Empowerment's Mixed Blessing

by Denise Caruso, Editor

Media Letter, July 1990, Vol.1, No.2


The contents of this month's issue of Media Letter make it abundantly clear 
that the time has come for us -- as a society and an industry -- to make media 
literacy a top priority.

The term media literacy, as I use it, means having a working knowledge of 
the social, economic and political machinations of the capital-M Media (i.e., 
networks, newspapers, movie industry, etc.) as they're organized today, 
including a sense of how they're developed. It also means having a working 
knowledge of the debates about the media's effects -- psychological, 
physiological and social -- as they've been perceived by various interests and 
competing schools of thought.

But media literacy also means mastery of the electronic media itself, mush as 
"regular" literacy allows us to navigate and comprehend written language. 
People in a media-literate society should have at least a working knowledge 
of how films, tapes and records are produced, with enough hands-on 
experience at the low end that if they really wanted or needed to, they could 
participate in a more complex media production later on. In other words, 
groups of people should be able to use audiovisual media as handily as they 
now use two-dimensional media.

This sweeping definition of media literacy comes from a story called "Steal 
this TV: How Media Literacy Can Change the World" in the July/August 1990 
issue of Utne Reader, part of an excellent series of articles called "Rethinking 
TV." But beyond TV, participants in the electronics industry at large need to 
do some "rethinking," too.

PCs and consumer electronics have always been about empowering the 
individual. And true enough, the availability of faster, cheaper, smaller 
electronic devices has indeed put sophisticated technology into the hands of 
more of the world's citizens than ever before -- a power shift that calls into 
question a number of cultural assumptions, from how business is conducted 
to the very foundations of how a democratic government operates.

The industry of interactive media, a melding of the PC and consumer 
electronics businesses, also springs from the desire to empower individuals. 
And as exciting as that is to those who know how to brandish a mouse or a 
ride herd on a video deck, the potential power shift also places a special 
burden of responsibility on the shoulders of "media literates" participating in 
the revolution.

This, of course, is a problem -- especially in the United States. From the Oval 
Office to the boardroom, our institutions and our citizenry seem to live by the 
Ashleigh Brilliant motto, "I want all of the power and none of the 
responsibility."

To overcome this affliction, we need to look at practical ways to get media 
technology into the hands of people who will empower themselves by using 
it, and will convince their neighbors to do the same.

A vital starting place is in schools. I recently received a letter from a couple 
who donated an Apple IIGS to a small, pool private school in their 
community that doesn't qualify for funding from the government or for 
equipment donations from vendors. Even though there is just one measly 
computer for the whole school, the kids love it, spend all their time on it, and 
as a result, their state test scores have risen dramatically.

Their improved performance, an obvious result of access to technology, is 
analogous to the increase in sales reported by firms conducting multimedia 
marketing campaigns (see "Silence is Golden," Pg. 7). If vendors can be 
convinced that increasing our children's ability to learn is at least as 
important as increasing sales, maybe they will make some sacrifices and find a 
way to get media technology into the schools.

Don Adams and Arlene Goldbard, authors of "Steal this TV," believe each 
public school needs to be equipped with closed-circuit audio and video 
systems and studio facilities, as well as enough recorders, cameras and other 
electronic tools to give every student hands-on time. Teachers should 
involve students in creating video versions of school newspapers, yearbooks 
and literary magazines as supplements to their print counterparts. And the 
curriculum from grade school through high school should acquaint every 
student with how the media are organized, how they're developed and how 
federal agencies regulate and control the public media we consume.

FENDING OFF DIGITAL SEDUCTION

We also desperately need to find a way to educate people about how and why 
visual media has such impact. Companies spend billions on ads and 
marketing campaigns, using bleeding-edge technology, to convince us that 
drinking a certain brand of cola will deliver to us intact the lifestyle we've 
always dreamed of. Advertising is about exploiting people to sell products, 
and some advancements in electronic marketing methods only enhance 
advertising's nasty habits. We must demystify that process.

Conversely, technology can help restore the citizenry to an active role in the 
political process. It's hard to believe we call our political system a democracy 
when less that 50 percent of its eligible voters cast ballots. Interactive 
television is one technology that could play a critical role in boosting those 
dismal numbers.

For example, it is now possible to broadcast simultaneous channels of audio 
in as many languages as you'd like. Think that might help a few more people 
understand a presidential debate? The evening news? Think a toll-free 800 
number flashed on a TV screen might encourage more people to participate 
in voter polls? Rest assured that people are already working on putting such 
technologies into place.

Though many multimedia "sophisticates" look down their noses at 
interactive TV, they must remember that home life for millions of 
Americans revolves around a TV set that's already in the living room. Of 
course vendors want those people to sally forth and buy a $5,000 or so piece of 
"interactive" hardware -- especially if it has their company's name on it -- but 
this isn't a likely scenario in the next couple years, at least. Especially since 
television and telephone technologies are already bringing a utilitarian 
interactivity to what once was a completely passive TV viewing process.

Though there is already evidence of what I call "ITV abuse" -- i.e., really 
dumb applications, like playing along with "Wheel of Fortune" using a 
special remote controller -- interactive TV products like the ones proposed by 
Stan Cornyn of Warner New Media (see Forum, page 10), will allow cable 
channels to broadcast non-insipid interactive programming as well.

A media-literate society can enjoy an interactive version of "Wheel of 
Fortune" and interactive educational programming, and still put its collective 
foot down -- hard -- about the kind of bullstuff that passes for "information" 
and "news" on television.

Interactive television probably causes ulcers for vendors of the computer-
videodisc-CDROM-VCR equipment combos that most of us think of when we 
think "multimedia." But it doesn't need to. Interactive TV is going to spur a 
growing percentage of the buying public to dive deeper into the world of what 
most of us consider today to be "multimedia." A media-literate society is 
going to buy more media-related products. A media-literate society is going to 
push information providers to "re-purpose" their vaults of data into new 
formats; they will be happy to acquiesce because they'll make tons of money 
doing it.

Media literacy can and should be the catalysts that drives interactive media 
technology into homes, schools and businesses. 

But the onus is on the multimedia industry itself to help people dream of 
what they can do with these tools -- to convince them they can indeed create 
something of power and significance, not just the video equivalent of 
kindergarten crayon-and-finger-paint scrawls.

A media-literate society will want to buy sound and video-editing equipment, 
when they're given a clue about what they might be able to do with it.

This kind of education is more than just teaching potential customers how 
interactive and multimedia productions are created -- how to shoot good 
video, how to edit and title, etc. People need to know the kind of stuff that I 
learned while studying film -- that what's left out of the picture is as 
important as what's left in, that camera angles manipulate your emotions, 
that incredibly potent subtleties are possible in the presentation of 
information.

As Adams and Goldbard conclude, "We understand that a person who cannot 
read is in thrall to those who can . . . To enter social and political debates as a 
full participant one must also break the thrall of the magic box (television) 
and master its secrets." If indeed that's what the multimedia industry is 
attempting to do, then it needs to find a way to help its potential customers 
achieve that mastery.