When the Federal Communications Commission issued its new “network neutrality” regulations last month, most of us were thinking about how this new layer of government was going to affect Internet freedom here in the United States. Most telecomm policy experts were not, however, talking about how other countries around the world might follow in our footsteps.
Bartlett Cleland, Director of the Texas-based Institute for Policy Innovation wrote this week about how countries like Venezuela are reassured by the FCC’s recent regulations, which they can now use to justify greater controls over their own communications systems.
Just days before the FCC made its ruling, the Venezuelan Parliament changed its laws in order to give President Hugo Chavez the power to regulate Internet content by implementing heavy regulations on Venezuelan-based service providers. Specifically the country’s ISPs are now required to block broad categories of material that, for instance, “fosters unrest among the citizenship or disturb[s] public order,” and “refuses to recognize the government’s authority.”
In other words, the Venezuelan government has found a way of regulating all content. As Cleland concludes, “Venezuela needed little provocation for its continued oppression, especially from the U.S.” Nevertheless, Chavez can relax “knowing that the U.S. has joined Venezuela in the company of governments who regulate the Internet.”
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
That’s the adage that always comes to mind when I pass the syrup impersonators at the grocery store. I suppose it’s because when I first got married, I made the mistake of bringing home Aunt Jemima syrup from the grocery store instead of real maple syrup. My husband was aghast – in part, because I had spent four years at a college in Vermont.
In seven years of marriage, I haven’t repeated that mistake, and I’ve become a bit of Vermont maple syrup snob. That’s why I can sympathize with regulators at the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, whose job it is to protect the “maple” brand.
Fast food giant McDonald’s recently released a new breakfast option – fruit and maple oatmeal – and as a result have found themselves in a bit of a sticky situation. While they describe the oatmeal as “sweet harmony,” the new product hasn’t gone over so well with Henry Marckres, consumer protection section chief of the VAA.
According to Marckres, “We have a set of laws and regulations, and in maple law, it has to come from the sap of the maple tree or syrup.” The problem? McDonald’s advertises its new food as containing “natural maple flavor;” yet, there is nothing truly maple in the oatmeal, making it illegal to use the phrase in Vermont.
Kelly Loftus, the public information officer at the Vermont agriculture agency is concerned with making it clear to the public that McDonald’s is not using Vermont maple syrup in its oatmeal, and the state claims it’s their goal to work with McDonalds to meet all regulations.
Anyone who has worked on a branding campaign before can tell you, a single word can forever define a product: Xerox, Kleenex, Coke. So it’s hard to know if this is a struggle to protect the purity of maple or the next step in the war against fast food.
Amidst all the noise over the current tax deal between the White House and Congressional Republicans, it was easy to miss a slightly quieter piece of legislation that Congress passed last week. The CALM Act – the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act – will now mandate lower volumes for television commercials.
Apparently, in addition to the nation’s near-10 percent unemployment, Americans are really angry about loud TV commercials. To be fair, many of those annoying ads do transmit at much higher volumes than the shows they interrupt – in some cases as much as twice the volume.
It’s been well known for years that TV advertisers compete for viewers’ attention by pumping up the volume. (A strategy that’s been less effective in the age of mute buttons and DVR technology.) That’s why it’s not surprising that the television industry has been largely supportive of the new regulations. More and more they realize they will have to communicate their message in more creative ways.
The FCC will be given a year to determine their operations and the television providers will have another year to comply with the law.
As I wrote about yesterday, sometimes it’s necessary to find a new way to communicate.
That’s exactly what some proponents of “net-neutrality” did at a public hearing on Tuesday night in New Mexico, co-hosted by the (Un)Free Press.
According to a report in The Hill newspaper, activists made their voices heard through verse: “And if you saw my Comcast bill you’d see, it’s as reasonable as a robbery.” You can read more of the poetry here.
Of course, while these activists might be finding creative ways to communicate, it’s worth noting that the organization hosting the event yesterday is headed by the self-identified neo-Marxist Robert McChesney. Despite what the protesters might believe about the debate over net-neutrality, Free Press has been working closely with the Obama administration to call for greater regulations and taxes on the Internet, which will ultimately lead to greater control of the media by the government.
Slam poetry might be a communications slam dunk, but not if it’s a losing message.
Ever feel like telling the folks on cable news shows to stop talking? Perhaps it’s because despite heated debates, guests rarely change their opinion on the issue.
New research considers how debates over controversial science move opinion and found that more talking does not create consensus. In fact, the researchers found that the more talking, the harder it is to reach an agreement.
The primary author of the study, North Carolina State assistant professor of communication Andrew Binder, explains that there’s “almost this deterministic notion that if you build it, they will come; if you give them the information, their eyes will be open and they’ll see it for all its glory, which doesn’t seem to be the case.”
Of course, political scientists have been saying this for years. John Zaller, the father of public opinion research, explains in his pivotal work The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinions that elite communication is the lifeblood of mass public opinion. And public opinion moves in response to the consistency and intensity of elite messages. So when elites are divided – whether it’s related to health care or climate change – the public follows suit based on varying levels of political awareness and values.
So now that we know that more talking doesn’t actually change opinion, what should we do? Binder suggests reframing the issue. If repeating the same debate over and over again doesn’t achieve the desired outcome, policy experts and opinion makers need to figure out how to make old issues new again.
(The following was originally published in the Wall Street Journal Europe, here, subscription required)
“David, what have I done to David?” Ed Miliband asked his campaign manager after he had learned that he had just beaten his brother to win the Labour Party leadership election on Saturday. Profuse expressions of fraternal love from both brothers followed.
Then in his main speech on Tuesday, the new Labour leader gave his real answer by denouncing the Iraq war. It was an easy position for the younger Miliband to take as he only entered parliament in 2005, so hadn’t been put in the awkward position of having to vote for it before he was against it. The elder brother’s face froze. Not only had David voted for it, whatever private qualms he might have had about the original decision, as foreign secretary for three and a half years, it was his job to defend it. Having beaten David to the leadership of their party, younger brother Ed was now driving him out of front-line politics altogether. Read
As the catharsis of electoral rejection gives way to the long march of opposition, Republicans might reflect on the experience of Britain’s Conservative party, which in 1997 suffered its worst poll defeat since 1832. Two further defeats followed. By the next election, due by June 2010, the Conservatives will have been out of office longer than they have been at any time since the middle of the 19th century.
To read the full article, click here.
At the conclusion Thursday of the last party conference season before next year’s general election, David Cameron, leader of Britain’s Conservative party, had every right to be encouraged. The media are treating Mr. Cameron as the prime minister-elect and Labour’s conference confirmed that the party is stuck with Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Labour’s biggest electoral liability.
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Rarely has the Atlantic seemed as wide as when America’s health-care debate provoked a near unanimous response from British politicians boasting of the superiority of their country’s National Health Service. Prime Minister Gordon Brown used Twitter to tell the world that the NHS can mean the difference between life and death. His wife added, “we love the NHS.” Opposition leader David Cameron tweeted back that his plans to outspend Labour showed the Conservatives were more committed to the NHS than Labour.
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