We Begin Bombing In Five Minutes

Erik Farseth's We Begin Bombing In Five Minutes came to my attention today. I've read through the introduction and am particularly interested in the conflict between these two quotes:

Fanzines were the blogs of the early 80's. Anything went with the zines; they not only covered music, there was a heavy dose of politics as well... They were truly independent and decentralized, in sharp contrast to the mainstream media I was used to.

--Krist Novoselic; Bassist, Nirvana

On the other hand, I don't think that blogs are zines. Because the thing about zines was that it was underground. You had to find out about it. And I remember, when I first discovered zines, it was like another world had opened up for me. When I was interviewing people about zines, they would use metaphors like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. And because of that, it had a whole other culture surrounding it, a system of signs and morays, which made sense... it had a sort of cultural coherence.

-- Stephen Duncombe; Professor, New York University

Of course, the rest of the subject matter also holds my interest -- the intersection of punk, DIY culture, and publishing. Recommended reading for today.

A History Lesson in Media and Democracy

Required reading for today -- an Al Gore speech from October of 2005. Here's a sample:

It is important to note that the absence of a two-way conversation in American television also means that there is no "meritocracy of ideas" on television. To the extent that there is a "marketplace" of any kind for ideas on television, it is a rigged market, an oligopoly, with imposing barriers to entry that exclude the average citizen.

The German philosopher, Jurgen Habermas, describes what has happened as "the refeudalization of the public sphere." That may sound like gobbledygook, but it's a phrase that packs a lot of meaning. The feudal system which thrived before the printing press democratized knowledge and made the idea of America thinkable, was a system in which wealth and power were intimately intertwined, and where knowledge played no mediating role whatsoever. The great mass of the people were ignorant. And their powerlessness was born of their ignorance.

For further reading, look up Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business.

This gets me thinking... will vlogging destroy blogging as television has destroyed print, or will blogging bring a return to the Rule of Reason?