Mediacologyputting the 'eco' into media ecology and open education (and other tangential meditations)

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I admit that I have been hard on AdBusters. In particularly I have objected to founder Kalle Lassen’s overly mechanistic concept of memes. In his book, Culture Jam, he claimed that media “inject” ideology, a view long discredited by cultural studies. I also find the magazine’s focus on anti-advertising–though a good exercise for learning media literacy skills–a bit ineffectual. Is the solution to compete with marketers by playing their own game? The branding and selling of AdBusters has been equally disturbing.

But I’m happy to admit that some of the AdBusters crew got it right by initiating the Occupy Wall St. meme. It was their initial call to action that brought people down to Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan. It has now spread across the country to urban areas everywhere, and is also linked with movements around the world. The simple slogan, “we are the 99%,” has far more resonance than Coca-Cola’s “It’s the real thing.”

Though the typical media backlash is evidenced by the usual haters–Fox news featured Ann Coulter who invoked the dreaded specter of beheadings and mob rule from the French Revolution–I’m finding unusually sympathetic coverage coming from unanticipated places, such as AdAge and Forbes.

A meme works when it taps into a zeitgeist. It’s a flame that ignites, but doesn’t necessarily replicate exactly in the same form every time. It’s like an utterance that echoes and reverberates through resonance. It doesn’t exist as a thing but as part of an ongoing conversation. Few need a college degree to apprehend the depth of catastrophe the current economic model has become. By establishing contact zones with the awareness that something needs to be done, these occupations become apertures for an emergent reality that contests the delusional dreamworld propagated by the corporate media.

The handful of corporate media that dominate the telecommunications environment represent the interests of the One-Percenters. The One-Percenter media will have difficulty commodifying the reality that people are experiencing on the ground. After all, how long can you get away with calling the opposition Nazis and remain credible? This was Kracauer‘s insight when he studied why Nazi propaganda ultimately failed: it couldn’t sustain the contradictions of its own messaging (such as the Nazi’s were simultaneously invincible yet vulnerable). How is it possible that we can simultaneously grow and prosper while real economic and ecological systems collapse? Capitalism can no longer sustain itself by externalizing the crisis, because ultimately there is no such thing as externalization in a planetary community. The financiers might think they can survive by boarding some kind superliner arks like we saw in the film 2012, but ultimately food, energy and labor has to come from somewhere.

I think the #occupywallstreet meme works because it is backed by feet on the ground. It’s not just an immaterial commodity whose symbolic value can be drained of meaning by the culture industries. Nike and Levis may try to brand it, but most are savvy enough to see through this kind of cynical manipulation. Part of its resilience comes from the movement’s ability to self mediate. It doesn’t depend on mainstream media (though it appreciates sympathetic coverage) . It has made a lateral move around it, expanding through social networks on the Web and smart phones. Fox will scare the pants off of retired Republicans with its visions of mob rule, but even Fox viewers must be feeling the pinch as their pensions get sucked into the financial black hole.

Like in the Arab Spring, youth have sparked the movement. They are technically connected and media savvy, but their concerns are not theirs alone. Nonetheless, it’s too premature to call this a revolution. Revolutions don’t happen this easily. Just look at Egypt and Libya. Winter is coming, so it remains to be seen if an outdoor occupation can withstand the harsh reality of climate change (then again, the weather is so weird right now that we could have an American Spring in December). What is clear is that the energy is finally shifting. People sense the endgame is upon us and have finally decided to do something. About time.

This is the latest project from Story of Stuff, tackling what is perhaps the biggest issue of our time: curbing the corporate juggernaut’s assault on democracy. For the seriousness of this matter, look no further than the current Republican controlled congress which is cutting back regulations left and right. Or in Wisconsin and Ohio where union rights are being gutted. Seriously. If we are going to get a grip on the challenges of our age, we need to take action right now.

If the video inspired you, please go to the “what you can do” page.”

Oh, and please share and spread as far and wide as possible.

I’ve been fortunate to have participated in two media revolutions, punk and the social Web. Nonetheless, I think comparing the two makes a false historical analogy. Essentially I believe punk was the last rebellion of the Industrial Age. I don’t mean the “last rebellion,” but it was one in which reality was substantially differentiated. Punk was at the transition from the fixed one-to-many media system to one that is networked (many-to-many). Punk was necessary and possible because it worked outside a hierarchical media system (that eventually changed once it became commodified to the point that Cher could sport fire engine red hair or a guy with a mohawk and skateboard advertised online stock trading). It built alternative cultures because no one else gave a shit (except the police, which seemed to overreact to the punk movement’s expression). It is no longer possible to distinguish yourself as an outsider according to clothes or hair style. This is why it’s now possible that high school kids in the ROTC can dress like punks. Back in the day a punk entering into a military officer training program would be impossible to conceive. Punks were about threat: looking scary, acting scary and mirroring the violence of society as a kind of mockery. It was about being a tribe clearly distinct from the bullshit hypocrisy that surrounded us (Reagan had just been elected when I got into the punk scene). People often ask me trivia questions about the ’80s, but I can never answer them because I refused to participate in the pop culture or the system of that era. I was in an alternative reality. Punks were refuseniks.

I don’t think social media can make these kinds of claims. However, don’t let me give you the impression that I think we were better. It was just a different reality with different tools– it was organic in the sense that it existed as a result of physical encounters between people (mainly at shows), that rallied around music, fashion and art. It was a gathering of the “freakatoni.” Social media certainly replaces the networking tool that we used– telephones, zines, mail art, touring– and does a better job of the kind of self-publishing we were into (especially in terms of distribution of music, words and ideas). Still, one thing I miss is the visual fingerprints you saw on everything. There was a lot of craft involved, whereas a lot of new media is far too slick and impersonal for my taste. I do like the equalizing effect of new media– but remember that it goes both ways. We have more transparency, but that makes marketing to us more accessible to corporations. It’s easier for them to target and identify us, and to design niche targeting. For instance, any “garage” band can have a MySpace page, but guess what, you voluntarily gave the richest, most powerful transnational media corporation in the world access to all your demographics and fans.

I don’t mean to be skeptical or unexcited about the potential of social media to promote protest movements– I think it’s more true in “non-Western” countries who are less bludgeoned by consumer capitalism. But I remain skeptical that what we are witnessing now is like punk.

What do you think?