Body Image: Minority women in the media

Posted on August 19, 2012 by zezinez

Originally written for and published on Disruptive Women in Health Care

When media speculated about her “puffy” face, Ashley Judd wrote a piece on media misogyny for the Daily Beast. It turns out that Judd was on steroids to combat a sinus infection and flu – she had not gone under the knife. Judd denounced our patriarchal media system as one that conspires against women by placing “the interests of boys and men over the bodily integrity, autonomy, and dignity of girls and women.” According to Judd, this type of hate against women “is subtle, insidious, and never more dangerous than when women passionately deny that they themselves are engaging in it.”

Many women are oblivious to the impact that media has on our lives. Marketers spend billions of dollars per year to set a largely unachievable standard of beauty so that they can sell us more products as we strive to achieve the ever-elusive perfect body. This deception creates feelings of inadequacy in women, especially children and young adults who are in the midst of cognitive development.

For women and girls of color the impact is even greater, as racial markers, such as dark skin and kinky hair, are rejected by the influential media. Women with these physical traits are seemingly unworthy of media attention. Indeed, women of color are largely invisible in media, and the darker one is the less likely she is to see people like her on TV. This is true even on Spanish-language television, which is dominated by light-skinned Latinos. Even more revolting is the common marketing practice of digitally lightening the skin color and photo-shopping curves out of advertisements. No wonder young women of color are facing an epidemic of low self-esteem!

When Latinas do appear in media, they are regularly typecast in stereotypical roles. For example, Lupe Ontiveros, the iconic U.S. Latina actress, estimates that she has played a maid between 150 and 300 times on screen.“Minority Women, Media, and Body Image” (PDF), a report out of the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agriculture Sciences, found that:

“Similar to the effects on African-Americans, the media has perpetuated stereotypes about Latin-Americans, those of which differ from the typical non-Hispanic woman. These images are shown on television, which is heavily consumed by Latin-American women. Latin-American women on average watch four more hours of television daily than women in other ethnic groups. Due to this increase in exposure, Latin-American women are more susceptible to negative images, making comparisons to the media ideal more detrimental. As a result, Latin-Americans have a heavy loyalty to the health and beauty industry. The support that they give to this industry may be associated with the dissatisfaction felt when media ideals are used for comparison.”

Media misogyny not only impacts our self-esteem but also how others perceive us. As many people in the U.S. come into contact with Latinas and other people of color exclusively through media, the importance of fair and accurate media coverage is even greater. For some, the media is the only way that they learn about people who are different than themselves, which encourages behaviors and attitudes towards these “others” without ever really knowing any of them.

According to a 2007 Free Press report titled “Out of The Picture: Minority & Female TV Station Ownership in the United States” (PDF), while women comprise 51 percent of the U.S. population, they only own 6 percent of all stations. Racial or ethnic minorities (both men and women) own just 7.7 percent of all full-power commercial broadcast radio stations, though they account for 33 percent of the U.S. population. That lack of representation in ownership and other top-tier positions is one of the main reasons that women and minorities are not represented – or misrepresented – in the media.

So ladies, regardless of our skin color, we have some work to do. Let’s get together and disrupt the status quo! Let’s hold media accountable! Oftentimes, by unconsciously segregating we lose the power of our collective voice. Let’s organize town halls in New York and Los Angeles and invite the top media executives to discuss our issues! Let’s find women of influence to back this project – first lady Michelle Obama would be a great start! Let’s figure out how we can create our own media – ownership is essential. Women like Oprah and Arianna Huffington understand the necessity of ownership, but we need more women to get into the game. By owning and running our own media, we can create a pipeline of women media executives and decision makers that can set a new standard. At a micro-level, at home and in our schools, let’s start talking to young women about the negative effect that media can have on our lives. Like the friend that we know is not good for us, let’s stop consuming media that doesn’t portray us fairly and accurately! Let’s move on this, ladies, to create a healthier body image and fairer treatment for all the women of tomorrow!

Posted in Media | Tagged | Leave a comment

A Rich History of Ethnic Media: A Review of News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media

Posted on May 23, 2012 by zezinez

White-owned media has disparaged, dehumanized, and defamed people of color for thousands of years. That is the premise of the recently released News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media by journalists and activists Juan González and Joseph Torres. This book is a meticulously researched history of modern mass communication and is an essential read for those interested in media policy and race relations. The authors of this timely book state, “It is our contention that newspapers, radio, and television played a pivotal role in perpetuating racists’ views among the general population. They did so by routinely portraying non-white minorities as threats to a white society and by reinforcing racial ignorance, group hatred, and discriminatory government policies.”

