding to this oversimplification. LTEs can be submitted here.

If anyone who catches this note submits an LTE, I would love to know about it. Thanks!