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Two Different Media Worlds

Big Brother's a creep. But he pays well.

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When Rick Falkvinge went down to Medborgarplatsen in Stockholm and played a recording of a conversation he'd had with a former high ranking official in the Swedish FRA about how the FRA had been engaged in wiretapping spying for years - the Swedish mainstream media didn't bother writing a single word. Not a one. Around the world there are FRA Lex Orwell laws already on the books or on their way. And the mainstream media - what the Swedish bloggers increasingly call 'gammelmedia'/'the old media' - aren't writing much there either. Anders Mildner of Sydsvenska Dagbladet terms it 'two different media worlds' - and he's officially part of the 'gammelmedia' so that's quite a brave statement. A Swedish blogger wrote to the #1 Swedish daily and asked them why the blackout on Lex Orwell. He got a personal reply from the editor in chief. The reason? They covered Lex Orwell a year ago, it's a done deal, blah-blah. Blah-blah. Rick Falkvinge credits Mildner with getting the 'gammelmedia' to finally write about Lex Orwell again - at one minute to midnight. Three political parties in Sweden support downstream file sharing unconditionally. The political youth associations all support legalising file sharing. But at the same time, Mildner points out, society as a whole is moving more and more towards more draconian legislation, more intimidating sentences, and much more suspect methods for getting at those 'criminal file sharers'. Two different worlds. For many years the debaters, the media monitors, and all the more dissatisfied citizenries have complained about the superficiality of the 'gammelmedia' - in depth reporting's slowly but surely disappearing. The old guard - the newspapers, radio stations, television stations - are shedding their political edge. The only 'journalism' one sees these days is the 'let both sides have their say' journalism, says Mildner. 'For unknown reasons reporters year after year dismiss the very idea of research and contacting experts in the particular field and instead settle for uncritically conveying two opposing points of view.' And if that's not creating two different worlds then nothing is. But at the same time the 'new guard' - the online blogs - have taken up the challenge. 'We've already got two different media worlds', states Mildner. 'The one where there's discussion in the gammelmedia - the mainstream media or MSM - and other where there's discussion on the Internet blogs.' Thanks for that, Anders! But that's not quite the point. As Rick Falkvinge might point out - and has pointed out so many times in the past - the 'discussion' in the MSM isn't really a discussion at all. It's more like a controlled pyramidal dissemination of 'information'. It's whatever the powers that be want you to think. The blogs represent a form of 'culture sharing' much like file sharing. It's not pyramidal, it's not controlled, and it isn't hampered by copyright legislation. It's just out there. And it represents the biggest cultural watershed in the history of our species on this planet. And maybe that's what the powers that be are afraid of; maybe that's why they're pushing through repressive Big Brother laws everywhere; and maybe that's why the 'gammelmedia' are so willingly in their pockets.