The History of Hate Speech in Media
Hate speech in the U.S. media has existed since the inception of this country and, unfortunately, has endured to the present day, continuing to cause great harm to targeted groups. This is one of the many reasons why this book is relevant and worth reading. As the poet and philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

The book narrates the early years of hate speech in media against Native Americans, African Americans, and Mexicans. Often, newspaper publishers would frame untrue narratives claiming that people of color routinely victimized innocent White citizens. According to González and Torres, “Indian barbarism . . . was the overriding theme of numerous news accounts about Native Americans in our early media.” According to the White-owned media, there was often justification for any White-led counter aggression.

Innovations in mass communications gave bigoted media an even larger audience. For instance, as detailed in the book, in 1833, the New York Sun launched the first penny newspaper, signaling the advent of the penny press.  The penny press was revolutionary in that, for the first time, newspapers became accessible to the working class. Regrettably, according to González and Torres, the penny press also “became a key instrument in the spread of racism among America’s white working class.” In the late 1840s, the Associated Press (AP) was created and the model of sensational news appeared. The AP made it easier for newspapers across the country to republish racist distortions. The authors claim
that “the centralization of news delivery in late-nineteenth-century America represented a huge setback for the portrayal of race relations.”

As explored in the book, when radio first appeared, it duplicated the newspapers’ bigoted model. The high barriers of entry for this new industry made it substantially more difficult for ethnic media to enter the market and counter any negative portrayals. The authors state, “[R]adio programs in those early decades invariably disseminated a ‘white’ view of the world, and when they did portray non-whites, it was often though demeaning stereotypes.” As the government agency responsible for overseeing the use of the public airwaves, the Federal Radio Commission (FRC), the predecessor to today’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC), could not find the courage to stand up against racism. In 1927, it granted a broadcast license to a firm openly associated with the Ku Klux Klan, the Fellowship Forum. The new radio station, with the call letters WTFF, was subsequently granted a jump in power from 50 to 10,000 watts, significantly increasing its geographic reach.

Eventually, as detailed in the book, media companies would publicly apologize for promoting racism and condoning violent acts against vulnerable groups. In 2006, after fifty years had passed, the Tallahassee Democrat published an apology for not covering the city’s bus boycott following Rosa Parks’s arrest. The apology, in part as quoted in the book, states: “Leaders in that journey toward equality should have been able to expect support in ending segregation from the local daily newspaper, the Tallahassee Democrat. They could not.” In a later portion of the apology that the authors surprisingly excluded, it states, “[w]e not only did not lend a hand, we openly opposed integration, siding firmly with the segregationists.”

The book’s narration of the history of hate speech in the United States is riveting and enlightening. It is a shameful story that has been swept under the rug—until now. Yet, it is unfortunate that after providing such a complete historic perspective on hate speech in media, the authors bypass an important discussion on the hate speech that plagues media today. It would have been fascinating for González and Torres to train the caliber and depth of analysis exhibited in discussing the hate speech of the eighteenth and nineteenth century on the hate speech and media landscape of today. Perhaps this topic could spawn a worthy sequel to News for All the People.

The Importance of Ethnic Media
I am aware of no other book that has documented in such a complete manner the contributions made by ethnic media in the United States. The authors show great respect for the influences of ethnic media and provide a complete rundown of the most important newspapers for each community of color. We learn about talented and passionate people of color, often dissidents that made their mark by going against the mainstream media to keep their communities informed and empowered. Sadly, while certain ethnic media outlets made important strides in representing their particular communities, often their editorial pages would include racism against other ethnic groups. For example, some Native American and Hispanic newspapers supported slavery and would use the same
dehumanizing language against African Americans that the mainstream media at the time used.

A poignant story in the book about ethnic media highlights the world’s first Indian
newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix (or Tsa-la-ge-Tsi-hi-sa-ni-hi), which was founded in 1828. As recounted by González and Torres, “Each issue of the weekly Phoenix faithfully chronicled Cherokee efforts to prevent incursions on their land by Georgia’s white settlers.” The Phoenix’s campaign against Indian removal became influential and widespread, despite attempts by the post office to curtail the newspaper’s distribution. Because of its influence, the Phoenix became a threat to local settlers. In 1835, as the newspaper was in the process of moving to a more secure location on Indian land in Tennessee, the Georgia Guard intercepted the wagon train carrying all of the Phoenix’s printing equipment and destroyed it, ending the extraordinary life of this significant
newspaper.

González and Torres draw attention to several journalist activists, among them José Martí, Ida B. Wells, Ng Poon Chew, and Jovita Idar. In 1880, Martí, a young Cuban political exile who would later become one of the great revolutionaries of Latin America, moved to New York City and spent fifteen years writing about life in the United States. As González and Torres contend, “Martí’s marvelous dispatches should long ago have accorded him a special place among America’s nineteenth-century newsmen, but because he wrote in Spanish he remains largely unknown in the very country where he practiced his best journalism.”

