The outcome of this process of financial globalization may be that we have created an Automaton, at the core of our economies, decisively conditioning our lives. Humankind’s nightmare of seeing our machines taking control of our world seems on the edge of becoming reality, not in form of robots eliminating our jobs or government computers that police our lives, but as an electronically based system of financial transactions.[1]

While that ending falls a bit flat, it is useful to pick up on that last word — transactions. The point Castells wants to make is that transactions do not equal markets. He says “While capitalists, and capitalist managers, still exist, they are all determined by the Automaton. And this Automaton is the not the market. It does not follow market rules — at least not the kind of rules based on supply and demand which we learned from our economics primers.”

Equilibrium—based market concepts have never worked exactly to basic economic theory in the financial area because speculative forces make rising prices attractive. Instead of reducing demand, as the “invisible hand” dictates, rising prices increase demand. As prices continue to rise, they allow an asset bubble to form. And we know what happens to bubbles.

In a world where banks, hedge, mutual and sovereign wealth funds transact in sums totaling tens of trillions of dollars a day, Castells contends that the motivations involved in financial transactions are complex. “Movements in financial markets are induced by a mixture of market rules, business and political strategies, crowd psychology, rational expectations, irrational behavior, speculative manoeuvres and information turbulences of all sorts.” For Castells, what he calls the “Automaton”, creates a “collective capitalist” system that operates with its own set of conditions.[2]

For Castells, this Automaton increasingly controls the operation of global financial markets. Furthermore, he suggests that this growing dependence on computer systems in the financial world means that the global economy is on the cusp of becoming, for all practical purposes, beyond the control of individuals, corporations, or governments. Felix Stalder has raised questions about the Castells’ analysis of informational capitalism in his Manuel Castells and the Theory of the Network Society (2006). He questions the claim that the economy is beyond the control of anyone and specifically asks “What do we win, and what do we lose, when we call the financial markets an “automaton”?”[3]

To address these concerns it is useful to outline the ways Castells argues financial markets have emerged over the years.

One is that in today’s world, electronic transaction systems allow for the fast movement of capital instruments between countries. With the advent of computer systems and a world networked via fiber optic cables and artificial satellites, computerized transaction systems have allowed fast movements of capital instruments between countries. I would add that this is not just a technological feat but one that required a dramatic transformation in the way telecommunications enterprises are organized and also they way they relate to their respective governments. The privatization of telecom operations around the world has allowed them to modernize with Internet-based technologies and largely transcend national borders. International regulatory bodies, such as the IMF and the World Trade Organization (WTO) have applied considerable pressure on countries to adopt policies that encourage global inter-connectivity and allow for unfettered capital flows.

Second, these global systems permit investors to rapidly make trades and transfer capital from one country to another in the search for optimal returns. Financial traders have always had incentives to invest in the newest and fastest technology. From carrier pigeons to the telegraph and stock ticker to modern computers and satellites, innovations in financial technology can provide a commercial advantage. Speed is a strategic priority for trading activities and high-frequency trading (HFT) is the latest in this historic trend. HFT uses sophisticated tools and proprietary computer algorithms to move in and out of financial positions in fractions of a second.

Third, an important aspect of modern capitalism is that its representational systems and virtual markets allow for nearly instantaneous translation between types of financial instruments. Bonds can be sold quickly and invested in gold, or oil positions can be liquidated to purchase shares of a company. Furthermore, different countries offer different bonds, different currencies, and a range of different types of derivatives as well as traditional shares of listed corporations.

The development of a wide array of new financial instruments, such as the collateralized debt obligations (CDO) and credit default swaps that ruined the housing markets and brought the global economy to its knees in the “Great Recession” of 2008, has added to the global volatility. This instability further intensifies the need for portfolio diversification that involve mixing investments across a range of different countries as risk management scenarios call for the hedging of financial bets across as many global markets and products as possible.

The system is facilitated by networks of global mass media that analyze and broadcast financial information that can instantaneously impact a wide range of financial decisions. I recently gave a presentation about the surveying aspects of financial media in Seoul, South Korea. I pointed out how news in general works to provide a type of surveillance of society and is becoming increasingly sophisticated with representational techniques that convey all sorts of statistical and graphical information relevant to financial transactions. The system provides a variety of general political and macroeconomic information as well as immediately actionable intelligence. Social media has now become part of the financial world, providing tweets and viral shares of news items that are potentially consequential to the pricing of financial instruments.

Another trend is the use of quantitative algorithms to discern patterns out of the frenetic energies of the global markets. Wall Street has increasingly been influenced by “quants”, a new type of financial trader more reliant on computer modeling than the gut-based decision making built intuitively and through years of “pit” experience. Castell’s sums it up. “All these elements are recombined in increasingly unpredictable patterns whose frantic modeling occupies would-be Nobel Prize recipients and addicted financial gamblers (sometimes embodied in the same persons).”

