La integridad del ombusman

Carlos Jijón, en su columna del día jueves 29 de noviembre titulada
“Golpe de Estado,” me invita a una profunda y urgente reflexión la
integridad de la prensa de nuestro país.
No se trata de que simplemente me escandaliza el razonamiento del
escritor y su infortunado uso de términos. No, no es solo una evidente
incompatibilidad ideológica, la cual es soy el primero en admitir que
existe. Lo que para Carlos Jijón es un “Golpe de Estado,” es para mi
un ejercicio magnífico de democracia. Esta contraposición de opiniones
es natural del ejercicio del pensamiento político y fundamental prueba
de la libertad de expresión que en nuestro país existe, y que por
tanto ha de ser celebrada, aunque algunos, incluido el mismo Jijón,
la cuestionen constantemente.

Lo verdaderamente problemático es que el señor Jijón cumple funciones
como “defensor del lector”. Esta importante figura en el ejercicio del
periodismo contemporáneo corre el riesgo de ser desligitimada al ser
ejercida por un individuo con una posición ideológica tan polarizada y
polarizante. Creo que los lectores tenemos el derecho a leer los
exabruptos encolerizados del señor Jijón, pero creo que también
tenemos derecho a un ombudsman válido, y a creer que existe una prensa
independiente de la cual el diario Hoy es parte.

Nota publicada en el diario de Quito, diciembre 8 de 2007.

What will be the “beer” me make?

On her blog: Blogging into the future, Amanda Clark brings back the fear that is forcing journalists re-think and re-invent their craft for the last years. “Will blogs take over the world of reporting and cause readers to turn to them instead of their local newspapers?”
In the mid-nineties, a great professor from University of Navarra, Jose Luis Orihuela, formulated an interesting analogy that still resounds with me. He presented the case of the medieval monks that faced with the revolutionary invention of print, found themselves without their traditional occupation, of handwriting books. Instead of competing with the invention, they prefer re-invent their role becoming brewers.
The question therefore is: what will be our “beer”? What are we going to do different? I do agree that a way to “combat the issue is for newspapers to simply start reporting better.” Yet, I am afraid it will be more complicated than that. I am not sure that as Amanda suggests, “the popularity of blogs will slowly diminish and newspapers will again come out on top.” The journalistic product has to defeat the alternative. It should be appealing enough to remain superior to its blogosphere counterpart.
During the last week’s local elections, I was able to obtain more helpful local information from blogs than from the conventional media. In the other hand, when it comes to global issues, my experience is that blogs mostly repeat information originated by the conventional media.
I have to still discover what will be the twist we may provide to local papers, to produce our “beer,” but I can think in one fundamental difference:  journalist  get paid.

What do we eat?

On her blog: Feeding Blackmail, Marcie Barnes makes an insightful analysis of the problematic of labeling done by the very same companies that sell us the food products. The ubiquitous conflict of interests in this practice implies also a big of government to set clear and effective guidelines.
I am positive that underneath this issue lays the philosophical principles that have lead government for the last years. Government power has now being replaced by corporate agents that have concentrate the favor of political actors.
I do fully agree with the solutions proposed by Marcie. I would like to add the dimension, that although impractical, underlines the need to change our lifestyle, since is evident that both government and companies lack the will to make a significant change.
“More consumer education about eating organically (and locally). The use of the term “conventional” in description of what I call “mainstream” food forces consumers to believe that organic is the odd way to eat. When in fact, humans evolved eating off of the land: free of pesticides, preservatives, artificial colors, additives, scientifically derived ingredients (ex: corn syrup), extra hormones, and possible genetic mutations, just to name a few.”
I couldn’t agree more. Furthermore, if we really become conscious about what we eat, we may not even require things to be labeled. Haven’t we been able to fed our specie until now without labels? But of course, we haven’t had to face massive markets and busy lives that make impossible for us to provide adequate care to what we eat day by day. Our constant rush and our need to eat on different locations through the day, have forced us to de-sacralize the ritual of eating. A good example for a philosophical change is Slow Food Movement, is based on the: “believe that everyone has a fundamental right to pleasure and consequently the responsibility to protect the heritage of food, tradition and culture that make this pleasure possible.”
The challenge arises when we try to fit such principles with our economical expectations and time requirements, building a vicious circle hard to break.

