MediaPublics

Publicity was once the exclusive property of men of rank. They alone, by virtue of their stations, could make things public. During the eighteenth century it became meaningful to talk about public opinion as something formed outside the state. Today anyone with a Twitter account can make a public. In this series Ideas producer David Cayley examines how publics were formed in Europe between 1500 and 1700, and how these first publics grew into the concept of the public that we hold today.

NPR report on an Iran based myspace/itunes site shares music by underground (and rather illegal) artists. The profiled song, I Shot You Babe, is a remix of Sonny and Cher's song, with gunshots in the background. The artist DJ Foundation, is cloaked in Banksy-esque anonymity.

Often, these groups seem simply to be a site to "park" political views in a place with access to thousands of sympathetic eyeballs. I argue that many individuals use Facebook to perform political identity in a venue that allows them to try on different political selves in a nomynous (not anonymous) venue. This means that individuals are performing a "public" political identity. For many of them this might be the only place they feel comfortable expressing this voice. Those who aren't good communicators, disabled, low income or otherwise inhibited from participating in political activism can use Facebook as a semi-autonomous space to proclaim their political self.

In keeping with the xkcd love, here is the updated map of the internet (or online communities) If I had to pick a public space out of the internet, it would probably be Facebook, which is by far the largest on this map.

Great little piece of street art, using cell phones to call a phone booth attached to a bullhorn.

Not exactly pertaining to media, but a horrible example of that grey area of what is public and what is private?

Just came across this really interesting article on the idea of using new media as a crowd-sourcing tool and how (as the author argues) it takes away from face-to-face connections and the value of the public sphere. While I do not necessarily agree with things he is saying, I think this ties in a lot to what we talked about last class.

Not much on this site yet, but I found it by googling "public media". This is most of the text on the site: "The new Public Media Service will be based in Los Angeles and will involve the testing and development of a new radio and multimedia service directed to an ethnically diverse and underserved 25-40 year-old demographic and, initially, will target the fastest-growing population group in the region, Latinos."

A public relations/advertising outfit called "Public Media" (found by googling "public media" oddly enough...); from their welcome screen: "PUBLIC MEDIA is all about the client. Our production division, PUBLIC MEDIA and our advertising division, MAKE WAVES, create success for our clients by using new and traditional advertising, marketing, design and production techniques in creative and cost effective ways."

A page on the Freepress.net site; quote below is from this page: "While media technology has advanced in the 42 years since public broadcasting was created, the need has only grown for noncommercial, not-for-profit media, available free to the public with a mission to inform, educate, inspire and engage. Public media means more than just PBS and NPR. It includes all media outlets and formats whose mission is to serve the public, not to earn a profit. This noncommercial sector aims to educate, engage and inform audiences, and it offers an alternative to the mainstream, commercial media."

Website for Native Public Media. From their mission statement: "Native Public Media Strengthening and Expanding the Voice of Native America The struggle of Native America has long been the struggle for freedom.  Fundamentally, the freedoms that are so important to all Americans are the same freedoms that are important to Native people:  to be able to make our voices heard and make our own decisions about issues affecting our lives, our health, our safety, our governments, and our homes.  The effort to secure these freedoms, however, has time and again been undercut by a centuries-long legacy of economic and cultural exploitation and the resulting socio-economic conditions that have long kept Native people poor and powerless. " Found by googling "public media"

Website for "Arizona Public Media" (notice that this name is a registered trademark!). I found this by googling "public media"....