Phoebe.Sengers on Thu, 27 Mar 1997 15:22:05 +0100 (MET) |
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<nettime> Surveillance on the Net: The New Media Report |
This is an excerpt from Phil Agre's excellent Red Rock Eater's News Service (accessible from http://www.utopia.com/mailings/rre/). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 13:33:54 -0800 (PST) From: Phil Agre <pagre@weber.ucsd.edu> To: rre@weber.ucsd.edu Subject: notes I get the most appalling things in the mail. Here, for example, I have a letter from Richard Viguerie -- the same Richard Viguerie who is famous for having pioneered direct-mail political fund-raising in the 1980's -- advertising his new publication, The New Media Report. The letter itself presumably distills everything he has learned; it is framed as a fake memo to someone named Janis Tabor of the "Council for Chemican [sic] Research". I'm sure he has some psychological explanation for the typo. In any case, The New Media Report promises to inform organizations what is being said about them in the "new media", which includes "direct mail, phone banks, fax broadcasting, newsletters and Internet sites of hundreds of activist public policy organizations". He claims that his staff is "following thousands of talk radio shows, cable news shows, public policy newsletters, trade shows, conventions, lectures, independent book stores, videos, religious broadcasts, campus publications, ethnic and political publications and meetings", as well as "the activities of hundreds of state and national labor unions". He says, "We've hired people who are computer junkies and who love the idea that we pay them to surf hundreds of organization sites on the Internet. They do it every day except now they get paid for it." Also, "We subscribe to and read hundreds of newsletters and desktop published magazines dealing with public policy issues, current events, including trade, taxes, possible new state ballot initiatives, attacks on business, ideas for new government regulations, and much, much more." Not only that, "We call independent book stores to learn what the non-elite middle class is reading." And so on. It appears weekly and costs $347 a year by paper mail, fax, or e-mail. Viguerie's newsletter is, I suppose, the next level of a phenomenon that has been accelerating in recent years: the systematic surveillance of popular political activity by the interests who have something to fear from it. The demand for such information is created in large part by the concomitant rise of techniques for preventing new issues from being established in the public sphere. Sometimes the motivation for this type of action is reasonable, for example when plainly false rumors begin to circulate. Many other times, however, the motivation is much more problematic. This has been well-documented (see, for example, John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, "Toxic Sludge is Good for You", Common Courage Press). Having gotten early warning of the publication of an unfriendly book, for example, an organization or its public relations firm can mysteriously get hold of page proofs, round up its friendly experts, and approach relevant reporters with disparaging previews so that the book is less likely to be reviewed. Bookstores might then receive phone calls purporting to cancel an author's scheduled book-signing appearances. Or, having gotten early warning of a potential issue campaign by a political group, the affected organizations can prepare lobbying materials and inoculate all of the relevant politicians with attacks on the group's credibility before they even show up in the politicians' offices. These practices, as I say, are already routine, and The New Media Report will permit them to become even more routine and even more efficient. Public debate will be smothered before it even begins, and society will drift into oblivion and formless rage. For a while there, nando.net had a story online about PR firms monitoring the Internet. It seems to be gone now, but the URL for the story was http://www.nando.net/newsroom/ntn/info/021397/info4_16115.html --- # distributed via nettime-l : no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a closed moderated mailinglist for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@icf.de and "info nettime" in the msg body # URL: http://www.desk.nl/~nettime/ contact: nettime-owner@icf.de