In short, Castells followed Walter Wriston in proposing that interconnected financial news and transaction networks, along with domestic and international deregulation, have created a radical and potentially unstable global system. They both argued that the increased flow of market-related media information across national borders and the torrent of financial transactions totaling trillions of dollars a day make the specter of financial machines taking control of our political economy an unnerving possibility.

Returning to Felix Stalder’s above question; we win in terms of some conceptualization of some relatively invisible global financial networks. This understanding is more political than the traditional narrative of free enterprise and self-regulating markets. However, we lose in terms of allocating responsibility for the system and thus a focus for policy concerns. I plan to stick with the information standard as an integrative concept in this area because I like its linkage to the gold standard and feel it is more flexible in terms of suggesting a path of analysis and reform.

Notes

[1] The “Automaton” was first named in a chapter entitled “Information Technology and Global Capitalism” in a compiled book on Global Capitalism (2000) that was edited by Will Hutton and Anthony Giddens.
[2] Quote on what drives the “collective capitalist” system from M. Castells, “Information Technology and Global Capitalism”. In (2000) Hutton, W. and Giddens, A. (eds.) Global Capitalism. NY: The New Press. p. 57.
[3] Felix Stalder. Manuel Castells and the Theory of the Network Society. Polity Press, 2006.

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Anthony J. Pennings, PhD is a professor of global media at Hannam University in South Korea. Previously, he taught at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas and was on the faculty of New York University from 2002-2012. His first faculty position was at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand.

Category: digital monetarism, dystopian economies, electric money, financial news, financial technology
Tags: Automaton > financial technology > high-frequency trading (HFT) > Information Standard > Manuel Castells > quantitative algorithms

New York City’s Emphasis on Global Media Management

Posted on | July 11, 2014 | No Comments

Several years ago I started exploring whether it was prudent to create a degree program in Global Media Management. The idea was reinvigorated being here in South Korea in a program that is focused on global issues and skills. So I’m going back to some of my initial research when I was in New York City and Mayor Bloomberg and others recognized the need for skills and additional emphasis in this area.

“New York City is the media capital of the world, but—with the industry undergoing profound changes—it’s incumbent on us to take steps now to capitalize on growth opportunities and ensure we remain an industry leader,” warned New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, himself a founder of a multi-billion dollar media empire, while announcing several initiatives to help traditional media workers transition to the digital sector.

The initiatives came out of MediaNYC 2020, a program that gathered media and information technology executives along with government officials and university faculty to develop a NYC-based research lab, create digital media apprenticeships, offer a technology-equipment bond program to provide tax-exempt financing for media and technology companies, and award fellowships to 20 “rising star” digital media entrepreneurs every year.[1]

One very active participant in the Media NYC 2020 initiative was the The Levin Institute, a free standing institution of the SUNY system dedicated to researching global issues. They received a $300,000 grant from the Carnegie Institute to conduct a research and public engagement project to research the dynamics of globalization called New York in the World. The Levin Institute and the Economic Development Corporation of New York City (NYCEDC) hosted a panel discussion in 2009 called Media NYC 2020: NYC as a Global Media Center. It was part of the MediaNYC 2020 initiative that laid out the history of the media industry in NYC and the challenges to its major legacy industries: print, television, and advertising.

The panel followed a previous study examining the specific implications for education in the area of global media management. The Levin Institute interviewed more than 25 corporate practitioners, professors and students in the media industry to gain an understanding of the issues and challenges related to globalization facing the industry. These research strategies ranged from exploratory conversations with the leaders of global firms, in-depth critical incident assessments from leading analysts and additional input from consultants. Their conclusion: “The findings from this research confirmed and validated the urgent need and nuanced demand for a specialized, unique program in Global Media.” They elaborated:

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
Across the board, our data gathering has revealed a critical deficit in global media talent. As the industry weathers the revolutionizing effects of consolidation and digitization, media companies both big and small must grow and innovate across borders and platforms in order to survive. This requires both region-specific and medium-specific knowledge; managers with a deep understanding of the dynamics of foreign markets and the singularity of multiple medias, who are capable of solving contextual issues and forging valuable partnerships. According to our conversations, these managers have been difficult to find.

[2]

So the challenge is to continually define and address the talent needs in the global media sector. I recently defined several digital media “archetypes” of skills sets needed including:

• Design;
• Technology/Programming;
• Business Management;
• Communications;
• and Analytics.

I might add Global Acumen to that list. Understanding the challenges and opportunities for digital firms operating at least in part, globally, requires strong sets of localization skills as well as the ability to scale operations and platforms across wide geographical and temporal spans. It’s a big world with a lot of different regions, countries, economies and cultures. I usually start my students of with several (4-10) required viewings of The Commanding Heights so they have some understanding of the dynamics of global political economies.

