[Indy Arts] MySpace and the Future of Democracy

[iam at lists.artsandmedia.net]

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           Independent Arts & Media 2006 Fund Drive
           Funds raised so far: $250  //   Goal:  $2,000
           People on list:  942              //   Weeks left:  2

           Donate online: http://artsandmedia.net/contributions/

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December 14, 2006

Dear Friends;

Thanks to the folks who've donated to Indy Arts so far! We've raised 
$250, and urgently need your support to meet our year-end funding 
goal.

This week: Do 100 million MySpace accounts add up to democracy renewed? 

Remember that Rupert Murdoch didn't purchase MySpace because it's a 
beacon of online self-expression.

As noted in Wired magazine ("His Space," July 2006), he bought it 
because MySpace is an enormous database of customers with whom to 
develop intricate one-to-one marketing relationships:

     "The most immediate [challenge] is to avoid doing
     anything that might interfere with the runaway growth
     that has already made MySpace the biggest aggregation
     of people on the Web. But that's just step one. Step
     two is to turn MySpace's teeming masses into a wholly
     new kind of media entity, an advertising, marketing,
     and distribution vehicle that gives News Corp. a hand
     on the steering wheel of popular culture worldwide."


THE NEW MASS MEDIA
Luckily for Murdoch, much of the marketing technology he needs is 
already built into the MySpace platform, as the company was founded 
by pioneers of the spam, adware, spyware and mass-email industry (see 
below for details).

In this "wholly new kind of media entity," the Internet's cornucopia 
of ideas, information and art becomes an immersive series of 
massively personalized consumer experiences. 

Murdoch has seen this future, and it's brilliant. It's hundreds of 
millions of online users, tracked and analyzed on a daily basis. It's 
narrowcast and demographically targeted with unprecedented accuracy. 
Like Pavlov, it rewards certain consumer behaviors, and devalues 
others.

And commerce ain't the half of it. What if the masters of this new 
mass medium have a political agenda as well?

SUPPORT INDEPENDENT CULTURE & COMMUNITY
Fortunately, this is a future we can opt out of. Independent culture 
and community is alive and well in the United States and around the 
world.

We at Indy Arts are dedicated to supporting D.I.Y. cultural 
entrepreneurs and civic-minded, "open source" media and dialogue.

We contribute to the new public-media sector that is emerging on the 
Internet -- and we take our work offline, into the real world, with 
programs such as the Expo for the Artist & Musician, fiscal 
sponsorship, dozens of free workshops and dialogue events, and 
non-virtual print and radio media.

Your tax-deductible donations of $25, $50, $100, $500 or more will 
keep these vital services alive -- and help Indy Arts grow:

      Indy Arts Donor Page
      http://artsandmedia.net/contributions/

      Snail Mail (checks only!): Independent Arts & Media
      PMB 821 * 601 Van Ness Ave., Ste. E * SF, CA 94102


Thanks so much for your support of independent culture and community!

Sincerely,

The Indy Arts Staff & Volunteers


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THE MYSPACE FUTURE?

      -- Software in your MySpace homepage will harvest
       your online behavior patterns to send you personalized
       feeds of news, media and entertainment. Paradoxically,
       audience diversity fuels niche marketing. Knowledge
       of news, issues and arts outside of one's own special
       interests declines.

      -- Other media corporations join forces with News Corp.
       to "incentivize" purchases of, for example, pop music.
       Fans will be rewarded with store credits or free concert
       tickets for posting positive reviews to their blog of a
       band on an affiliated partner label. Bands on unaffiliated
       or independent labels somehow wind up at the bottom of the
       personalized MySpace feed, if at all.

      -- Political messaging becomes ever more subtle and pervasive
       in the "post-Fairness Doctrine" era. Media corporations with
       political agendas will be able to screen out or decrease
       the presence of competing political messages.

REFERENCES

      -= "His Space"
       Wired, July 2006
       http://tinyurl.com/me3ao
     
       A telling profile of Rupert Murdoch and his long-term
       plans for News Corporation and MySpace.

            
      -= "MySpace: The Business of Spam 2.0"
       Valleywag.com, Sept. 11, 2006
       http://tinyurl.com/evj7g
      
       "Most users believe that MySpace started as some kind of
       fluke -- a happy accident that began in Anderson's bedroom
       or garage--and many still don't wonder, know, or care about
       the site's real business history and model. Heralded as a
       haven of DIY self-expression, MySpace was actually created
       by executives whose backgrounds are anchored in spam and
       mass marketing ... The real genius of MySpace lies in its
       re-imagining and repackaging of spam. While most Internet
       users expend time and energy attempting to keep it out,
       MySpace is spam that they actually invite in."


      -= "2006, Brought to You by You"
       New York Times, Sunday, Dec. 10, 2006
       http://tinyurl.com/y2tyvo
      
       MySpace and YouTube are sold to Fox and Google,
       respectively, for more than $2 billion, and independent
       culture online is officially a force to be reckoned
       with. "User-generated content" disrupts the film and
       video industry's retail model -- and plays fast and
       loose with copyright -- but it also creates new ways to
       maximize profits:
       
       - SELF-EXPRESSION AS A MARKETING VEHICLE
       "A truly shrewd marketer might find [that] parodies,
       collages, remakes and mismakes are unvarnished market
       research: a way to see what people really think of
       their product. They're also advertising: a reminder of
       how enjoyable the official versions were."
      
       - NARROWCASTING
       "The multiplying choices promise ever more diversity,
       ever more possibility for innovation and unexpected
       delight. But they also point toward an increasingly
       atomized audience, a popular culture composed of a
       zillion nonintersecting mini-cults. So much available
       self-expression can only accelerate what narrowing
       radio and cable formats had already begun: the
       separation of culture into ever-smaller niches."


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      HERE'S HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT OUR WORK

           Independent Arts & Media 2006 Fund Drive
           Funds raised so far: $250 //   Goal:  $2,000
           People on List:  922      //   Weeks left:  2

           Recommended donations: $25, $50, $100, $500 or more.

           Donate online: http://artsandmedia.net/contributions/

           Snail Mail (checks only!): Independent Arts & Media
           PMB 821 * 601 Van Ness Ave., Ste. E * SF, CA 94102

           * All donations are tax-deductible. *
           * Thank you for your generous support! *
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