Sep 9, 2006 3:15:00 PM cite

Andries Botha: Jerry, it is a bit of a problem. More of a problem. Question is, how can the problem become an opportunity. Well, let us understand mass media is that which actually has the ear of people. So, I guess – I guess first of all we have to accept mass media and understand mass media as a vehicle, a potential vehicle, that we can use. I don’t believe that conferences or intellectual referendums or treatises written on important issues at such places or in such parts - as a result of academic research, is going to find a way to people. However, we need to be able to find ways in which we could integrate, or use I should rather say, this available earphone if you wish. It has the attention of ordinary people. So, a problem can and should become an opportunity. I think that’s what we should - that’s what I’m trying to say. I think we should be able to transform what we consider to be problematic into an opportune moment. And I think the mass media is a reality that will stay, and as such we should be able to transform that to our advantage.

by Andries Botha

Sep 9, 2006 3:15:00 PM cite

Angaangaq Lyberth: Answertext will be available soon.

by Angaangaq Lyberth

Sep 9, 2006 3:15:00 PM cite

Anthony Arnove: Jerry’s question raises a point, which is that whether ubiquitousness of mass media is both an opportunity and it’s a problem. It’s a opportunity in the sense that it provides possibilities for gaining greater awareness of the world, it provides an opportunity for raising awareness and knowledge about global issues, about which we need to know more. It raises possibilities for organizing and providing information that can help mobilize people to work together for social change and betterment, and provides opportunities for more effectively organizing opportunities that did not previously exist for communicating quickly and efficiently and effectively. But, at the same time, the ubiquitousness of mass media is a problem because the existing forms of mass media are dominated by interests that are opposed to the use of mass media for the purpose of effectively organizing and for effectively understanding the world. They are organized in the interest of creating a passive citizenry, in the interest of creating consumers, in the interest of creating information that will be useful for the manufacture of consent of governments for their policies, to manufacture consent to support policies such as the war, the occupation in Iraq and the broader so-called War on Terror. That is the real role of the existing mass media and their ubiquitousness helps create a pervasive sense in people’s lives that the world is dominated by forces they cannot control. So, really, it is a very tough call to say whether it is one or the other. I think really ultimately it’s both and the contradiction is something we have to confront.

by Anthony Arnove

Sep 9, 2006 3:15:00 PM cite

Anuradha Koirala:

by Anuradha Koirala

Sep 9, 2006 3:15:00 PM cite

Anuradha Mittal: Well, I am sitting next to Jerry so I am going to ask you to listen to his answer because I think he is the best one to answer this question and then come back to me.

by Anuradha Mittal

Sep 9, 2006 3:15:00 PM cite

Ashok Gangadean: I like this question. Because there is no question that the mass media is of enormous importance in shaping our consciousness and awareness or lack of consciousness on the planet. And it’s clear that this is a major issue for those in our culture who realize that to get the lead story out of this great shift and awakening on the planets. And humanity is not getting out there. So that it’s clear that mass media is controlled by certain interests and certain money interests and economic forces. And that controls the use of the mass media for a higher good. So I would choose to say that there is of course a problem. It might be mass media, but its also a great opportunity. There is no doubt that the media will more and more have to respond to the great shift that’s taking place on the planet. At this great moment, where our survival as a human species is in question. And so I see the creative use of mass media for mass consciousness shifting and consciousness awakening is inevitable. It cannot be stopped. And so, they will have to be revisions, radical revisions in the use of mass media. And I think the power of Internet reaching out across the planet, in a more democratically open way, is going to help to redress this deep imbalance in the use of mass media. In events such as this, Dropping Knowledge, organizing this here in Berlin. We are reaching out through the Internet to the planet and responding to the questions of the planet. Is an example of a creative use of mass media to the common good. So, I think this is a trend that’s going to continue more and more.

