JonathanDavis.me.uk

Dec 12 2009

Guardians Of Power – medialens

Category: Books, Politics, The Media, World Affairs — Jonathan @ 12:05 pm

Apologies if it’s been a while since I’ve written anything on here, I recently started studying an introductory Social Sciences course at the Open University, which has probably been taking most up the free time I would normally have used to write articles for this website, but I’m back for now…

Guardians Of Power – David Edwards & David Cromwell

Before I review this book, I’d like to give a little background to medialens and what they do. Medialens is a ‘UK-based media watch project’ who publish informed criticism of media bias and censorship, revealing the distorted view of the world which mainstream media often provides. Run by the aforementioned Edwards and Cromwell, they publish weekly media alerts and base their work on Chomsky and Herman’s 1988 book ‘Manufacturing Consent – The Political Economy of the Mass Media’. In addition medialens also encourage their readers to challenge individual journalists on their work, something which has gained them some enemies in the past. However they are also influenced by the Buddhist view that ‘while greed, hatred and ignorance distort reason; compassion empowers it’, which hopefully provides us with the means to create a peaceful society, along with a fair and balanced media.

This, their first book, represents a compilation of their media alerts on a wide range of subjects.They start by giving some background on Chomsky and Herman’s ‘Propaganda Model’ of the media, on which the project is based, along with some examples of how ownership and advertising can play a huge role in what we actually read. Here’s wikipedia’s brief summary:

The propaganda model is a theory advanced by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky that alleges systemic biases in the mass media and seeks to explain them in terms of structural economic causes.

It views the private media as businesses interested in the sale of a product — readers and audiences — to other businesses (advertisers) rather than that of quality news to the people. The theory postulates five general classes of “filters” that determine the type of news that is presented in news media. These five classes are: ownership of the medium, the medium’s funding sources, sourcing, flak and ‘Anti-communist ideology’. The first three are generally regarded by the authors as being the most important.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model

The authors make it quite clear that advertisers and owners are able to exert a high-level of control over their publications. In addition the pressure to retain advertisers, which medialens quote as providing 75% of their revenue, can necessitate self-censorship along with helping to decide which stories get coverage in the first place. For example, a newspaper may decide to omit any mention of carbon dioxide emissions from air travel if today’s edition also features a large cut-price flights promotion. A frightening thought indeed, but one which does occur frequently, largely unnoticed.

In coverage of news events, medialens ignore the right-wing and go straight for the UK ‘liberal’ media, beginning by exposing systematic failings in coverage of the Iraq war, along with the sanctions that preceded it. Their exchanges with former UN assistant secretary-general Denis Halliday and his criticism of the way in which sanctions were reported in the media were enlightening.

Their alerts covering the build up to the 2003 Iraq war again demonstrate how little a threat was posed by Saddam Hussein and his ‘weapons of mass destruction’, along with discussion of how certain (highly-qualified) voices were sidelined if their views didn’t quite match up with those of the establishment.

The book also features chapters on Afghanistan, Kosovo, climate change and the fight for independence in East Timor. All of which are truly excellent pieces of work. Towards the end the book makes a slight detour, concluding with suggestions for how the media can become more compassionate. The story of Helena Norberg-Hodge’s visit to the residents of Ladakh in Northern India really interested me, in that their way of life allowed them to be so happy and emotionally healthy whilst living in relative poverty, unaffected by the egotism and consumerism of the west.

I opened this book at 9am one day and quite honestly could not put it down until I’d finished it, it’s a fabulous wake up call to anyone who believes that we possess a honest and unbiased mainstream media. A second book was released this year called ‘Newspeak in the 21st Century’ and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

I’d highly recommend that everyone visit the website and read some of their excellent work, subscribe to the weekly medialens alerts, and donate if you can.