I like this phrase “the singularity of multiple medias” mentioned above. Going back to New York City, I commend Cornell University’s new program in “Connective Media” At NYU I created BS programs in both Digital Communications and Media as well as Information Systems and worked hard to integrate them. Cornell has partnered with the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology to offer a MS in Information Systems with a specialization in Connective Media. It looks to address the analytics component mentioned above by integrating the expertise of software engineers and data scientists with that of media content designers, production teams, and editorial staffs.[3]

As I mentioned in “Producing Digital Content Synergies,” media firms in this new digital environment are increasingly combining multiple sets of skills and expertise to cross-produce and cross-promote content concepts (think Harry Potter series or The Hunger Games) across the organization or in cooperation with other firms. This means utilizing a wide range of available production and post-production resources to develop, package, distribute and monetize cultural products and other digital properties and promote them in a number of global/local markets.

While this emphasis on global media management reminds me of the “Silicon Alley” phenomenon in NYC during the dot.com era, it also makes me wonder to what extent they had the idea right, but just had too much money and not enough time to develop the technology and business skills to make it work.

Notes

[1] This post “New Initiatives Will Help NYC Continue as the Global Media Capital in the Digital Age” on Bloomberg’s personal blog is an informative update on these initiatives.
[2] The summary of findings are from http://www.levin.suny.edu/global-media.cfm. This link appears to be no longer available and was accessed on 8/14/09.
[3] More information on Cornell’s new presence in NYC and Connective Media.

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Anthony J. Pennings, PhD is a professor of global media at Hannam University in South Korea. Previously, he taught at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas and was on the faculty of New York University from 2002-2012. He taught at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand and was a Fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii.

Category: creative cities, digital media economics, digital media management
Tags: cross-production > cross-promotion > Global Media > Media Management > MediaNYC 2020 > Silicon Alley

Drone Journalism and Remote Sensing

Posted on | June 16, 2014 | No Comments

After 9/11, I developed and often taught a course at New York University called Remote Sensing and Surveillance. It was designed to study the promises and perils of technologies such as aerial photography, closed circuit cameras, multiple orbit-earth satellites, and a number of IP-based web surveillance systems. The course combined a social science approach with an in-depth look at the electromagnetic radiation utilized by a variety of cameras and other sensors. Concerns for individual privacy and national sovereignty were addressed, especially after the passage of the Patriot Act.

The attention to a relatively new endeavor called drone journalism had me thinking about the class lately. The use of small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) has been touted as supportive in the future of a variety of investigative reporting needs. These drones collect audio, photographs, video, and other types of data that can be useful for covering news-worthy conditions and events related to criminal forensics, disaster management, environmental damage, adverse weather, traffic reporting and sports coverage. Drone journalism received attention recently for its aerial drone “coverage” of the riots in the Istanbul and the political unrest in the Ukraine.

Legal action by the major media organizations to protect drone journalism is especially noteworthy. By referring to the First Amendment, the New York Times and other media organizations are calling drone surveillance for news purposes a constitutionally protected right. A fine imposed on Raphael Pirker by the FAA Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for reckless flying of a drone has brought the issue to Federal court. If given constitutional protection, drone journalism is likely to become a daily practice in the media business.

In light of this development I thought it might be useful to revisit the objectives and content of the class and to see what it has to offer in terms of insights and/or criticism of this emerging aspect of the news business.

Tech-wise, the course taught the fundamentals of electromagnetic radiation and how these energies interact with Earth materials such as vegetation, water, soil and rock, as well as humans and human artifacts. It also covered how the energy reflected or emitted from these materials is detected and recorded using a variety of remote sensing instruments such as digital cameras, multispectral scanners, hyperspectral instruments, and RADAR, etc. The course also touched on the principles of visual photo-interpretation, although this is a particularly complex topic that has both denotative and connotative considerations.

Satellites provide a useful historical reference that can indicate potential directions for drone journalism. As I point out in Seeing from Space: Cold War Origins to Google Earth, satellites were initially used for spying and military photo reconnaissance. Improvements in visual acuity have increased to the point where they have recently developed the capacity to detect sub-pixel targets less than 9% the size of one single pixel. They can also take advantage of infra-red and other electromagnetic wavelengths to see at night and under other adverse conditions.

Many news viewers are becoming more environmentally and scientifically literate in the types of news drones can provide. Climate change and attention to other types of pollution will be a fruitful area for drone journalism. Satellites equipped for remote sensing have been used to monitor environmental conditions such as forest resources, fish migration, oil reserves, soil composition, radiation contamination, river flows, food harvests, as well as to forecast disasters due to natural causes such as flooding or droughts. Some of this will be picked up by drone facilitated aerial photography.