by Ashok Gangadean

Sep 9, 2006 3:15:00 PM cite

Audrey Kitagawa: The ubiquitousness of mass media is both an opportunity [audio not available] well as a problem. I think more and more mass media has to move in a direction that will look to creating a code of ethics that will help provide guidelines, that will not allow them to create distortions of what is being reported and to understand the importance of reporting things in a manner that is accurate and that is truthful. The mass media helps us to, on the other hand, take us out of isolation, to keep us informed about what is going on with peoples in different parts of the world or within our own community, so it provides an opportunity for us to learn more about our world, about each other. But when we have mass media that is distorting, that is grounded in this aspect of sensationalism for profit motive and to increase sales, then it becomes problematic. When we make the high circulation, the high viewership the price of truthful, honest reporting, then it becomes an invasion in a way that we should not welcome. So mass medium can be an opportunity for connection, growth, and expansion of our own worlds into the bigger world, and it can also become problematic if it is not utilized in ethical, principled ways.

by Audrey Kitagawa

Sep 9, 2006 3:15:00 PM cite

Avi Primor: I believe it is more of an opportunity. I believe that it is a good thing we have the mass media. Of course there are problems with the mass media as they don´t always report the right things, as they are not always proportionate. But all in all they do report a lot, and nowadays we do know a lot more, about ourselves, about everything that is important and that we need to be informed about, much more than in the times when there were no mass media. Yes, it´s true, sometimes the mass media report about things that are completely unimportant, and often, very often it is only entertainment. So what? Why should this be a bad thing? If this sort of entertainment is not always very tasteful, well, that´s how it is with the taste in life, isn´t it? Well, I would try to receive all of this very well, the stupidity of the mass media, the unimportant things, the entertainment that might be good or not, but all in all the mass media is a means of clarification, and this clarification is very important for us today. The more complicated the world gets the more we need this sort of information and clarification, even if it is not always ideal.

by Avi Primor

Sep 9, 2006 3:15:00 PM cite

Benjamin Fahrer: There’s a huge opportunity and so a very big problem. Seeing the problem as an opportunity in all cases, is definitely a stance one can take in life. And there’s one in permaculture that we do take a lot; seeing the problem as a solution, promised opportunity, a properortunity. So, it then becomes not a question but, yes, it is an opportunity. This problem is an opportunity. Then it becomes the creativity of those who come up with how to respond to this ubiquitousness of the mass media and how to take it, how to turn it in to an opportunity? And this requires creative, innovative ways of approaching a problem, this problem. Most of us can look at it as if there’s a big problem, because it is. But within every problem lies opportunity. So, we need to look to our colleagues and cohorts to see how we can take this as a way, as an opportunity and take advantage of.

by Benjamin Fahrer

Sep 9, 2006 3:15:00 PM cite

Benson Venegas:

by Benson Venegas

Sep 9, 2006 3:15:00 PM cite

Bill Joy: I take as the protypical mass media television and I see it as more of a problem despite the hope that we had for understanding the world better and all the educational possibilities of television, when I look at what television has become it’s a tragedy. And it’s a vehicle for the communication of manufacturing desires, it’s a vehicle for the communication of low grade entertainment, of relatively sterile coverage of the news, myopic coverage of the news. People read newspapers less and less, those are mass media but I don’t find them as much of a problem. What about the internet? The internet can clearly be a mass medium. Many people go to certain sites. But unlike broadcast media the internet is also a personalized medium and so there’s more hope. The internet can be ubiquitous and can also be a good tool for education, it can also be a tool for looking at trash. It can go both ways. But I’m disappointed as some of the things I see on the internet but I see an opportunity here for community building and other activities, towards positive things in the world. So unlike television which I’m very negative, which I unplugged from, I’m very optimistic about the mass media, the mass personalization of the net.

by Bill Joy

Sep 9, 2006 3:15:00 PM cite

Bora Cosic: Media like any other mean in human lives can be positive or negative, depending in whose hands it lays. Off course media increases general views and global information, however it can also be misused for manipulation or from dictators. Even for culture it can make problems and not chances, sense million of minutes of TV trash, like Latin American series, deduct possibility of any mental progress day to day. This shows real problem of human population, we apt to nonsense if it pleases or hypnoses us.

