Media Censorship and the Internet…
Media Censorship by Country – Image via Wikipedia
Two things that may not necessarily play so well together: Media Censorship and the Internet (more specifically, the World Wide Web).
It is kind of shocking when you think about what type of content is readily available nowadays to men & women, boys & girls, children of all ages.
I’ve had the good… or… lets just say, fortune, of having grown up and lived out my formative years in the 80s and early 90s. This was a period where for the first time, widespread satellite distribution meant you get basically an entire continent’s TV programming (and eventually the most significant programs of the whole globe) live at your fingertips. Not exactly on-demand, but here the syndication concept tested in the 70s really saw a market boom, and through re-run programs broadcast at off hours, you could eventually find what you were looking for, if you were patient.
This was also a period when music came to the TV in a big way. Through the Music Video, the industry found a whole new outlet for “creatively” reaching their desired audiences. The Music industry enjoyed its newfound home with TV, and exploited their stay accordingly through MTV, creating a legion of fans and followers through a lot of hype, some moderately elaborate sets, and a few teen heart-throbs. All this created a cycle of watch-shop-buy, share with friends, repeat consuming which would last over a decade and fuel one massively over-sized market. For all intents and purposes this was an ecosystem, without the eco… buyers being the real pawns as the industry went through storage format after storage format (from vynil to 8-track to cassettes to CDs, all within the span of a little over a decade); each time requiring the “hip and with it consumer” to go out and re-purchase their entire collection on the new format I might add.
BC$ = Behavior, Content, Money
The goal of the BC$ project is to raise awareness and make changes with respect to the three pillars of information freedom - Behavior (pursuit of interests and passions), Content (sharing/exchanging ideas in various formats), Money (fairness and accessibility) - bringing to light the fact that:
1. We regularly hand over our browser histories, search histories and daily online activities to companies that want our money, or, to benefit from our use of their services with lucrative ad deals or sales of personal information.
2. We create and/or consume interesting content on their services, but we aren't adequately rewarded for our creative efforts or loyalty.
3. We pay money to be connected online (and possibly also over mobile), yet we lose both time and money by allowing companies to market to us with unsolicited advertisements, irrelevant product offers and unfairly structured service pricing plans.