Digital Media and Democracy Digital Media and Democracy Tactics in Hard Times edited by Megan Boler The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England © 2008 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. For information about special quantity discounts, please email [email protected] This book was set in Stone Sans and Stone Serif by SNP Best-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Digital media and democracy : tactics in hard times / edited by Megan Boler. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-262-02642-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Mass media—Political aspects. 2. Digital media—Political aspects. 3. Democracy. I. Boler, Megan. P95.8.D54 2008 302.23′1—dc22 2007032258 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To the worlds grown smaller In tribute to the life and work of Ricardo Rosas, 1969–2007 And to worlds grown bigger Dedicated to the countless who persist in speaking up through the media Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 I The Shape of Publics: New Media and Global Capitalism 51 1 The State of the Media: An Interview with Robert McChesney 53 Megan Boler 2 The Space of Tactical Media 71 Alessandra Renzi 3 Communicative Capitalism: Circulation and the Foreclosure of Politics 101 Jodi Dean 4 Toward Open and Dense Networks: An Interview with Geert Lovink 123 Megan Boler 5 Black Code Redux: Censorship, Surveillance, and the Militarization of Cyberspace 137 Ronald J. Deibert II The Changing Face of News Media 165 6 Media and Democracy 167 Susan D. Moeller 7 Democracy on the Airwaves: An Interview with Amy Goodman 197 Megan Boler 8 Alternative Media Theory and Journalism Practice 213 Chris Atton viii Contents 9 Community Radio, Access, and Media Justice: An Interview with Deepa Fernandes 229 Andréa Schmidt and Megan Boler 10 Gatewatching, Gatecrashing: Futures for Tactical News Media 247 Axel Bruns 11 Tempests of the Blogosphere: Presidential Campaign Stories That Failed to Ignite Mainstream Media 271 D. Travers Scott 12 Al Jazeera English: An Interview with Hassan Ibrahim 301 Nathalie Magnan, Megan Boler, and Andréa Schmidt III Tactics in Action 321 13 Media Interventions and Art Practices: An Interview with Shaina Anand 323 Alessandra Renzi and Megan Boler 14 The Gambiarra: Considerations on a Recombinatory Technology 343 Ricardo Rosas 15 Where the Activism Is 355 Trebor Scholz 16 Whacking Bush: Tactical Media as Play 367 Graham Meikle 17 The Daily Show and Crossfi re: Satire and Sincerity as Truth to Power 383 Megan Boler with Stephen Turpin 18 Cybersupremacy: The New Face and Form of White Supremacist Activism 405 R. Sophie Statzel 19 Re-visioning the State of The Media: Concluding Interview and Commentary 429 Brian Holmes Contributors 437 Index 441 Acknowledgments I conceived this collection in the collegial space of a six-week Cyberdisciplinarity Institute, hosted at the Dartmouth Center for the Humanities by Dr. Mark Williams in the spring of 2005. I am particularly grateful to those who offered comments on my Introduction: Nathalie Magnan, Marcia McKenzie, Carly Stasko, Trevor Norris, Graham Meikle, Catherine Burwell, Stephen Turpin, Jane Sooby, Mark Lipton, and D. Travers Scott. Special thanks to those who worked on editing interviews: Andréa Schmidt, Deetje Boler, Catherine Burwell, Stephen Turpin, and Chikako Nagayama. Enormous awe and gratitude to Andréa Schmidt for her expert consultation on almost all interview questions, and for her thorough and skillful work transcribing the inter- views with Deepa Fernandes, Amy Goodman, Hassan Ibrahim, and Shaina Anand. Thank you to Lisa Gitelman for sharing her wisdom all along the way, and to Carol Burch Brown and Melisande Charles for consultation on images and design. My heart- felt thanks to Jennie McKnight, who provides ever-curious willingness to engage and parry ideas, labor-intensive reproduction of daily life, and a cheerful, steady ballast. A special thanks to Education Commons (Alfredo Chow and others) at OISE/University of Toronto who always extend my e-mail server storage, and who fi elded my slightly frantic call during the fi nal hours of this manuscript preparation: “Why have I stopped receiving e-mails?!” Alfredo calls me back: “Megan, the system only handles 1,200 and you have over 5,000 e-mails in your inbox.” Finally, thank you to the dynamic intel- lectual environment created by the team of researchers engaged in my Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council–funded project “Rethinking Media, Democ- racy and Citizenship” from 