by Bora Cosic

Sep 9, 2006 3:15:00 PM cite

Brian J. Weller: Well, let’s see, like many questions it has at least two sides. I think mass media is a problem when it’s controlled by mega corporations and politically divisive governments. Then for sure it’s a problem. In fact, maybe yeah, in terms of infrastructure that’s controlled by these kinds of organizations and the content that flows through this infrastructure, it can be extremely hypnotic and seductive. In that way, it’s a problem. However, it’s an opportunity, obviously, in terms of global interconnectivity. The Internet is probably still our greatest hope in terms of exposing lies and manipulation of the elitist media. In fact, one of my great heroes, Amy Goodman of Pacifica Radio in the United States, has a show called “Democracy Now” which you can get on the Internet. I recommend if you don’t see it, go and see it. You can really see media at the cutting edge, whistle blowing, blowing the trumpet of truth. So, the other piece of course is that worldwide media is enabling more and more people to become authors of their own content; in terms of blogging obviously, open source software. This event, Dropping Knowledge, is a great example of the good use, I would say, of using ubiquitous media as a carrier of possibility. So, democratizing the media is a way that this opportunity will grow, and particularly using mass media to raise awareness. I think that’s probably the greatest need at the time right now. So, a good question from Jerry.

by Brian J. Weller

Sep 9, 2006 3:15:00 PM cite

Catherine David: This is also a question a little bit warped in the sense that I think ubiquitousness isn't real. There is a certain number of very serious problems today on which there are absolutely no comments and which don't circulate. I think that this story of the mass media which are supposed to make the world transparent is one of the big, big contemporary lies, and I think we would be welcomed to be more interested in what some have called grey zones or opacity zones, but I think that ubiquitousness - I don't know if unfortunately or not - is a lie. There is no ubiquitousness, and mass media are not everywhere, for the best and for the worst. Again, the opacities are very evident today, and I don't think the agitation of the mass communication media changes anything.

by Catherine David

Sep 9, 2006 3:15:00 PM cite

China Keitetsi: Answertext will be available soon.

by China Keitetsi

Sep 9, 2006 3:15:00 PM cite

Constantin von Barloewen: The fact that the mass media uses the digital revolution, the availability and the amoebalike spreading of the mass media into the last quarters of this world, is at the end a large threat rather than a benefit. If one remembers the attempt of the UNESCO with the new communication detection in the 80's, one noticed that mass media are used politically, i.e. at that time by the Eastern Bloc countries or by North America. It is a contradiction in itself that todays western media regulate mostly of the world market, like the people from Ecuador or from Indonesia, from Bolivia or from Peru can get better information about his own country, maybe the only ones over CNN, over MTV or over the digital media, but not from its authentic view, from its own culture, from its own identity. That creates contradiction, creates force, creates conflicts. It is also a contradiction that the world grows together on the one hand digitally and on the other hand massmedialike. Humans travel always far to the last corners of the world. On one side one could hope that the conflicts would decrease, but we have a paradox: Ethnical-religious conflicts became larger actually in the last 20 years. The balkanization, the ethnical pluralization, the sectioning of the world, the fundamentalism as a threat to the different founder religions. They do not only exist in the Islam but also in christianity, in hinduism. One cannot assume that one can peace-politically achieve really much with a massmedialike crosslinking.

by Constantin von Barloewen

Sep 9, 2006 3:15:00 PM cite

Dedi Baron: Answertext will be available soon.

by Dedi Baron

Sep 9, 2006 3:15:00 PM cite

Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas: Definitely, the ubiquitousness of media definitely is an opportunity if and only if responsible reporting will be taken, will be done because oftentimes media are being used by somebody with money for their own interest. And those things, in my opinion, media will become not an opportunity but the problem. But if responsible reporting is being done honestly by the media without being too commercialized, then I would say it’s an opportunity.

by Donato Bayu Bay Bumacas