Wells, an African American schoolteacher and editor of a small newspaper, dedicated her life to “exposing America’s epidemic of lynching and race hatred” after three of her good friends were murdered by a White mob. Ng Poon Chew, a young clergyman, consistently empowered the Chinese American community by informing and advocating on relevant issues in the Chung Sai Yat Po (China’s West Daily). After the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, as mainstream media advocated for Chinatown to be removed from the downtown area, Poon Chew encouraged Chinese Americans to return to Chinatown and rebuild, which they did. The Chung Sai Yat Po was one of the longest-running and most influential Chinese papers in American history.

Finally, Mexican American editor Jovita Idar, along with her brothers, established the newspaper, La Crónica. As the best Hispanic newspaper along the border, “the paper repeatedly exposed not only segregation in the public schools, but the unjust seizures of Tejano land and lynchings of Texas Mexicans.” According to the authors, even though ethnic media played such an important and unique role for ethnic communities, it was invisible to mainstream media. Arguably, it still is.

The Role of Government
One argument presented throughout the book is the substantial government investment in the United States’ communication networks and private industries’ desire to maximize profit from networks that were partially built with taxpayers’ money. Private industry typically revolts against government regulation when in fact it has benefited greatly from government subsidies. This core statement reflects the authors’ belief that all taxpayers are entitled to have access to the communication networks that have been created, in part, with their money. The authors seem to suggest that if more people were aware of the notable public cost required to build communication networks, the public would demand access to these networks from the government. Additionally, the authors explain the
impact on various media policy decisions made throughout the years.

A look at the evolution of communication reveals that public versus private distinction has always played a role in the development of our networks. Upon the creation of the post office, a communication network was born that has allowed newspapers not only to be distributed to citizens from around the country but also to gain great influence in public opinion. The Postal Act of 1792 created second-class mail that still exists to this day, guaranteeing all printers low-cost distribution of their product.

As detailed in the book, the invention of the telegraph was followed by a long public debate on whether this new communication technology should be publicly or privately owned. Samuel Morse, the inventor, fearing private control of his new technology, offered to sell his patent to the government for $100,000. Congress rejected the offer. As a result of opting for the private model, the telegraph became twice as expensive in the United States as it was in Europe and accessible only to commercial companies and the wealthy. The trend that the penny press had started, of making mass communication accessible to all, was reversed with the telegraph. In the United States, the rich would receive the most
important news and information far ahead of the masses. According to González and Torres, due to the telegraph, “[T]he nation witnessed the rise of its first industrial monopoly, the Western Union Co., and of its first communications cartel, an alliance between Western Union and the Associated Press.”

During World War I, the U.S. Navy worked to harness radio effectively for the war effort. Following the war, the navy engineered the creation of a radio trust that would keep control of airwaves. The trust was known as the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). RCA was a consortium of key American wireless industry players who were shareholders of this new entity and agreed to work in cooperation, divide up their areas of interest, and make their patents available to each other. The Navy would have a seat on the board of directors. González and Torres reveal that, “RCA would go on to dominate commercial broadcasting for much of the twentieth century in much the same way as Western Union had dominated the telegraph in the late nineteenth century.” Smaller radio stations had no chance against RCA. The government helped create this conglomerate but did little to help people of color become radio station owners.

During the first years of the FCC, the commission was dominated by commissioners from Southern states. Unsurprisingly, according to the authors, “the agency did virtually nothing to address racial diversity in broadcast ownership.” By 1971, only ten of the nation’s 7,500 radio stations were owned by people of color, and it would take seven more years for the FCC to finally adopt its first official policy to promote minority ownership of broadcast stations.

By the time the book enters more familiar waters—the age of broadcast television, cable, and the Internet—anticipation has mounted for the authors to turn their unique perspective on a more familiar set of issues. However, the authors seem to have run out of pages to be as detailed as they were when discussing the policy decisions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Although there is a brief discussion on Ma Bell, public access channels, and cable policy related issues, the quality and depth of discussion that readers are treated to in earlier chapters causes this later section to feel somewhat unsatisfying. Although this does little to diminish the great accomplishment of the work, readers in search of a more contemporary look at mass communications will find little of it in this volume.

Conclusion
Ultimately, News for All the People is an extraordinary resource for those interested in media policy issues in relation to race relations. The important research conducted by the authors and the rich history of ethnic media discovered throughout the pages are priceless. Nevertheless, at times the complexity of the subject matter could lead to a dry or difficult-to-follow experience for readers who lack a predisposition to the topic. This book is a
treasure, especially for people of color whose unique story is often forgotten by the mainstream. The authors write from their perspective—a perspective that often is missed by those who think little about the impact that policy has on people of color.

Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged | 1 Comment

The Power of the Media in Fostering Hate

Posted on November 14, 2011 by zezinez

In the early 1990s, local media played a central role in the Rwanda genocide that aimed to get rid of the Tutsi, a minority ethnic group in the country.  Between 500,000 to a million people were killed in Rwanda – a country of only seven million people.  Before the genocide began, state-owned local print and radio stations promoted anti-Tutsi hate speech that became not only acceptable but the norm.  Initially, the hate speech focused on demonizing the Tutsi.  By 1994, the hate speech had escalated to the point of directly inciting violence and murder.  What happened in Rwanda is an anomaly that now serves as an international reminder of how media can be used to harm society.  May we never forget Rwanda.