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Oct 25 2009

LugRadio Live 2009 & OggCamp

Category: Advocacy, GNU/Linux, Geek Stuff, IT — Jonathan @ 8:50 pm

Welcome to LRL09! (Photo Credit Solexious)

Well here we are again, another year, another LugRadio Live. For anyone who has never heard of it, LUGRadio Live is a community conference for supporters of Free and Open Source software.

Some big changes are taking place this year though, as the date had been altered from July to October, the venue has moved to the Newhampton Arts Centre just outside Wolverhampton, and unfortunately the conference is only for one day. Still, these points aside it remains an excellent event. Here’s a quick summary of what went on, and of the talks I attended:

Brock Craft – tinker.it

Brock is from London-based design-studio tinker.it, he spoke about the open-source hacking platform Arduino. Arduino was designed to be a cheap and easy method for learning about electronics and hardware hacking, and as a quick method for building devices. Brock gave examples of its usage by artists, designers and hobbyists, and it certainly seems like it could have many ingenious uses, including the RFID cat flap which Brock had built for his own feline friend.

Gervase Markham – Mozilla Drumbeat/BBC Basic

Gerv spoke firstly about Mozilla Drumbeat, which is essentially a grass roots campaign to keep the web completely open to all. Gerv mentioned net neutrality, the mobile web, and closed application stores such as the Apple app store as examples of threats to the web. The project’s motto is ‘people, ideas and action for a better internet’ and it’s certainly an admirable aim we should all support! In the spirit of the conference’s ‘back to basics’ theme Gerv then presented his first ever program, written at age 8, a ‘choose your own’ adventure style game written on a BBC Micro. Gerv is a charismatic and engaging speaker, and the presentation raised a few good chuckles from the crowd.

Matthew Somerville – MySociety

Matthew works for MySociety, a registered charity probably best known for their work with the Number 10 petitions website. Matthew spoke about the various projects they have undertaken over the past few years. These include TheyWorkForYou, which can alert users when their MP speaks in Parliament, and holds transcripts of Hansard from 1935 onwards. It has also recently started hosting videos of parliamentary proceedings. Closely related to this is WriteToThem, which allows anyone to contact their MP directly, and HearFromYourMP, which is essentially the opposite.

Matthew also spoke about some projects which are designed to make life easier for people and communities, for example FixMyStreet which allows members of the public to report problems such as potholes and graffiti to their local council quickly and efficiently. MySociety has produced some excellent and easy to use services and hopefully this will continue.

Brock Craft - Tinker.it

Des Burley – A Real Lawyer Speaks

Des works for the independent law firm Martineau, and came to speak about trademarks and licensing in free/open source software. He covered the reasons why people would want to trademark software, what can be covered/protected and the differences between trademarks and copyright. He also spoke about the harm that can be wreaked by patent holders, with the model railway software designed by Jacobsen being a good example.

Andy Robinson – OpenStreetMap

OpenStreetMap is a project designed to provide everyone with a complete, open and free mapping facility. I already had a little background info on OpenStreetMap from a talk given at Manchester Free software last year, but it was really interesting to see how far the project has come since it’s conception, and that we might soon reach a point where the information stored in the OSM database is of better quality than that of any mapping company. Andy also gave the interesting example of the work done in OSM to build the first complete and accurate map of the Gaza Strip, which was then being used in the humanitarian relief effort during the Gaza war in January this year.

Steve Lamb – The Changing Face of Work

Steve Works for Microsoft, but don’t let that put you off, honest! Steve has been at loads of the LRL events and always puts forward an excellent talk to present to us freedom-lovers. Steve spoke about giving employees more freedom and flexibility in their use of technology, whilst somehow creating a balance between work and home technology. He quite rightly suggested that it can be counter-productive if an employer forces specific tools or devices onto employees, and there were many excellent points to agree with.