2005 to the present—Catherine Burwell, Jennifer Kaya- hara, Chantelle Oliver, Laura Pinto, Alessandra Renzi, Andréa Schmidt, and Stephen Turpin. Introduction Megan Boler “A lie can be halfway around the world before the truth has its boots on” becomes doubly true with today’s technologies. —Donald Rumsfeld, February 17, 2006 As an unnamed Bush offi cial told reporter Ron Suskind, “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will— we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” —Eric Alterman, The Nation, April 21, 2005 Moyers: I do not know whether you are practicing an old form of parody and satire . or a new form of journalism. Stewart: Well then that either speaks to the sad state of comedy or the sad state of news. I can’t fi gure out which one. I think, honestly, we’re practicing a new form of desperation . —Bill Moyers interview of Jon Stewart, on Public Broadcasting Service, July 2003 On a cold March night in southwestern Virginia in 2003, one week prior to the United States invasion of Iraq, I fi led into a packed auditorium of 2,000 students, including the entire corps of Virginia Tech military cadets dressed in white pants, white gloves, and navy blue hats. Tim Russert, host of Meet the Press, a weekly news magazine that airs on U.S. network television, was to speak on the topic of the impending U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. A professor at this university at the time, I was in the midst of con- ducting research for a Web site that had been launched on September 11, 2002, enti- tled, “Critical Media Literacy in Times of War.” For over a year, my team of talented graduate students and I had been immersed in an examination of how and what dif- ferent news sources were reporting on the effect of sanctions, civilian casualties, and number of persons reported at war protests in relationship to recent events in Afghani- stan and Iraq. I was steeped in international press coverage related to Bush’s threatened war, and as the talk progressed, it became evident that Russert was omitting central arguments against the preemptive attacks that had been widely published in most 2 Megan Boler international and some domestic news media in early 2003. Describing his talk as an “objective evaluation” of the bipartisan views represented in news media, Russert concluded his speech by saying that, given journalism’s objective work reporting the facts, Bush’s proposed invasion was justifi ed and warranted. I was fi rst to the microphone for the question and answer period. As Russert spoke, I had written down carefully worded remarks identifying key facts reported in respected news sources that he had neglected to mention.1 Outlining these omitted arguments, I asked Russert if he read any international news sources and suggested that he seemed extremely partisan in his selection of news coverage and consequent appraisal of the situation. His face turning red, Russert shouted that I had no right to claim to be a professor given my misreading of the facts. Cheering on Russert’s cowardly attack, the audience began hissing and booing at me when I attempted a reply, and I was forced to retreat to my seat, genuinely afraid. As I left the auditorium, I feared I would be accosted, and was grateful for the few people who thanked me on my way out.2 It was at that moment that I realized the potency of the active silencing of dissent, and how distorted myths of journalistic objectivity could be used to justify something as devastating as the bombing of a nation and its people. Of course, my experience was not unusual—this was during a post-9/113 period in the United States when aca- demics deemed “unpatriotic” were being “blacklisted” by such right-wing organiza- tions as CampusWatch.4 The university newspaper reported the sparks that fl ew:5 After Russert’s lecture, questions were taken from various audience members; one of whom was a professor who engaged Russert in a heated debate. She accused Russert of not presenting objective journalism and of having a pro-war stance on Iraq, sentiments to which a small portion of the audience applauded. Russert rebutted by saying he presented the views of the administration and was objective and that she needed to reexamine her facts. The majority of audience members said they thought Russert’s lecture was objective. Russert closed his lecture with a patriotic appeal. “Never underestimate our ability as a nation,” he said. (March 13, 2003, Collegiate Times, Blacksburg, VA)6 Less than a year later, in early 2004, Tim Russert grilled George W.