Mute magazine - Culture and politics after the net - Broadcast Media

Citizens Banned?

Fri, 09 May 2008 12:07:04 +0000

ByAnthony Iles and Josephine Berry Slater

Is a rabble run media becoming a possibility? And are artists in the vanguard or blocking the way? The AV media arts festival in the North-East of England last month suggested the ambivalence of artistic interventions into state and corporate broadcasting. Report by Anthony Iles and Josephine Berry Slater

Sherrie Rabinowitz and Kit Galloway, New Yorkers participating in Hole in Space, (1980)

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:39:01 +0000

Harun Farocki and Andrei Ujica, Videogrammes of a Revolution, (1992)

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:31:24 +0000

Getting Closer to Bigger Screens

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 17:31:09 +0000

ByRichard Wright

The BBC's Live Sites 2012 program is set to roll out 60 big screens in urban centres around the UK by 2012. Considering the vague agenda currently guiding their use, Richard Wright asks whether these big screens will ever open themselves to creative use or simply remain giant TVs controlled by giants

Victory Media Network screens

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:02:49 +0000

Victory Media Network screens in Victory Square, Dallas, Texas

A Wall is a Screen

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 14:31:26 +0000

Screening by the German collective 'A Wall Is A Screen'

Social Media and the Networked Public Sphere

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 04:01:40 +0000

ByUlises Mejias

Can social media increase and improve civic participation? If so, in what ways? There's a lot being said and written about the subject these days, but it is difficult to get a clear overview of the opinions.

I attempt here to collect viewpoints both for and against the premise that social media is creating a better public sphere, and analyze them in the context of what constitutes a public and its antithesis, a mass. In presenting what are sometimes extreme positions within this debate (too idealistic v. too critical), my hope is to begin to understand the reality that lies in the middle, and come closer to understanding social media's potential (and limitations) as a tool to bring about social change.

(originally published here under a Creative Commons license)

At a general level, we could say that on one side of the debate are those who believe that social media can increase civic participation and shift the balance of power away from the institutions that currently stand in the way of change. On the other side are those who warn that social media can only offer a reduced form of participation, that it diminishes the value of individual contributions, and that it leaves social systems more prone to manipulation by lowering their intelligence to the minimum common denominator (i.e., stupidity or mediocrity).

Thus, the debate can be framed in terms of whether social media can engender democratic publics that embody an intelligence and capacity for action greater than the sum of its members, or whether it will merely continue to support the production of anti-democratic masses of disenfranchised and alienated consumers. Of course, social media is a big label encompassing many different technologies, and even the same technologies can be applied differently in various contexts. But while features and applications might differ, the people contributing to this debate are obviously focused on the aggregated impact that social media is having on our societies rather than on specific examples of applications.

Mexico on the brink: there's a riot going on

Mon, 17 Jul 2006 16:13:25 +0000

ByJohn Ross

Overview of the exceptional extent and intensity of class confrontation going on in Mexico beneath the election circus. From Counterpunch: http://www.counterpunch.org/ross07012006.html

WIPO carves up the Internet (and the broadcast spectrum)

Mon, 08 May 2006 14:42:02 +0000

ByJames Love

This article discusses a new law or 'right' regarding intellectual property proposed by' a tiny handful of big corporate players'. The new right seeks to push beyond copyright law and copyright holders 'rights' to further the existing concentration of publishing and broadcast media in the hands of a few large companies and corporate networks. As is traditional in this field the measures proposed appear to be grossly unfair and hopefully unworkable. Re-posted from [Commons-Law] mailing list.

The Old New Clothes of the French Republic: In Defense of the Supposedly 'insignificant' Rioters

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 00:01:20 +0000

ByYann Moulier-Boutang

Re-posted from Le Manifeste

Major events are not necessarily beautiful, nor joyous. They take you by surprise. They do not necessarily produce integration. The reason why they happen never says anything about the moment of their actual occurrence. They are overdetermined in the same way as the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back: there is a long build-up, and then, one day, submission no longer holds, and you tear down the house.

I am the Mayor of London (The crowds outside are going wild.)

Fri, 03 Mar 2006 16:15:41 +0000

ByMatthew Fuller

For all those who walk London's streets wondering whether brekky has been spiked; for all those who think the millenniumdome is really an enormous hallucinogen; for all those who think the mayoral candidates are from Mars, Matthew Fuller has a surprise. If you see scary surrealism in today's London, wait for the magic realism of tomorrow.

Telestreets

Tue, 07 Mar 2006 11:04:31 +0000

ByAgnese Trocchi

Agnese Trocchi looks at the history of pirate television in Italy and sees the rise of a new organisation in the TeleStreet network

Dissembly Language (Unzipping the World Summit on the Information Society)

Sun, 22 Jan 2006 01:21:03 +0000

ByAlan Toner

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) has already attracted the attention of the critical media community. Here, Alan Toner of Autonomedia and New York’s Information Law Institute examines what’s at stake at the Summit and how its agenda reflects changes in the post-industrial location of power, describing some working strategies for intervention in the WSIS process from ‘independent’ and contestatory communications groups formed outside last year’s European Social Forum

The Street has a Thousand Eyes

Tue, 21 Mar 2006 14:40:45 +0000

ByChris Darke

Coming soon to a screen near you, Genoa: The Movie. Actually, probably not.

Them: Adventures with Extremists

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 17:57:51 +0000

ByJF

JF reviews Them: Adventures with Extremists