Summary

The Twitterfall

The event was well organised this year, with the main stage featuring three big screens. One featured the presentation slides as they were delivered. One was used by an excellent portrait artist who sketched each speaker as they were on stage using the Gimp and a drawing tablet. The final screen featured a live twitter feed (or ‘twitterfall’), to which any conference attendee could tweet using the #lrl2009 hashtag, all tagged messages then appeared live on-screen. This produced some hilarious moments during and in-between talks, as ASCII drawings and abuse were consistently twittered by the delegates throughout the day. The conference music was excellent as always, with Rage Against the Machine, Paramore, Bowling for Soup, System of a Down and the Offspring all featuring prominently!

During the recording of the live show, the presenters announced that this really was the last LugRadio event, although it was later discussed that if someone else were to arrange the event next year, then the LugRadio presenters agreed to attend to provide another dose of their unique presenting style. So hopefully this won’t be the last we hear from the LugRadio crowd and I’ll be back in Wolverhampton next year!

OggCamp

UbuntuUK & LinuxOutlaws

With LugRadio Live having been cut down to just one day this year, it was obvious that someone would come along to fill the void. OggCamp is an ‘unconference’ (ie: an unorganised conference) where rooms are set aside and anyone can turn up and offer to speak on any free/open source related subject.

The event was held in the Connaught Hotel, around 10 minutes walk from the centre of Wolverhampton. The schedule of talks for the three rooms quickly filled up, and I attended a few fantastic presentations. I attended Tim Dobson’s presentation on his DFEY group, and Bruno Bord’s talk entitled ‘Explaining programming to my grandmother’. Although my favourite was presented by Andy Stanford-Clark with his talk on his ‘Twittering House‘ (as featured on the BBC) which tweets such events as power consumption, windows/doors opening, light/appliances being turned on/off, phones ringing, as well as other useful information about the house.

Unconference Schedule

His most recent addition being an SMS controlled Rudolph light display on his roof. This tied in with other cool little projects Andy had been working on, such as monitoring his local ferry using the ship’s radio frequencies which were then fed into Twitter, and eventually adopted by the ferry company as their live ferry update service, it was very entertaining to see how much could be achieved on such a small budget.

OggCamp certainly filled the void left behind the second day of LugRadio, and hopefully OggCamp will continue even if a LRL event can’t be arranged for next year. All in all, an excellent weekend, I met some nice new people, put some faces to names, and caught up with old friends. Roll on next year, in whatever form it takes!

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Aug 16 2009

Propaganda

Category: Books, Politics, The Media — Jonathan @ 8:32 pm

A while back, after watching Adam Curtis’ fantastic ‘Century of the Self‘, a documentary focusing on the rise of individualism in modern society, I purchased a copy of Edward Bernays’ book ‘Propaganda‘. The story of Bernays’ life, as told in Century of the Self, is almost as fascinating as his work.

Bernays was born in Austria in 1891, and was nephew of the renowned psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Bernays went on to become the father of modern Public Relations, and pioneered many of the PR techniques still in use today. Although rather than exploiting his uncle’s popularity, things surprisingly worked in the opposite direction, as at this time Freud was almost unknown outside his native Austria, and Bernays was to be instrumental in popularising Freud’s theories in the US, as they were inherently linked to Bernays’ own work within PR.

One of Bernays’ most famous successes was to break the taboo on women smoking. Whilst working for the American Tobacco Company in 1929, he staged a PR event to launch his so-called ‘Torches of Freedom’ campaign, which attempted (and largely succeeded) to convince women that smoking was a symbol of independence and freedom, and a protest for equality in society.

His book ‘Propaganda’, although written in 1928, is just as relevant today as when it was published, and although some of the examples are slightly dated, the basic principles of public relations remain almost unchanged to this day.

Bernays firstly documents the history of propaganda and it’s usage by governments around the world, and explains why the phrase itself fell into disrepute, mostly due to it’s heavy usage by the German’s in the first world war. Bernays believed that manipulation of the masses through PR was essential to create a properly functioning society:

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.