A recent book by Juan Gonzalez and Joseph Torres, News for all the People, narrates the role media has played in the U.S. in regards to race.  The authors of this important and timely book state:

“It is our contention that newspapers, radio, and television played a pivotal role in perpetuating racists’ views among the general population.  They did so by routinely portraying non-white minorities as threats to a white society and by reinforcing racial ignorance, group hatred, and discriminatory government policies.”

Unfortunately, the U.S. media’s portrayal of people of color and immigrants as a threatening influence continues to wax and wane. The media needs an enemy, especially during a time of crisis, and the enemy of choice is often “the other.”  Undocumented immigrants come to take our jobs, Muslims kill U.S. citizens, African-Americans lower our quality of life.  We’ve heard them all.

The National Hispanic Media Coalition’s (NHMC) mission includes fighting negative portrayals of Latinos in media.  This is an important effort because perception is reality, especially for children.  Throughout its 25-year history, NHMC has fought numerous incidents of hate speech in media, focusing on the most egregious of cases.  In 1996, Sacramento disk jockey, Jeff Katz, on KSTE-AM, suggested that drivers “should be awarded a sombrero bumper sticker” for hitting undocumented immigrants attempting to cross into the United States from Mexico.  Katz said that for every 10 bumper stickers collected a motorist would “earn a free drink or meal at Taco Bell.”  NHMC mobilized the community against Katz and the station.  Ultimately, Katz was fired.  In 2009, NHMC joined community coalitions fighting against CNN Lou Dobbs’ hateful immigration rhetoric.  NHMC’s President & CEO, Alex Nogales, met with CNN’s President, Jon Klein, to urge him to have Dobbs return to being a credible journalist or to fire him immediately.  Less than a week after Nogales met with Klein, Lou Dobbs announced his resignation.  NHMC has benefited from the lessons of these and other public campaigns and has refined its strategy on hate speech in media.  If the broadcasters ignore the public’s complaint, then the public has the right to go to the advertisers and educate them on the collision of their brand with hate speech.  No smart corporation wants, or needs, that brand conflict.

This is exactly what NHMC is now doing with its current campaign in Los Angeles targeting John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou, two local shock jocks who for years have made a profit by trafficking hate.   John and Ken’s modus operandi is to target vulnerable groups and their advocates, vilify them and make a call to action to their angry listeners.  Throughout the years, they have perfected hate speech, while their station managers have enjoyed the high ratings and turned a blind eye to the unsubstantiated and harmful rhetoric.  On many occasions, John and Ken have released personal phone numbers knowing full well that their irate listeners would take action.  Most recently, John and Ken released the phone number of an advocate who, subsequently, received over 500 calls, some of the calls life threatening.  It turns out that this latest incident was the straw that broke the camel’s back for many community leaders in Los Angeles.  Over forty national and local organizations and more than one thousand individuals have joined NHMC in asking KFI, the profiteers of John and Ken’s hate, to stop the hate.  KFI is not ready to do what is right, but so far 10 major corporations have agreed to distance themselves from The John and Ken Show. Many small businesses have stopped advertising on the show as well. As KFI frantically recruits new replacement advertisers, the campaign will continue to educate the advertisers on what and whom they are supporting.

There comes a time when the conventional wisdom shifts, and the time is now for our society to take a stand against hate speech in media.  Unsubstantiated rhetoric and dehumanizing metaphors targeting vulnerable groups have become the norm for some media outlets.  Yes, the First Amendment is alive and well in this country but this doesn’t mean that broadcasters are entitled to give the microphone to anybody willing to whip people into a frenzy for the sake of ratings.  There comes a time when the public must take a stand and demand that broadcasters recognize that vilifying a community is a dangerous game to play.  Broadcasters are given a federal license for the privilege to use the public airwaves and they have a responsibility to serve the public.  Rwanda should be a constant reminder of the power that media can have on society and we all must be vigilant that this power not go too far.  As Malcolm X once said, “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”

Posted in Media | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Tracking Hate Crimes Against Latinos

Posted on July 12, 2011 by zezinez

On July 5, 2011, Gary Thomas Kelley was sentenced to 27.5 years in prison for killing his long-time neighbor Juan Varela. On May 6, 2010, while Varela was watering his lawn, Kelley walked over to Varela called him a “wetback,” told him “go back to Mexico,” then fatally shot him. Varela was a third-generation American. The shooting took place in Phoenix, Arizona during a period of heated political debate and tension after the passage SB 1070 – the first of a rash of harsh and unfair anti-Latino measures in the country.

