<nettime> Comments on the public sphere

[David Cox <D.Cox@mailbox.gu.edu.au>]

In Australia at present cracks in the surface of the what Guy Debord
called 'the spectacle' are appearing. 

The recent 'cash for comments' events - in which 2 major local radio
announcers were found to have been accepting money to promote goods and
services in the guise of editorial comment have opened up debates about
what type of mediaspace surrounds us, and how it helps define and shape
the notion of the public sphere. 

At the young writer's festival held in Newcastle in NSW recently, debates
revolved mainly around the ways cultural power took form in Australia.
Issues such as the level to which mainstream commercial media buttress
global and local commercial interests were addressed, with forums on media
access, self publishing and notions of technological empowerment. 

There would appear to be a growing social movement whose primary rallying
point is that of the general principle of freedom of expression. The lines
along which the movement defines itself are: 

1) generational contestation of cultural and political power in Australia
(e.g. Mark Davis "Ganglands" book) 

2) notions of the public sphere as roughly 'access to the means of
expression'

3) the issue of the global reach of media power as an index of global
political power


The movement seems to incorporate aspects of the techno underground the
punk/DIY 'zine subculture, the hacker subculture (Linux and freeware
advocates), and the proponants of the culture jammer scene as typified by
film makers like Craig Baldwin in San Francisco, Negativland, and locally
John Saffran and his media pranks and so on. In this regard it borrows
heavily from the legacies of the beat movement, the punk scene and other
movements which privalege self expression as a form of social empowerment. 

I'm curious about the levels to which this movement really is
generationally oriented, and the extent to which it mirrors aspects of the
mainstream media culture but at a macroscopic level. As I near my 40s I'm
keen to avoid defining my own views in generational terms, yet I share
many of the concerns of those who feel excluded from full participation in
public expression and who frame the baby boomer generation as the main
arbiters of taste of cultural power, not only in Australia but the western
world in general. 



David Cox

David Cox is a lecturer at Griffith University in Queensland he is a film
maker and writer http://www.netspace.net.au/~dcox/dcox.html





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