Confronting consolidation

Afterimage, Nov-Dec, 2005 by Dustin Kidd

2005 NAMAC CONFERENCE

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA

SEPTEMBER 28-OCTOBER 2, 2005

The National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC) celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in Philadelphia with evening receptions and events at the Institute for Contemporary Art, the Asian Arts Initiative, the Painted Bride Art Center, and the World Cafe Live. However, by day the celebration was tempered by the conference "Taking Liberties," which focused on deep and growing concerns about the perils facing media artists. These perils include issues of cultural policy, globalization, and long-range planning for arts organizations, confronted through a number of conference tracks and plenary sessions.

A pre-conference panel discussion at Drexel University posed the question "What Price Media Consolidation?" Or, in the words of moderator Jonathan Rintels from the Center for Creative Voices in Media, "What price can be put on the song never sung, on the news that no one hears?" Among the issues that the panel discussed were the media consolidation of the late 1990s; the ramifications of the recent Brand X Supreme Court case concerning consumer choice as regards the Internet; and the debates about indecency that followed the 2004 Super-Bowl "wardrobe malfunction." Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein, who offered a dissenting voice when the FCC pushed for further deregulation two years ago, suggested a four-pronged focus for preserving the media's role in American democracy: curbing media consolidation; increasing diversity in media ownership; reducing the reliance upon "payola"; and keeping the Internet open to broad democratic participation. The last point is where Adelstein finds the most hope, because of the new possibilities created by broadband technologies. Gene Kimmelman from the Consumers Union used his time to persuade the audience that the work of artists depends upon the right infrastructure. Like Adelstein, Kimmelman also finds hope in the Internet, particularly with the push for community wireless systems. Andrew Schwartzman of the Media Access Project insisted that "Artists have to care, artists have to speak out" against policy moves that would limit access to the media.

Alice Myatt, a multimedia consultant, spoke against the appearance of corporate theater and corporate independent film, as well as the declining significance of public space in the lives of Americans at a time when citizens are being re-branded into consumers. Kristin Thomson of the Future of Music Coalition found hopeful practices on the Internet in the form of Web spaces that are allowing artists to bypass big media and share their works with a large audience. (1) Gregory Allen Howard, screenwriter of Remember the Titans (2000 by Boas Yakin), and Ali (2001 directed by Michael Mann), raised special concerns about the chilling effect created by indecency fines. When a corporation holds interests in a number of media, a punitive action against one sector, such as television, will ripple across the corporation into other sectors. Finally, Daniel Myrick, the co-creator of The Blair Witch Project (1999), joined the panel via iMac Webcast and offered a brief introduction to his new project The Strand, a Web-based television program. (2)

A fear that consolidated media could no longer serve the interests of democracy was addressed at the conference's opening plenary, featuring Lani Guinier and Nolan Bowie, both of Harvard University. Guinier insisted that artists who are engaged with issues of social justice must work in collaboration with others and that their art must be the "collective voice of the people," not just the lone voice of the artist. They must resist being pulled into vanity so that their work is open to critique and available for conversation. Lastly, she argued that artists must convert personal grievances into social causes. Bowie called for a broader philosophical discussion about United States identity and the meaning of democracy. The artist's role, he suggested, is to foster this discussion using two tools: media technologies and the First Amendment.

The session "Media for Social Justice" invited the audience to make a choice straight out of The Matrix: take the blue pill and return to blissful ignorance, or take the red pill for social justice. Dee Davis, from Appalshop in Whitesburg, Kentucky, highlighted the many overlooked inequalities in the rural U.S., the ways that his organization has used independent media to address them, and the ways that Appalshop has confronted corporate media for its role in deepening these inequalities. Amy Lesser described the work of CTCNet's program Youth Visions for Stronger Neighborhoods, which funds programs that put media technologies into the hands of young people. Members of the Media Justice Network spoke about their participation in the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Summit on the Information Society. The session closed with a guided chant, "When I say media, you say justice! Media! Justice!"