Local police initially characterized the shooting as the result of a drunken or longstanding dispute between neighbors and charged Kelley with second-degree murder and aggravated assault. The Varela family did not agree with the police’s depiction of the crime and demanded hate crime charges. At the time of the shooting, a family spokesperson stated, “This family wants justice. They’re asking that violence stop and that Gov. Brewer and other elected officials take responsibility for this hostile atmosphere they have created” by the immigration law and other legislation. Ultimately, Kelley received 20 years in prison for second-degree murder and 7.5 years for aggravated assault. There were no hate crime charges.

NHMC has been tracking hate speech in media and hate crimes against Latinos for several years now. We often wonder how many hate crimes are conveniently categorized as typical, run-of-the-mill offenses, rather than the bigoted, hate-fueled affronts that they actually are. In 2008, there was Luis Ramirez’s tragic case in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. Ramirez was beaten to death by a group of teenagers who hurled racial slurs as they pounded and kicked him until he was foaming from the mouth. Town officials called it a street fight that went too far. It was thanks to MALDEF’s successful advocacy that his murder was eventually investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice as a hate crime.

According to a recent report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), most hate crimes are racially motivated, violent, and – most alarming – are not reported to the police. The BJS’s report analyzes hate crime data from their National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) for the years 2003-2009. NCVS is a survey conducted twice a year that captures victims’ accounts of crimes, whether they were reported to police or not. The report states that almost 90 percent of hate crimes were perceived to be motivated by racial or ethnic prejudice or both. In almost all hate crimes (98 percent), the offender used hate-related language against the victim. Nearly 87 percent of all hate crimes involved violence, and about 23 percent were serious violent crimes (rape/sexual assault, robbery, or aggravated assault). From 2003 to 2009, overall about 54% of all hate crime victimizations captured in the NCVS were NOT reported to the police. Of those reported, 26% were reported by the victim, 13% by someone else, and 6% in some other way (for example, police were present at the scene when the crime occurred). Almost half (45%) of violent hate crime victimizations that resulted in an injury were NOT reported to the police. Approximately 15% of hate crime victims who did not report the crime believed that the police would not want to be bothered or to get involved, would be inefficient and ineffective, or would cause trouble for the victim.

NHMC’s tracking of hate crimes against Latinos has provided an opportunity to collaborate with the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice. This agency has been commissioned to write a report, sponsored by Congressman José E. Serrano, on the underlying causes of hate crimes against Latinos and immigrants. NHMC has shared its work with the researchers, and connected those researchers with key experts on hate speech, hate groups and hate crimes. As Phase II of this project begins NHMC will connect the researchers with grassroots leaders in California, Texas, New Jersey, Michigan, and Arizona. These states will receive additional scrutiny. Recently, Congressman Serrano highlighted the preliminary conclusions of the study, which showed that hate crimes against Latinos have been rising over the past several years. Serrano called the preliminary findings “deeply troubling” and “a call to action.”

Our fight against hate speech has unfortunately made us very knowledgeable on hate crimes against Latinos. We’ve collected information on some of the most heinous hate crimes against Latinos and shared it with the Department of Justice. We will continue to do this because, when faced with these terrible acts, we can’t just read the story and move on – we need to make sure that the authorities know about the crime and does something about it. We recently received a letter from Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez stating that the DOJ intends to continue their vigorous enforcement of federal civil rights statutes. We appreciate Perez’s work and commitment, but enforcement of civil rights statutes requires recognition of civil rights violations when they occur. This is the type of recognition that Juan Varela’s family never received.

Posted in Hate Crimes | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Online Privacy Practices, Issues, and Concerns

Posted on December 14, 2010 by zezinez

Executive Summary

Internet users are increasingly and unknowingly giving up their rights to their private information as they increase their online activities.  As other countries have developed more stringent rules on privacy, the U.S. government has taken a wait-and-see approach in terms of regulating the Internet.  In fact, it is not clear which government agency is responsible for overseeing the Internet.  Is it the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) or the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA)?   Most recently, the U.S. government has indicated an interest in stepping up its oversight efforts and delegating the responsibility to the Department of Commerce.Regardless of what agency ends up the custodian of the Internet, this designation of responsibility should take place soon.  It is essential that online privacy rights be addressed, as Eli Pariser, from MoveOn.org, states “before the bones are set in this media framework.”

There are various issues and concerns regarding online privacy.  It doesn’t take much research to come up with egregious examples of unscrupulous third parties hijacking personal information to sell it for profit.  There are the popular search engines that in return for providing a valuable free service to offer personalized searches, expect to collect the user’s data and to make a profit from targeted ads.  And then there are the online profiles that Internet companies are developing about consumers.  It took years for Google and other companies to figure out how to make their businesses profitable.  This advertisement model based on consumer information will not be easily relinquished.  This is why self-regulation has not worked in maintaining online privacy and must be augmented with regulations.