Two of Bernays’ techniques interested me greatly, and can be spotted as a common fixture in today’s advertising-driven culture. The first was the theory that it was necessary to sell the ‘need’ for a particular product, rather than the product itself. He gave the example of a business struggling to sell pianos. Now, rather than advertising the piano itself, Bernays created the idea of a ‘music room’ which people could set aside within the home, he then organised to fill the publications of the day with features on the benefits of the music room, and ideas for furnishing such a room. This would inevitably create the ‘need’ for the piano to fill the space set-aside for it in the newly created room, and so vast swathes of the public had been manipulated into purchasing a product they essentially didn’t need, without even knowing it.

The second of Bernays’ techniques revolved around using a person in authority, who the public would inherently trust, to influence their purchasing decisions:

Suppose the old type of salesmanship, acting for a meat packer, was seeking to increase the sale of bacon. It would reiterate innumerable times in full-page advertisements: “Eat more bacon. Eat bacon because it is cheap, because it is good, because it gives you reserve energy.” The newer salesmanship, understanding the group structure of society and the principles of mass psychology, would first ask: “Who is it that influences the eating habits of the public?” The answer, obviously, is: “The physicians.” The new salesman will then suggest to physicians to say publicly that it is wholesome to eat bacon. He knows as a mathematical certainty, that large numbers of persons will follow the advice of their doctors, because he understands the psychological relation of dependence of men upon their physicians.

This kind of technique I’m certain is familiar to most people and although the public relations business still utilises the services of trusted professionals, nowadays it seems to rely much more heavily on celebrity endorsements, which I suppose signifies the much greater role they play in our lives and the importance we place on their opinions.

Bernays was obviously a highly-intelligent man, who possessed a deep understanding of psychology, psychoanalysis and sociology which he wielded to great effect, it’s certainly a testament to his work that people are still reading it 80 years on. Propaganda is an astounding and highly enjoyable book and as I said earlier it is just as important now (if not more so) than on it’s original release. If you’re interested, the full text can be read online here and here or purchased from here.

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May 18 2009

My Latest Reads

Category: Books, Politics, World Affairs — Jonathan @ 11:39 pm

After my last in-depth book review back in February I thought I would quickly write up what else I have been reading so far this year:

Noam Chomsky – Hegemony or Survival

Chomsky’s 2003 book is a summary of US foreign policy from the end of World War II up until the current Iraq War, examining America’s pursuit of global dominance and it’s terrible consequences. Chomsky expresses his view that although the attacks of 9/11 were shocking and deplorable, the biggest shock was that for the first time the guns were pointing in the opposite direction. My only criticism of this book was that due to the high volume of names, dates and figures, I found myself occasionally reading paragraphs twice. Nevertheless it was a fantastic book and I’d highly recommend it alongside the pocket book ‘Media Control’ as a excellent intro to Chomsky’s world view.

The Cold War – A Very Short Introduction

The ‘Very Short Introduction’ series from OUP provides an excellent foundation for exploring a subject, giving the reader a wide-ranging overview of events and opinions whilst attempting to maintain impartiality. This particular book is no exception, it begins by explaining the radical changes taking place after the end of the Second World War and going on to discuss how events all over the world, such as the wars in Vietnam and Korea, fueled tensions between the US and the USSR and how diplomatic measures were in full swing in an attempt to prevent a full-blown nuclear war. I’m almost at the end of this book and while almost all of the events took place before I was born, it has been very enjoyable history lesson for me.

British Politics Unravelled – Giles Edwards

I came across this little gem from 2005 whilst in my local library and whilst it’s now sadly out of print, I managed to find a copy for myself on eBay. It’s essentially a beginners guide to British Politics, covering important questions such as: How does the Constitution work?, What actually happens in No 10? and What is an early day motion? The book also has chapters on British Law, Elections, the EU, the Economy and even the Media. It discusses for instance, how a newspaper chooses it’s political allegiance, what the purpose of a party whip is, how ’spin’ works, it even details the powers that exist within courts and local governments. In fact, the entire book is a goldmine of useful and interesting information, presented in an easy to understand and concise manner. I ended up tracking down Mr Edwards to congratulate him on a job well done, which isn’t something I have done with any other author. Politics isn’t exactly everybody’s cup of tea, but like it or not, it affects almost every aspect of our lives and if you have any interest in learning about the political process in the UK then this book should be at the top of your shopping list.

