A recent survey "found more people could name the three American Idol judges than identify three
First Amendment rights.
They were also more likely to remember popular advertising slogans.
It also showed that people misidentified First Amendment rights. About one in five people thought the right to own a pet was protected, and 38 percent said they believed the right against self-incrimination contained in the Fifth Amendment was a First Amendment right. The article went on to say about 1 in 5 of our fellow citizens could name all 5 members of the Simpson clan but only 1 in 1,000 could name freedom of worship, speech, of the press, of assembly and freedom to petition to the government for redress of grievances."
"There's an opportunity to build a new, open mass medium of online
television. We're developing the Democracy internet TV platform so that watching internet video channels will be as easy as watching TV and broadcasting a channel will be open to everyone. Unlike traditional TV, everyone will have a voice."
"Television is the defining medium of our culture. There's now an opportunity to create a television culture that is fluid, diverse, exciting, and beautiful. Built by people working together.
The platform is open-source and built on open-standards. This matters because it keeps video flowing freely. When you lock people in to closed, proprietary services, you lose everything that makes the internet work.
Television is moving online. Will it be the same narrow, top-down cultural stagnation that we see on traditional television? All the major media and computer companies are clamoring to control video online. If they succeed it will be a disaster.
We don't have to spend years playing catch-up. Open-source and open- standards can lead this fight for the future of video online."
Links are mine -- ed.
"One-page summary of the Participatory Culture Foundation and the Democracy platform." - (Adobe Acrobat .pdf file)
"Please feel free to download and share widely."
"Television viewership continues to shrink. The week of July 4th was the least-watched week in recorded history, as only 20.8 million viewers were tuned in to primetime TV at any given moment. This was down from the previous low of 21.5 million viewers set last July.
While it's obvious why the numbers would be low (the US holiday, the excellent weather, summer reruns), the fact that records are being set shows that network TV is gradually losing its hold on popular culture.
While the free networks face challenges from newer forms of media like video games, the Internet, and MP3 players, they're also competing against other ways of watching video content. Consumers can now watch TV on cable, satellite, FiOS, IPTV, and the Internet, all of which offer far more options than the over-the-air networks."
"Left to their own devices, kids default to watching TV. You can keep them busy with other things, and a lot of parenting consists of thinking up ever more ways to do just that; but it’s like keeping a ball in the air. Relax your attentions, leave them to
'fill up the time' in their own way, and they drift to the TV.
Not just kids, either. Idleness is a very widespread vice. I sometimes think that the strongest of all human propensities is the propensity to do nothing.
I include watching TV as a style of doing nothing --
the most common style, in our time, the preferred method, for most adults as well as children, to 'rid themselves of the day.' "