Online Privacy Practices, Issues, and Concerns

Posted in Online Technology | Tagged | Leave a comment

My last post — for this class

Posted on November 22, 2010 by zezinez

I came all the way to the Harvard Kennedy School of Government to learn how to start a blog and maintain it.  Not quite, but that’s what it took for me to get up to speed on this endeavor.  Professor Mele wants one more post for his class.  This one, on the impact of the Internet on journalism and on government.

No doubt the Internet brings great benefits, but this semester I became even more keenly aware of the drawbacks of having such a powerful resource intertwined with our daily lives.  For starters, our loss of privacy.  Corporate America is gathering even more information about us than I could ever have imagined.  With every application that we download we lose control of one more bit of our personal data, and most of the time we don’t even realize it.  The same can be said for the Internet’s impact on journalism, it has some good contributions but also bad ones.

We know that the Internet has opened the door to new, diverse voices.  Thousands of new bloggers have added their perspective to the Internet.  But bloggers are not necessarily journalists, and many of them are not following journalism ethics and standards.  It’s now up to the consumer to discern fact from fiction.  Not everything that is on the Internet is true.  Additionally, consumers must be weary of new technology that filters searches – what you see is what Big Brother thinks you want to see (read previous entry on the filter bubble.)  There is no doubt that journalism is going through a critical transformational time, some have called it “the death of journalism.”  College students are selecting alternative career paths due to the uncertainty in the journalism career.  Nevertheless, journalism plays an invaluable role in our society that must be protected.  The long tail gives us hope that there will always be an Internet audience for good journalism.

As for government, it’s apparent that in the United States this institution is only now learning how to deal with the Internet.  Alex Howard of the O’Reilly Radar writes about Gov 2.0 going local and mentions maverick cities such as  New York, Boston, San Francisco, Portland, Ore. and the District of Columbia as being front and center in this movement.  Mitch Weiss, Boston’s Mayor Chief of Staff, spoke at the Kennedy School in September about the “New Urban Mechanics.”  The City of Boston is using smartphone apps to encourage civic participation.  Constituents report potholes, broken street lights and other city service complaints on their smart phone and receive a response back from the City ones the repair is made.  New Urban Mechanics compliments the old way of doing business, said Weiss, it doesn’t replace it.   It’s not surprising that local government seems to be having more success in e-government than the federal government.  Although the Obama Administration has promised transparency and has worked towards that endeavor, it hasn’t been an easy task.  The federal government is a huge bureaucracy with an ingrained culture that dislikes transparency.  If a U.S. Senator can put a secret hold on a bill and remain anonymous to the public, then the feds have a long way ahead before e-government is running full force and is completely transparent.

Posted in Online Technology | 2 Comments

Alec Ross, the State Department and the impact of new media on the world

Posted on November 16, 2010 by zezinez

One of the benefits of having Nicco Mele as my professor for the Media, Power, Politics in the Digital Age class is that he invites all his cool and well-connected friends to speak in our class.  His guests so far have included Sam Graham-Felsen the official blogger for Obama’s campaign; Jed Alpert co-founder and CEO of Mobile Communications, the award-winning mobile messaging platform;  David Holtzman, digital privacy guru; and now Alec Ross, Senior Advisor for Innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.   Alec was also a technology policy advisor for the Obama Transition Team.

According to Alec, thanks to Clinton’s vision the State Department has become very innovative in the use of technology.  For example, it used technology to immediately assist individuals in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. The State Department began a text message program where people could request help by texting their needs to an established short code.  Success stories regarding this campaign are many, including a health clinic that used the service to request diesel fuel to keep their generator running.

Alec also mentioned the State Department’s first Apps4Africa Competition.  This application development competition brought together local technology entrepreneurs to build tools that serve the needs of local Non-Governmental Organizations and their communities.  The key word here is “local,” to its credit the State Department had the foresight to realize that the locals would be the best people to come up with innovative solutions to real problems in their community.  The competition’s winner was “iCow,” a voice-based mobile application that helps farmers track the estrus stages of their cows.   According to the State Department’s press release, “this application can enable farmers everywhere to better manage breeding periods as well as monitor cow nutrition leading up to the calving day.  This will help farmers get the most of their cows and their farms.”  How awesome is that?

I couldn’t miss the opportunity to ask Alec about his thoughts on the Obama Administration not being able to move the Network Neutrality agenda forward.  He said that he was very disappointed that after 18 months there hasn’t been much progress.  He alluded to the fact that there are millions of dollars being spent by AT&T and other corporations to block this policy issue from moving forward and that corporate lobbying seems to have paid off.  He didn’t seem very hopeful about Network Neutrality moving forward anytime soon.