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Feb 09 2009

Hidden Agendas – John Pilger

Category: Books, Politics, World Affairs — Jonathan @ 1:25 am

Note: This is the first book review I’ve written, so please forgive any beginners mistakes I make!

I have spent the last few months watching journalist John Pilger’s television documentaries, having first discovered his film-making through the 2007 award-winning “The War on Democracy”, an excellent account of US greed and it’s effects on Southern and Central America, including the events surrounding the US-backed coup d’état against Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez in 2002 and many other instances of US involvement in attempts to overthrow democratically elected governments around the world.

I became hooked on his work after purchasing “Documentaries which Changed the World”, the first DVD box set of his films, and have since snapped up the rest of the DVD’s. These include some classics ranging from ‘Burp’, which chronicles the history of the ‘ice cold war’ between Pepsi and Coke, ‘The New Rulers of the World’ examining the effects of globalisation on Asia, and ‘Stealing a Nation’ which tells the tragic story of the Chagos islanders, expelled from their homeland in the 1970’s by the British government, the Chagos having been given to the US in order for them to build a military base on the largest island, Diego Garcia.

I recently finished reading his 1998 book ‘Hidden Agendas’, a collection of essays on many subjects, some now outdated although many just as relevant today as when they were first written. Pilger states that he lives by the Claud Cockburn quote, ‘Never believe anything until it is officially denied’ and it certainly shows in all of his books and documentaries. Despite the dangerous places the ventures to, he remains determined to uncover the facts at all costs.

In his chapter on the Gulf war, Pilger shows how manipulation of the media during the conflict helped to steer the journalists in the right direction, encouraging them to focus on the new ‘high-tech weapons’ and the miraculously low US and UK casualties, therefore largely ignoring the hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths which occured during the conflict. Pilger also covers the devastating impact that the sanctions against Iraq had on the civilian population.

In the section on the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975 Pilger exposes not just the complicity of the UK government in the mass slaughter of civilians, but also that British manufacturers were arming the Indonesian army. The story of the Ploughshares and their acts of ‘military conversion’ using only hammers to destroy hawk jets destined for delivery to Indonesia was heartening, and showed that direct action against arms suppliers can be successful, their trial and subsequent aquittal can only reinforce this.

One of the most memorable sections is the two chapters on Burma and it’s brutal military regime, here Pilger’s reporting is undercover and has to be remain low-key to avoid detection by the authorities. Some of the interviews with ordinary citizens, although sometimes cut short, provide a fascinating insight into their lives under the Junta and just how bad things have gotten for them, as the west turns a blind eye to western oil and gas companies reaping the profits of Burma’s natural resources, being extracted via forced and even child labour. His interview with Burma’s elected leader in exile, Nobel Peace prize winner Aung San Suu Ki is deeply moving and shows the determination within Burma’s ‘National League for Democracy’ to return to a democratic system of government.

Chapters on the British media (including the rise of PR) and the docker’s strikes in the 80’s certainly filled gaps in my knowledge of issues so close to home, and gave excellent examples of how a monopoly over the mass-media can be abused and used to mould public opinion in any way imaginable.

In his writing and documentaries, Pilger joins Noam Chomsky in successfully exposing the depth of the government and media manipulations of the truth, challenging the ‘official’ and established versions of events. He opens your eyes to what is really going on around you, without a hint of scaremongering, and I highly recommend anyone interested in world affairs to purchase Pilger’s books and DVD’s right away, with “Documentaries which Changed the World” being an excellent starting point for further exploration of his work.

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