It is no secret that drone technology has developed precise methods for defining locations. With the introduction of the Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites were used in warfare for guiding missiles to their targets, routing convoys through unknown territories, and locating lost soldiers and equipment. GPS, combined with geo-location technologies such as cell towers and Wi-Fi hotspots, provide remarkable accuracy in identifying the positions of objects, places and people and are now used in a wide variety of commercial activities, including mobile phone apps. For news operations, geo-location can help recover classified advertising and other revenue sources by providing location specific news items, weather reports and reviews of nearby establishments.

While drone technology conjures up thoughts of paparazzi buzzing stars and and peeps looking into bedroom windows, it could also be used for more socially responsive journalism. Among other choices, it can be a deterrent for environmentally dangerous companies and crowd abusing police teams. I’m not advocating drone technology for journalism at this time as I think it has a number of safety and privacy issues to resolve. However, as the decision is not up to me, I thought the least I could do is outline some of the issues from my perspective.

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Anthony J. Pennings, PhD is Professor at the Department of Technology and Society at the State University of New York (SUNY) in South Korea. Previously, he taught at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas and was on the faculty of New York University from 2002-2012. He taught at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand and was a Fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii.

Category: financial news, journalism, meaning makers, mobile technologies, space systems
Tags: drone journalism > drones > First Amendment > Global Positioning System (GPS) > privacy > remote sensing

Technologies of Democracy

Posted on | June 12, 2014 | No Comments

I’m rereading a book, Technologies of Power: Information Machines and Democratic Prospects by one of my mentors from graduate school. Majid Tehranian was a Professor of International Communications at the University of Hawaii and Founding Director of the Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research. I do believe that it is one of the best books of the 20th century on the topic of media technology and democracy.[1] OK, I’m biased, as a graduate assistant, I actually did the index for the book. But looking back at the book, I’m pleased to have played a small role in its birth.

At the time, we were debating Ithiel de Sola Pool‘s Technologies of Freedom. The MIT professor did a lot of the research on his book at the University of Hawaii Law Library a few years before and put forward a strong libertarian thesis about communications technologies and how technical change in this dynamic area should be treated by the legal/regulatory system.

Tehranian felt compelled to respond with his own book in which he used a “technostructuralist” approach emphasizing that new technologies are guided in their development and deployment along existing lines of corporate, governmental, and military power. However, he proposed a “dual-effects hypothesis” for studying the historical influence of new “information machines” as they have often “played a dual role in the service of centralization and the dispersion of power.” These potentially disrupting effects led him to focus on the importance and promises of information technologies for democratic processes.[2]

Originally from Iran, Tehranian was not Islamic, so returning home was problematic after the revolution in 1979. But he was mindful of its lessons, particularly the role of small media, including cassettes and photocopying. Both were used effectively in the overthrow of the Shah. Cassettes were often made by the Ayatollah Khomeini who, while exiled in France, sent recorded messages to mosques throughout Iran, stirring revolt. Tehranian sometimes referred to the impact of small media in Iran as the reign of Xeroxcracy.

Tehranian was influenced in part by University of Hawaii colleagues Ted Becker, Chair of the Political Science Department at the time, and his wife Christa D. Slaton. Their The Future of Teledemocracy offered a compelling vision for the use of computers to enhance democratic efforts. In a benchmark study that was part of the futures movement at the University of Hawaii, in collaboration with Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, they charted a path towards a more deliberative direct democracy. Using interactive TV, televoting, and other digital initiatives, they proposed technology could be designed to engage the public and bring them back into political affairs. They particularly stressed the development of collaborative designs for scientific deliberative polling in electronic town meetings. Later they would embrace the Internet as a tool to facilitate this process.[3]

Tehranian was not prone to simple definitions, but he also saw the value of conceptualizing ideas for the sake of argument. He framed one definition of democracy in terms of the contributions by technology. Thus he provided this rather technocratic perspective on the conditions for democracy. “If we view democracy as a cybernetic social system of networks in which there are many autonomous and decentralized nodes of power and information with their multiple channels of communication, the new media are increasingly providing the technological conditions for such a system.” (p.6)

Tehranian identified six cybernetic conditions for democracy: interactivity; universality; channel capacity; content variety; speedy transmission; and, low noise.

Interactivity recognizes the value of horizontal communications – people talking to each other, sharing information, engaging in social discourse. Tehranian grew up in a world where media was primarily one-way and vertically oriented from top to bottom. So he was intrigued with the emerging capabilities of media technologies to provide “multiple feedback systems” and allow autonomous centers of power to engage with each other in a pluralistic system of checks and balances.

Universality is another important condition for teledemocracy. This refers to access to the technological devices needed to participate in tele-democratic deliberations. Lower costs for mobile phones and computers mean increased penetration and participation in the political process. Higher rates of literacy and education also increase the population who can follow civic activities and participate in public discussions. Social media is now seen as a potential new “networked public sphere” for political debate and sharing relevant information.