The class readings this week included articles on Twitter’s impact on last year’s historic Iranian protests.  The media had previously promoted the idea that Twitter had played a key role in the organizing of the protests, they called it the Twitter revolution.  In our class there is a student that is an exiled Iranian reporter who shared with me and others that this wasn’t the case.  Twitter’s role was largely overemphasized by the West, a former aide to George Bush even suggesting awarding Twitter the Nobel peace prize.  It turns out that most of the tweeting was done by people outside of Iran.  A Time’s article “Iran Protests: Twitter, the Medium of the Movement,” confirms this idea: “Twitter didn’t start the protests in Iran, nor did it make them possible. But there’s no question that it has emboldened the protesters, reinforced their conviction that they are not alone and engaged populations outside Iran in an emotional, immediate way that was never possible before.”  There is no doubt that social media played a role in the protests, YouTube broadcasted around the world the killing of the young protester Neda Soltan and protesters did use SMS to communicate with each other.  Jared Keller of “The Atlantic” talks about the “Green Revolution,” the media’s name for the historic protests, the first major world event broadcast worldwide almost entirely via social media.

Posted in Online Technology | 1 Comment

The filter bubble and other learnings

Posted on November 9, 2010 by zezinez

The Internet is a fairly new means of information AND communication – no matter the Supreme Court’s ruling on Brand X.

For some years now, we have been enjoying the benefits of the new digital age: a colossal amount of information at the tip of our finger tips – literally; we now stay in touch with friends that we otherwise would not have the time to connect with; the traditional media gatekeepers seem to have become irrelevant now that everyone can have their own blog.

As the Internet has become an integral part of our lives, its imperfections are finally revealing themselves – as you know by now, the one that causes me most concern is the lack of privacy protections.  Eli Pariser,  of MoveOn.org,  brings up a new important issue – what he calls “the filter bubble.”

The filter bubble consists of algorithms used by Google, Facebook and others to personalize searches.  Based on what Big Brother knows about you, the algorithms select the results that it thinks best suits you.  Yahoo! News, for example, personalizes your news.  You will unlikely get the same news results as your colleagues at work.  Facebook thinks it knows who your favorite friends are, and those are the friends’ updates you will see on the News Feed.  Big Brother is not only watching, it’s making content decisions for you.  It turns out that the Internet my have gotten rid of the traditional media gatekeepers, but now there is another type of gatekeeper deciding for you what news you should read, what friends you should read about.  Homogeneous thinking is the goal in this new search system, difference of opinion is frowned upon.

Some may not be bothered by the personalized results, the problem is that most people don’t event know this is taking place.  Pariser states that the fact that the filter bubble is invisible to users and that you don’t get to choose it should be major causes of concern.  He also states that this is the time to address these issues “before the bones are set in this media framework.”  The fact that Google, Facebook and others want to provide the most relevant search to its users is commendable, however, there needs to be a code of ethics or best practices that the Internet companies should follow.  Transparency and users’ right to choose is vital.

Posted in Online Technology | Tagged | Leave a comment

The power of crowdsourcing

Posted on October 3, 2010 by zezinez

I must admit that I’m glad my professor for Media, Politics and Power in the Digital Age, Nicco Mele, assigned us to write a blog on two readings that I had only skimmed through the first time around.  The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric S. Raymond was long and somewhat complicated to follow.  It didn’t grab my attention, even with my undergraduate computer science degree.  There’s a reason why I didn’t stay in the computer programming field.

On my second try, I did much better.  I understood why this essay is so popular after more then 10 years of its original publication.   It is often referenced in current essays and books relating to the Internet, it’s a classic.

The Cathedral and the Bazaar enumerates 19 lessons of why open source and community building has become the preferred model for software programming.  The old school – cathedral style is passe, and will likely not be able to compete much longer with the bazaar model that invites users to debug and improve a program.   The bazaar is similar to crowdsourcing – delegating a task to a large diffuse group, usually without monetary compensation.  Programmers from around the world are building better software by working in collaboration with each other.

The second assigned reading, What is Web 2.0, Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software by Tim O’Reilly, follows a similar frame of thought as The Cathedral and the Bazaar. However, O’Reilly’s piece focuses on the popular business models being built on the Internet platform. In this reading, the author presents seven principle features of Web 2.0.  Several of the concepts follow the bazaar model: trusting the user as co-developers, promoting self-service and encouraging simpler models.  The essay also discusses the power of the people to decide what are the most important and relevant websites.  There’s the elimination of the traditional judges that used to select our content for us.  Now we are able to select our own content on the Internet.

However, this essay introduces a concept that seems to go in a different direction from The Cathedral and the Bazaar – control over data sources.  It’s understandable that companies need to find ways of making a profit from their Internet business plan.  In an open source environment, the opportunities for profit comes from controlling the users’ data.  A consumer’s book selection should be private information, why does Amazon think it has the right to own this data?  Google’s PageRank algorithm is based on user data, and the company uses user data not only for PageRank but for GoogleAds and who knows what else.

