Dan Kennedy has a good piece in The Boston Phoenix on podcasting. He concludes the article by writing:
"Documentary filmmaker Danny Schechter, who’s the executive editor of MediaChannel.org and a former radio news broadcaster, is a fan of all sorts of DIY media, including podcasting. But he, like Gladstone, wonders whether the cost of targeting ever-smaller niches is the diminution of our shared consciousness.
"Clearly we’re moving toward more-interactive media. People want to participate. The reaction against media concentration, or big media, is the emergence of micromedia on every level. Having instant access to the music you like can also lead to instant access to the information you like," says Schechter. "Some of it can be very liberatory, introduce you to other worlds, other ways of thinking, and at the same time be very reinforcing of what you already think you know. You’re programming your own head."
In a society in which the overwhelming majority of Bush voters think US forces found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and in which a persistent minority of Kerry voters believe Ohio, and thus the election, was stolen, that’s no small concern. Arguments over ideas are one thing; arguments over the underlying facts are quite another, and they are fed by ever-increasing numbers of us reading, hearing, and seeing only what we want to read, hear, and see.
As promising as podcasting may be as a way of liberating us from the likes of Clear Channel and FCC chair Michael Powell, there’s a danger that too many of us will be withdrawing from the national conversation still further. You can program your own head. But you’ve got to know what your head needs."
Do you know what your head needs? What do you feed it?
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