Category: examining the mainstream
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Cheapskate Audiophile
As a geek videophile audiophile there’s the tendency for that interest to be conflict with my critical side that questions our modern consumerist capitalist economy. I believe that balance can be found, as long as one accepts that it’s nearly impossible to be entirely non-comsumerist without checking out of modern technological society altogether. Yet, it…
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On this week’s radioshow: The Falsies
There is pollution in the radio environment, and there are polluters. For the last five years the Center for Media Democracy has bestowed a special award on those who pile it high and deep — the Falsies. On tomorrow night’s radioshow][/caption] I’ll be talking with Senior Researcher, Diane Farsetta, who will tell us more about…
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mediageek radioshow for 11 December 2008: Looking Behind the Curtain at the Tribune Bankruptcy
Mitchell Szczepanczyk from Chicago Media Action joins to discuss the Dec. 8 filing for bankruptcy by the Tribune Company. Mitchell has been watching Tribune for many years now, since the company is a major media player both in the Chicago area and nationally. So he has some longitudinal perspective often lacking in press reports. Download/Podcast:…
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Don’t Be Spooked by Threats of Obsolesence
One of the unfortunate effects of our capitalist economy is the constant drive for new and better. Well, really it’s mostly new and novel, with better being a secondary consideration. That means obsolescence is something that constantly looms over industrial products, especially tech products. But obsolete does not equate with useless or worthless–not remotely. With…
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The PBS You Have Vs. the PBS You Wish You Had
On the radioshow two weeks ago I talked with my pal and public broadcasting alumnus Bill Poorman about some of his issues with that enterprise. Our actual conversation ran over an hour, so I had to leave out some of Bill’s comments about public TV, which were more critical than radio. But his comments rang…
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free103point9 Says There’s No News in the Times about Brooklyn Microradio
Just noticed free103point9’s Tom Roe’s comments about the Times Brooklyn pirate radio article I blogged about yesterday. He calls it “under-reported,” by which I think he means “not sufficiently reported” by the freelancer who wrote the piece, not “under-reported” to mean “a story which deserves more coverage like this.” Roe goes on to comment that…
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FCC Ready to Rumble on Tuesday
The FCC’s having a big meeting this Tuesday, Dec. 18. The biggest item on the agenda is Chairman Martin’s attempt to rush through the near-total dissolution of the newspaper-TV cross-ownership ban. It’s a plan he only revealed to the public and his fellow commissioners last month. As a result the public interest community, many Congresscritters…
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Vivoleum…. is made out of… PEOPLE!
The Yes Men struck again. This time, Big Oil was their target, hitting GO-EXPO, Canada’s largest oil conference, at Stampede Park in Calgary, Alberta today. Posing as ExxonMobil and National Petroleum Council (NPC) representatives, they presented their plan for what to do with all the human casualties that will result from the energy policies of…
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When Competition Doesn’t Provide Much Competition
The single biggest rationale behind fast-tracking AT&T and Verizon into offering cable TV services over the broadband lines is to provide more consumer choice and competition in television services. Sounds like a good idea on first blush, since most communities only have a single incumbent cable provider, with their only alternative being a direct broadcast…
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Mobile FM Transmitters — A Modulator Menace, or a Mountain out of a Molehill?
The traditional radio broadcast industry is getting pretty desperate lately. But while commercial radio has seen its fortunes slowly decline after squeezing out the consolidation profits, public radio has generally faired better. Nevertheless, there’s still some unregulated competition and interference coming from those little FM transmitters people use to pump their portable music players into…