I firmly believe that the next big Internet policy debate will be on privacy issues.  Google and others are making money from collecting users’ data, and that’s OK as long as there is transparency regarding the use of data.  Consumers need to be clearly and regularly informed on how their data is being used.  Fine, small print hidden in a long on-line agreement should not suffice.  There should be a clear opt- in/opt-out choice.  Companies should respect the privacy of its users.  We choose to use their product, but that doesn’t give them the right to keep or sell our data, or does it?

Posted in Online Technology | Tagged | Leave a comment

“Don’t be Evil” means respecting privacy

Posted on September 21, 2010 by zezinez

Googled: The End of the World as We Know It by Ken Auletta is intriguing, riveting and more then just a story about Google but also a brief history of the Internet.

Auletta reminds us of how initially the power of the Internet was dismissed by many, if not most.  In hindsight, Viacom Chairman’s, Summer Redstone,  1994 comments about the Internet are unbelievably erroneous “… it seems apparent that the Information Superhighway, at least to the extent that it is defined in extravagant and esoteric applications, is a long way coming if it comes at all.”  Redstone wasn’t alone in this belief.  In a 1994 memo to Bill Gates, Microsoft staff called the Internet “hype.”  The following year, however, Bill Gates  wrote an internal  memo to his staff titled The Internet Tidal Wave, where he assigns the Internet “the highest level of importance.”

That same year, 1995, Mary Meeker with Chris DePuy, both Morgan Stanley analysts, co-authored The Internet Report touting “the hottest new market to develop in years.”   More than a hundred thousand copies of this report were downloaded and the report   eventually became a book.  Within a decade the Internet had reached more than 50 percent of Americans, an astonishing velocity in integration not seen before.  Auletta writes “It took telephone seventy-one years to penetrate 50 percent of American homes, electricity fifty-two years, and TV three decades.”

The Google co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, are technological geniuses with a conviction that they can make the world a better place with their free, precise search technology.  In the beginning and for several years after, they are unclear about how to make a profit from their free product.  Nevertheless, they are confident that there is profit to be made from the power of determining what information a person looks at.  They have a strong conviction of keeping their searches non-commercial and are willing to be patient in making a profit.  Their altruistic philosophy permeates at Google, the company adopts  “Don’t be Evil” as a motto.

One of the first brilliant concepts that made Google so successful in search and revolutionized how we obtain information on the Internet  is PageRank.  PageRank, named after Larry Page, relies on “the wisdom of crowds.” The Google algorithm ranks web pages by the number of people that link to that page.  The more visitors a page gets the higher up they appear in a related search.  Google’s ranking of a page would not depend on advertising dollars as it did with the initial search engines such as Yahoo and  AltaVista.

Google eventually found a way to make money.  AdWords allowed potential advertisers to bid to place a small text ads next to the results for key search words.  They only had to pay for actual clicks made to the ad making this business model very efficient to advertisers.  In 2007, Google acquired DoubleClick, “the foremost digital marketing company.”  Google now owned 40% of both the domestic and international online advertising market.  Google had become a juggernaut and a threat to traditional media.

By 2000, Google was the most visited search engine on the Web.  This colossal traffic allowed Google to gather more information from the user and to make its searches more precise.  Auletta says “[m]ore searches generated more data for Google about users, which led to better searches, which would eventually lead to more ad dollars.”

The first signs of privacy concerns appear in 2004, when the “Don’t be Evil” company  launched Gmail without a delete button.  The principle behind this concept was that because Google provided huge amount of memory capacity, there was no need to delete e-mails.  Additionally, Google started AdSense – “a way to make money from e-mail by placing ads when certain keywords were typed.”  A public research center in Washington, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, that focuses on privacy and civil liberties issues, declared Gmail “an unprecedented invasion into the sanctity of private communications.”   In 2006 Google relented and added a delete button.  But the privacy debate had begun.

According to Auletta, Terry Winograd, a Stanford professor and one of Google’s first collaborators, thought that “Google relied so much on science, on data, and mathematical algorithms, that it was insensitive to legitimate privacy fears.”  By now, it wasn’t only privacy concerns that were an issue, Google News and Google Books raised copyright distress as well.

Google has become enormously profitable based on the data it collects from its users.  For Google to remain the “Don’t be Evil” company, and not to become the “Evil Empire” it will need to seriously ponder the privacy concerns that have arisen.  Become more transparent in their data collection of user information, and most importantly offer users to opt-out.  Just as Eric Schmidt, Google’s Chairman/CEO, was aghast when a CNET reporter published his home address net worth, political contributions, and other personal information – all information gathered via Google –  so to are Google users horrified at what personal information is available about them on Google.

My plea to Google: remember your altruistic roots.  Take the time to make privacy issues your number one concern.  Start a national conversation not only about privacy issues, but also about cyberbullying and other Internet diseases.  “Don’t be Evil” should not be just about not doing bad things but also about promoting the public good.

Posted in Book Reviews | Tagged | Leave a comment