Content Variety refers to the increasing diversity of professional and user-generated programming. Tehranian was disappointed in the global diet of television programs such as Dallas and Days of our Lives that were scheduled at the expense of more cultural and educational programs. He contrasted official messaging associated with more authoritarian political systems with the “symbolic variety” needed for democratic communications systems. Access and active participation mean little if the content available is limited in accuracy, relevance, scope and quality. In the age of Youtube and social media, the variety of ideas and messages have increased dramatically, although concerns have been raised about the statistics and surveillance of who watches what.

Channel Capacity involves the ability to transmit and receive high fidelity and high resolution professionally produced or “user-generated” information. While broadband and wifi speeds have increased regularly, the results are distributed unevenly. I’m writing this in South Korea, which, at an average connection of 63.6 megabits per second, is second only to Hong Kong for the highest broadband rates in the world. I have a house in Austin, Texas that is one of the Google Fiber cities beginning to offer 1 gigabit per second transmission to homes and businesses.

Low Noise is an interesting concept that has both a technical and political dimension. Technically, noise is a long-recognized impediment to message delivery. Politically, Tehranian pointed to the need for democratic rules and procedures that facilitate rational discourse. I lived a block from Washington Square Park in New York City when the Occupy Wall Street movement would meet there. The protesters gathered and utilized an interesting set of protocols to amplify messages and to communicate silently. The crowd who could hear the speaker would repeat their words like a “human mic” so people in the back could hear. They would also use hand signals to agree, disagree, or morally oppose anything being proposed. CNN reporter Jeanne Moos had this satirical piece on the Occupy Wall Street’s communication protocols.

Teledemocratic systems will need to develop their own rules of political communication to develop a unique public sphere concept of citizen participation, protest, and voting.

Speedy Transmission is a related concept that also has technical and political conditions. Faster communications has been a major motivator for information technology development from the telegraph to the ARPANET. He applies it also to level in which the public communicates concerns and demands to the political system and vice-versa, official responses are returned to public and actions through initiatives such as the Internet domain level .gov and .us.

The capabilities of digital media have accelerated and I plan to look at additional characteristics that might provide insights into the possibilities of teledemocracy. This list would probably include mobility, search, capture, representation, storage, and viral or spreadable media.

Notes

[1] Tehranian received a PhD in Political Economy from Harvard University and did his PhD dissertation on the global politics of oil cartels.
[2] Dual-effects hypothesis from Technologies of Power, p. 53.
[3] Ted Becker is the Alumni Professor of Political Science at Auburn University.
[4] Conditions for democracy can be found in Technologies of Power in Chapter 1 primarily pp. 6-9, and at the conclusion of Chapter 2, pp. 52-53.

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Anthony J. Pennings, PhD is a professor of global media at Hannam University in South Korea. Previously, he taught at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas and was on the faculty of New York University from 2002-2012. He taught at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand and was a Fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii.

Category: books and films, characteristics of digital media, democratic political economies, political economy of media
Tags: Content Variety > cybernetic conditions for democracy > Majid Tehranian > Technologies of Freedom > Technologies of Power: Information Machines and Democratic Prospects > technostructuralist > teledemocracy > Xeroxcracy

Revisiting Huxley and Orwell on Technology and Democracy

Posted on | June 1, 2014 | No Comments

One of the faces I miss most from my days on the NYU campus is that of Neil Postman, a professor of media ecology at the Steinhardt school. Professor Postman died a few years ago but not without leaving behind a legacy, including one of my favorite books, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985).

What I liked best about the book was his discussion of differences between authors Aldous Huxley and George Orwell, whose classic novels Brave New World (1932) and 1984 (1984) helped shape the American debate on dictatorship, democracy, surveillance, and propaganda. Both addressed these issues but with different perspectives.

Our engagement with these narratives has had significant implications for how we view computerization and the media, and how these technologies shape our society. Stuart McMillan drew up the contrast as specified by Postman in this cartoon series (that was recently taken down).

As Postman pointed out, while many people think the two authors had similar ideas about the characteristics and dangers of a totalitarian political system, a closer reading suggests otherwise. He stressed that Orwell’s vision was one of a government using violent oppression to crush the spirit of its populations while Huxley’s story was about a government that used distraction and pleasure to rule.

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.”[1]

While repressive dictatorships around the world continue to lend credence to Orwell’s vision, Postman was more concerned with Huxley’s idea of a regime of amusement and triviality, thus the title of his book.[2] The brutal crackdowns in the Middle East associated with the Arab Spring were chilling reminders of the use of force and surveillance by repressive governments. But what are the dangers when a political system such as the US, which draws its legitimacy from its heritage of democratic citizen participation, is subjected to a barrage of emotional trivia? Even our election system, the epitome of democratic practice has been reduced to a “race” between personalities, rather than a discussion of relevant issues and related policies.

Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death was published in the wake of 1984 as the Western world breathed a sigh of relief. For the most part, Orwell’s nightmare had not come true, despite Ronald Reagan’s tirades on the intrusion of government into our lives. In fact, Reagan’s turn to supply side economics unleashed a new media philosophy articulated by his choice to head the FCC, Chairman Mark S. Fowler, whose attitude was the public interest is what the “public is interested in.” Public TV was cut back, and private sector forces unleashed, particularly on children’s programming that consequently saw more and more commercial advertisements.

Luckily, it was also a time of technological choice and many parents began to switch their kids to VHS tapes and programming that was less violent and intrusive. Also, more channels emerged as the age of network television was being replaced by the multi-channel universe of cable television. Content variety is a important component of democratic participation.

Postman, who was a self-professed Luddite, was not a fan of the computer nor the Internet because of the parade of individualized amusements and distractions it offers. He rarely used computers and by extension email. A pioneer of the media ecology approach, he saw the introduction of a new technology as something that changes and disrupts our lives. Media is more than machines, but rather shape entire environments; structuring what we can see and say, assigning us roles and the extent of our participation in them, specifying what we are permitted to do and say, and what is dangerous and forbidden.

In Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992) he saw the computer, as other media technologies, as a Faustian bargain in which something is a gained, but much is also taken away. The computer gives us home shopping and lots of data at one’s fingertips, but with a trade-off. His primary concern was that the computer would lead to a new era where people were isolated in their world of infotainment fantasies and would reduce their connections with their community.

Citation APA (7th Edition)

Pennings, A.J. (2014, Jun 1). Revisiting Huxley and Orwell on Technology and Democracy. apennings.com https://apennings.com/dystopian-economies/revisiting-huxley-and-orwell-on-technology-and-democracy/

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Notes

[1] From the Introduction to Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
[2] 1980 movie of Brave New World and 1956 version of 1984.

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Anthony J. Pennings, PhD is Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Technology and Society, State University of New York, Korea. Before joining SUNY, he taught at Hannam University in South Korea and for fifteen years was on the faculty of New York University. Previously, he taught at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas, Marist College in New York, and Victoria University in New Zealand. He has also spent time as a Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Category: books and films, democratic political economies, dystopian economies, political economies in sf
Tags: 1984 > Aldous Huxley > Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business > Brave New World > Faustian bargain > George Orwell > media ecology > Neil Postman > Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology

Google You Can Fly My Car

Posted on | May 28, 2014 | No Comments

“We were promised flying cars. Instead we got 140 characters,” – Peter Thiel

Google’s driverless car prototype is now being shown on YouTube; its network TV alternative. The car has no steering wheel, no mirrors, and no brakes. All you do is search, search, and watch Google TV while the car gets you to your destination. Don’t get me wrong; I like the idea. However, as I pointed out in a previous post, Google sees an opportunity to monetize the road. Here I want to ask the question: What about clouds? Not “the cloud,” but doesn’t Google want to monetize the skies? (update 2019: Larry Page started a company called Kitty Hawk to build flying cars)

This post is a follow-up to my essays “Monetizing the Automatrix” and “Google You Can Drive My Car” about the advertising and search strategies helping to motivate the search giant’s innovations in driverless vehicles. After all, if we can create a safe environment and technologies for the driverless car, would it not be relatively easy to apply those technologies to vehicles that fly?

Wired’s investigation of driverless cars identified some challenges, such as small animals and signaling cyclists. Still, we can expect many safety innovations that will be part of both driver-less and people-driven cars.

Extrapolating from the driverless car, can we expect a flying car? I was recently intrigued by the work of MIT’s Mary Cummings and particularly an article in Scientific American called “The Flying Car Will Finally Fly—and DriveFuture.” It was a special edition called “The Science Of The Next 150 Years: 50 Years in the Future.” It raises the question, will we bypass the Automatrix and go right to the Aeromatrix?

A former Naval aviator, Prof. Cummings has been working primarily on drones, but she makes a connection to the pilot-less flying plane. She cites Internet-inventor ARPA’s support for both driverless cars and drones as being influential. Still, much of her reasoning comes from being a Navy pilot rather than her work as an academic.

Being a fighter pilot, she realized her job was quickly being replaced by automation. Not only did computers fly jets better, but they bombed better. The Tomahawk missile, for example, could hit the tip of a needle from a thousand miles away.

The Scientific American article refers to the Aerocar. Initially built in 1949 and approved by the now-defunct Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA), it was a vehicle that could be converted into an airplane in a matter of minutes. In many ways, it is easier for computers to fly an airplane than it is to drive a car. Granted, the consequences of mistakes can be more extreme.

Every kid from my generation was inspired by the flying cars in The Jetsons, the cartoon show about the family of the future.