Seniors and the digital divide

Let me first express my profound admiration to Lisa Bistreich’s sensitivity at choosing her research topic for her blog Lisa’s blog at global communication. It is an undeniable reality on the digital divide that few have dared to tackle. With that very common sense, Lisa has provoked in me a couple of initial reactions.
As dramatic as the digital divide results for seniors, we run the risk of imposing – perhaps with a little of condescension–our own set of values and priorities, to an specific population segment. Unlike other examples of the technological divide, where economical factors determine the access to technology, the challenges that seniors face, are of an even more complicated nature. In addition to Lisa’s very well argue reasons, some seniors may be just unwilling to adopt mainstream technology.
“More and more information on current and world events is shared on the Internet, seniors are excluded from access to that information, leaving them without access to topics of their interest.” I know this is true, but may also deserve to be consider that the production of knowledge, precedes and surpasses the technological advances.
When my grandfather died in the year 2000, the only inheritance we received, were his books. For years, my grandfather devotion to collect and treasure them, produced what is my favorite library in the world. Volumes and volumes about History, Philosophy and Physics –his passions in life—became for me the most illustrative testimony of his ended existence. The family committed to preserve the library as left, and although we are encouraged to spend time there, we do not remove any book from the premises.
Every time we have a chance, we explore the books he left. Sometimes for fun and sometimes for legitimate research, we always return to this space created by him.
So far, we have found numerous notes and observations, made in all kinds of media. Surprisingly, we discover a series of tape recordings where he formulates his own philosophical theory. Needless to say, those are now digitalized, and I can listen to them in my ipod, when I crave the wisdom of the old man.
We also find the notes he took when each of his sixteen grandchildren explain him how to use the Internet. He, a physicist, was never able to use it comfortably.
I wonder what would have happened if what we received instead, were password protected files on a Pentium III, that by now would have been discarded, adding to that other issue of pollution.

An accidental change of paradigm about the use of technology in education

On her Blog Global Criss Cross, Amanda Toler approaches to an issue very close to my heart. For several years, I was a high school teacher in a charter school, here in North Carolina. A charter school, is a publically funded school which have been freed from some of the rules, regulations, and statutes that apply to other public schools, in exchange of accountability for producing certain results, which are set forth in each school’s charter. In North Carolina there is a minimal difference in terms of the expectations that a charter school must meet, vis-à-vis, a conventional public school. The founding, however, is significantly smaller.
This particular charter school is a college preparatory. Our students are expected to attend a four-year college after graduating. Therefore, the school is expected to provide a comprehensive academic formation.
Technology, of course, is a fundamental part of this academic spectrum. A couple of years ago, a significant effort was made, to equip the school with plenty Mac ibooks for use of students.
Ever since, we have faced endless challenges.
The first level of resistance was the Mac platform. Many students, parents and even faculty, found “useless” to learn to operate on Mac OS in a “Windows world.”
The second big issue was security and maintenance. There was a natural concern for securing a wireless network for academic work and appropriate contents. With too many filters, speed decreased almost to non-functional levels. I suspect that a bigger maintenance investment could have significantly altered these results. But once the laptops were acquired there was very little budget left.
In consequence, faculty and students ended under utilizing a very valuable resource.
Although I am a big technology fan and a Mac enthusiast, I was not alarmed. I was aware that our students were technologically literate, and able to get the most of the resources in hand. I find the crisis to be an opportunity to fight the seduction of new technologies and discuss with the students the reorganization of discourses and how affect our ways of reading and writing. Comics, videogames, TV and Internet are to be equated with the “old notion” of book. Perhaps accidentally we ended educating to be served by, and not to depend on technology.

