If you're not familiar with Adam Curtis's BBC documentary, The Century of the Self, on Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud (whom Bernays effectively made), and Anna Freud, as well as the influence of advertising, "public relations" (a term coined by Bernays), and propaganda (the term he coined PR to avoid) on the public, corporations, and govenrment.
Also Jerry Mander's Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, which is an ad-man's perspective on what is fatally flawed with his own industry. See also his later book, The Capitalism Papers.
And of course, Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death and Technopoly.
There've been a number of recent HN posts on how bloated websites are becoming, and how content is being watered down on the Web. Pretty much all of this can be traced to the current funding mechanism: advertising. Which is increasingly becoming the problem, not the solution. E.g., TJ VanToll's "The Web's Cruft Problem".
Thomas Wells hits on what I see as the two most likely alternative funding mechanisms: a content tax, and philanthropy or patronage. Combining these with some form of decentralised content syndication compensation system seems like a possible path forward. The total value of the US arts and entertainment industry is $528 billion, of which publishing is $152 billion. If 20% of that is online content, it amounts to roughly $100 per person per year.
Phil Hunt of Pirate Party UK's broadband tax proposal is an earlier and similar concept.
Thank you for these recommendations. I enjoyed reading Amusing Ourselves to Death very much. I'm watching the first episode of The Century of the Self right now and enjoying it very much. It seems quite informative and seems less biased than Manufacturing Consent, which makes it more watchable for me.
If you're not familiar with Adam Curtis's BBC documentary, The Century of the Self, on Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud (whom Bernays effectively made), and Anna Freud, as well as the influence of advertising, "public relations" (a term coined by Bernays), and propaganda (the term he coined PR to avoid) on the public, corporations, and govenrment.
Also Jerry Mander's Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, which is an ad-man's perspective on what is fatally flawed with his own industry. See also his later book, The Capitalism Papers.
And of course, Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death and Technopoly.
There've been a number of recent HN posts on how bloated websites are becoming, and how content is being watered down on the Web. Pretty much all of this can be traced to the current funding mechanism: advertising. Which is increasingly becoming the problem, not the solution. E.g., TJ VanToll's "The Web's Cruft Problem".
Thomas Wells hits on what I see as the two most likely alternative funding mechanisms: a content tax, and philanthropy or patronage. Combining these with some form of decentralised content syndication compensation system seems like a possible path forward. The total value of the US arts and entertainment industry is $528 billion, of which publishing is $152 billion. If 20% of that is online content, it amounts to roughly $100 per person per year.
Phil Hunt of Pirate Party UK's broadband tax proposal is an earlier and similar concept.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Arguments_for_the_Elimina...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Mander
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Postman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technopoly
"A Modest Proposal: Universal Online Media Payment Syndication" https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1uotb3/a_modes...
http://cabalamat.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/a-broadband-tax-fo...
http://developer.telerik.com/featured/the-webs-cruft-problem...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9897306