My contention is that people don’t want to drive all the time if they have another option. While driving can be relaxing and a respite from the day’s grind, they may want to text, surf the Internet, or relax, meditate, or even sleep. Google plans to monetize the road by cashing in on these trends.

A note about my fanciful optimism: I recently taught a couple of MBA courses on innovation, which helped me discern some characteristics that might make the driverless car, and perhaps the flying car, a reality. Whether the driverless car or driverless flying car “takes off” depends on several factors, including government regulation and some tricky safety issues.

But Cummings points out that the trends towards substantially increased safety are significant. What is crucial is if car manufacturers can identify the relevant customer groups. For example, will it attract new customers who opted for public transportation in the past? This market looks limited in the US but might be attractive internationally. How about customers who find cars too expensive to maintain and would rather just use a
Zip Car now? Or Uber? Perhaps subscribing to a car service for a certain amount of hours a week/month? Probably most important group are the frustrated consumers who are willing to pay for the added convenience of having a car drive them to the market, to work, and maybe even send the car to pick up the kids from school.

Pennings, A.J. (2014, May 28) Google, You Can Fly My Car. apennings.com https://apennings.com/ditigal_destruction/disruption/google-you-can-fly-my-car/

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Anthony J. Pennings, PhD is Professor at the Department of Technology and Society, State University of New York, Korea. Before joining SUNY, he was on the faculty of New York University (2002-2012). Previously, he taught at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas and Victoria University in New Zealand. He has also spent time as a Fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Category: automatrix, disruption
Tags: Aeromatrix > Automatrix > driver-less cars > driverless car > drones > Mary Cummings

The Surveilling Eye of Global Financial News

Posted on | May 20, 2014 | No Comments

Abbreviated notes from a recent talk to the Korean International Studies Association at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul, South Korea, May 17, 2014.

This summer I’m starting an inquiry into global financial news that will combine a formalistic look at the meaning-making processes that constitute television news while also incorporating the importance of surveillance, a long recognized mass media function. Both deserve additional scrutiny in an age of sophisticated digital media and telecommunications capabilities that have changed the dynamics of global finance and its impact on countries around the world.

I elaborated on 3 points that tie a formal analysis of television financial news with a political economy of global money and the mass media function of surveillance.

1. Global news is part of a global surveillance apparatus that uses increasingly sophisticated forms of digital techniques to mediate the events, processes and people of the world in a variety of representational forms such as live statistical feeds and price information, info-graphics, live split-screen guest interviews from remote locations, etc.
2. Countries exist within an “information standard” that replaced the gold/dollar standard created at Bretton Woods with a global system of high tech financial trading reacting in various ways to information and news flows.
3. This information standard disciplines government policy as the amounts of money in global circulation seriously challenge the capability of any individual country to effectively control key aspects of their economic and financial policy.

Surveillance of the world plays a unique role in the financial industry by providing a wide variety of mediated economic and financial news related to geopolitical risk and opportunity. Furthermore, it is important to place the analysis of financial news within the political context of a larger techno-structural environment of global financial trading that works to discipline countries, companies and people around the world. The implications of this global web have been amplified by the extraordinary volume and velocity of the system that sees tens of trillions of dollars of trades transacted every day.

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Anthony J. Pennings, PhD is the Professor of Global Media at Hannam University in South Korea. Previously, he taught at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas and was on the faculty of New York University from 2002-2012. He also taught at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand and was a Fellow at the East-West Center in Hawaii in the 1990s.

Category: digital monetarism, financial news, geopolitical risk, global communications, journalism, meaning makers, technologies of meaning
Tags: financial news > Information Standard > political risk > surveillance > television news

E-Commerce with Chinese Characteristics

Posted on | April 22, 2014 | No Comments

When Deng Xiaoping, the Communist leader who transformed China into state-centric capitalism had his famous economic realization, “I can distribute poverty or I can distribute wealth,” he probably could not have imagined the power of the Internet and its e-commerce capabilities.

Deng and other post-Mao Communist leaders pursued “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” with the argument that China had mistakenly entered into Communism during its feudal stage instead of waiting until advanced capitalism, as Marx had theorized. Private ownership and a market economy were suddenly embraced as solutions, not problems. This allowed the Chinese Communist Party to legitimize both its turn to market capitalism and the continuance of its political control over the country through Marxist ideology.

So now, China has propelled itself into a major economic power. While this transformation has been accomplished primarily through a low-cost labor strategy in special export-oriented economic zones, they have also embraced the Internet and it’s e-commerce capabilities. President Xi Jinping recently said, “Efforts should be made to build our country into a cyber power,” He is even heading an Internet security and informatization leading group, and stressed that the Internet is central to China’s security and development as well as people’s life and work. A case in point, the number of its Internet users has risen to nearly 600 million, twice as many as in the U.S.