The Issue of Privacy

Josh Voorhees presents very interesting reflexions over the issue of privacy. With him I share a number of natural assumptions, that as citizens of a democracy, we have grow to embrace. Therefore, is at least disturbing to face some realities related to our presence on the web.
It is that “perception of anonymity” what seems to draw a massive participation in all kind information exchanges. There is a pleasant feeling of relevance when the contents we visit appear to be personalize, adapted and even tailor to our taste and interests. Often, when we find these recommendations, we link them to previous patterns in our on-line experience. I am afraid, however, that seldom we fail to recognize the signs.
The fears described by Josh Voorhees result clear and exemplary. I would like to reflect in a couple of them.
1. Identify theft. I am not going to question the validity of the statistics use to endorse this issue. However, I tend to doubt the legitimacy of the widespread presence of the menace. Fundamentally, I do question the commercial rationale of financial institutions that should be accountable of preserving private data, when offer as a solution “enhance security” for a fee. Weren’t we safe in the first place? Why should we pay for something they should provide anyway?
2. It is remarkable the characterization of Big Brother done by Josh Voorlees. Corporations have specialized in recollection of data. There should be no doubt that the information obtained will be use for their fundamental mission of profiting. The issue becomes particularly problematic, when areas as health insurance are managed with corporative principles.
I will like to add, nonetheless, the more conventional idea of Big Brother. This whole issue of privacy could not be complete without including the risk of the political power accessing to private information. I do not pretend to incorporate, for the moment, the ongoing political debate on the balance between privacy and safety. I must, however, state my concern about the evidence of governmental disregard for privacy. Lets think at least how problematic would be if this huge amount of information, collected on safety pretenses, becomes available to, lets say, our enemies.

New media, new genres, new readings

Contemporary technological innovations are producing a substantial shift on the media landscape. More and faster information, with a plurality of channels for distribution and cheaper production platforms, is modifying our receptor’s sensibility.

Lia Seixas has researched this shift from a journalistic point of view, and in her analysis finds that the “journalistic paradigm” and the “journalistic discursive formation ,” are revealed like a new notion for the practice of journalism with a fundamental challenge. As formulated by Habermas, among the many issues at stake in the re-definition of the information environment, there is its ability to re-configure the flows of political communication towards a more direct and self-aware participation by the citizen to the democratic process.

In one hand we face a widespread technological optimism; in the other, a radical political pessimism in search of legitimacy behind the power of media, or, what Jesus Martin-Barbero calls: the market mediative omnipresence. For him this notion suggests an evident conflict, all political and cultural demands that manage to encounter a form of expression in the media, yield in front of social media logic and dynamics.

Considering journalistic genres as production rules that define the discursive content, the modification of the journalistic paradigm, must imply a transformation of those genres in order to provide new “rules” more according to the modified mediation. We know, that the structure of journalistic genres is provisional, therefore ever adapting and dynamic.

Fausto Colombo, Maria Francesca Murru, in the very interesting study case of the role played by the blog Macchianera.it in the diplomatic crisis between Italy and the United States following the killing of an Italian secret service agent by American soldiers in Baghdad, concluded that bloggers’ communicative strategies should not be analyzed outside of the more complex strategies of the various social subjects, including the institutional ones. Making an analogy to traditional media they suggest that blogs can be conceptualized as possible agents of wider communicative strategies; in other words, using communication as a weapon.

The new attention on the development of media without solid criticism, presents the risk of avoiding the real challenge. If the genres have been modified, the shift may not be reducible to an adaptation to technological advances, nor to a new logic of commercial entertainment, but may require a deeper transformation in our culture.

RESOURCES:

WOLF, Mauro. (Diálogos de la Comunicación Edición N.30) Tendencias Actuales del Estudio de Medios. Available at: http://www.dialogosfelafacs.net/articulos-teo-30MauroWolf.php

FOUCAULT, M. (1969) L’arqueologie du savoir, Paris: Gallimard, 1969.

SEIXAS, Lia. A Rosa dos Gêneros Tese de Doutorado. http://www.generos-jornalisticos.blogspot.com/

HABERMAS, Jurgüen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a category of Bourgeois Society. Trans. Thomas Burger with Frederick Lawrence. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

MARTIN-BARBERO, Jesus. De los medios a las mediaciones. Xi

COLOMBO Fausto, MURRU Francesca. Available at: http://obs.obercom.pt .