This blog is - at its very roots - about listening to many voices - the constructive voices, the positive voices, the voices making or wanting to make a difference. We live in a world of a multiplicity of media. This means that even though personal circumstances keep me in my office and in front of my computer, radio and television most of the time, I can listen to, learn from, be inspired by, and be networked in to people in Australia and across the world who share my interests. To me this is a wonderful and invaluable state of affairs.
This was symbolised so well over the weekend by the Rally for Sanity and/or Fear held in Washington DC. I have not only been able to "be there" via livestreaming on my computer, I have been able to join in a community of interest via the Twitter hashtag #rally4sanity and have discovered some interesting bloggers out there. Through Daniel James, I have discovered RebootTheMedia. Reboot's interest is in media that makes a difference. Please read this post and you will get the idea.
Please note, Networkers, how important this idea is.
The media is undergoing great social and technological change. Powerful forces are at work. Some of those forces are disparate and are an aggregation of users, such as bloggers, Tweeps, and Facebook users like me. We have an influence because of what media we use, how we use it, how we develop it, and how we complain if we feel there is interference or insufficiency. Then there are the more constant, centralised powers like the Emperor of News, Australian turned American, Rupert Murdoch.
Rupert is a great complainer about other media. Rupert thinks all should be turned to profit. He hates public broadcasters like Australia's ABC and the UK's BBC. They provide their goods for free and Rupert thinks this is unfair competition - particularly when they reach into their rich archives and place their material on the internet for all to peruse and use.
As for bloggers, Rupert considers us kleptomaniacs. Bloggers have proved that they can increase the size of the available news pie. The first-hand blogging accounts from hard-to-get-to crisis zones has proven that. In Rupert's view, pie should only be produced or made available as part of a commercial transaction. Human expression, diverse and divergent, does not seem to enter into the equation.
Mark Scott of the ABC has responded to Rupert's attacks on public broadcasting. Bloggers can best respond by keeping on blogging - and doing it well and with some integrity such as acknowledging material coming from other sources. And the rest of us? Please support the people involved with Reboot the Media and those, like them, doing the same work across the globe.
Finally, Miss Eagle would like to hear from people who are doing similar work to Reboot the Media. Your story, your efforts, your products would be of interest.
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