One of the earliest Chinese startups was the Alibaba Group, now considered its most dominant e-commerce player and a major force facilitating its international trade. Along with rivals Tencent and Baidu, Alibaba has taken China into the frontiers of net-centric commerce and communication. Forget the smog and traffic and overcharging hawkers, e-commerce is transforming Chinese consumer culture.

China will take another step in its “socialist” journey as Alibaba tenders its IPO (Initial Public Offering) in the United States. It started recently with US$1 billion to gauge the registration process. China’s largest e-commerce group may worth in excess of $160 billion. Granted a lot of this may be public relations hype dreamed up by Yahoo, which currently owns 24% of Alibaba and stands to make some $10 billion in a successful IPO. But let’s take a closer look at e-commerce in China.

Jack Ma founded Alibaba.com in 1999 with 17 partners and quickly raised money from Softbank, Goldman Sachs, and other institutions to build the Alibaba.com site and brand. In a classic Internet rags-to-riches drama, Ma learned English by listening to the radio and created the company after he discovered the Internet while on a business trip to the US during the 1990s.

The former English teacher and interpreter named the company after the main character in one of his favorite stories, the Arabic classic Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. For Jack Ma, Ali Baba was the kind son of a merchant who helped his village. It didn’t hurt that the name was easy to spell and a provocative name.

Since then, they have built an array of companies under the Alibaba banner, starting with Alibaba.com that was set up as a B2B (Business to Business) trading platform for small manufacturers to sell their products to each other. It has since expanded to offer a wide range of online services operating globally.

Taobao.com is its “online mall” with some 300 million customers that operates like a combination of Amazon and eBay, allowing approved sellers to auction or sell their goods outright. On November 11, Singles Day, Taobao and Tmall, Alibaba’s two main platforms, set an amazing record. They sold some 35 billion yuan (US$5.75 billion) in the 24-hour period, surpassing last year’s sales of 19.1 billion yuan.

Founded and owned by the Alibaba Group, Taoboa’s revenues reached 29 billion yuan in 2009 and have been growing significantly the last few years. It deals in China’s currency, the yuan, and uses Alipay as the preferred payment platform. Alipay is an escrow-based online payment system which is owned by the Alibaba Group. Although China’s Central Bank is placing renewed attention on payment systems, the payment solution site has nearly 500,000 C2C, B2C and B2B merchants using its services, not including those on Taobao and Alibaba.

Based in Hangzhou, just inland from eastern China’s Shang Hai metropolis, the company focuses on three online opportunities:

The China marketplace

– Using the www.1688.com site, the domestic business-to-business trade in China has been Alibaba’s financial base. Alibaba connected 1688 with Taobao to form a supply chain of manufacturing businesses, distribution businesses and consumers. Taobao is China’s largest online shopping site and has a very popular mobile app. The video below provides insight into the Chinese online consumer. Alternative link to CNBC video on Alibaba.

The English language international marketplace

– The purchase of Vendio Services Inc. with funding from George Soros, brought together importers and exporters from more than 240 countries and regions with substantial English-literate populations. It was combined with AliExpress, an Amazon-like factory-direct platform for retail purchasing, complete with incredible bargains and the occasional ripoff.

The Japanese marketplace

– Alibaba.com Japan is a subsidiary of SOFTBANK Corp. (alibaba.co.jp)and conducts business-to-business trade between small and medium enterprises in Japan with buyers and suppliers, including some from China. Yahoo Japan and Alibaba’s Taobao have connected e-commerce platforms to provide B2C services both ways. Yahoo Japan has opened a section in Chinese in its shopping section, carrying millions of products from China (in Japanese language) while Alibaba’s Taobao is offering wares from Japan-based companies on “TaoJapan”, a Chinese-language section on Taobao’s frontpage. Japanese telecom/media giant Softbank has a major financial interest in both Alibaba and Yahoo Japan and stands to benefit handsomely from the IPO.

As the economic momentum continues to move to Asia, e-commerce will increasingly be at the center of the new social dynamic. While China follows the world trend of rising inequality between the rich and the rest, Chinese leaders seemed to have learned the lesson of USSR Communism – workers need material rewards to stay motivated. The proletariat needs incentives to keep up the long hours on the mobile phone production line. E-commerce provides the lure and the fulfillment of those consumer desires. They can see what they want online, pay for what they want online, and have it delivered in the physical world (Maybe soon with Amazon-style drones?-). Socialism with Chinese characteristics takes an electronic turn.

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Anthony J. Pennings, PhD is Professor at the Department of Technology and Society, State University of New York, Korea. Originally from New York, he started his academic career Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand before returning to New York to teach at Marist College and spending most of his career at New York University. He has also spent time at the East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. When not in the Republic of Korea, he lives in Austin, Texas.

Category: global e-commerce, media strategies, mobile technologies
Tags: Alibaba > Taobao

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