Stories & Strategies
Battle at Kruger is an 8 minute 24 second long YouTube video with 80,156,648 views. Perhaps one of those views is yours. About 6 or 7 of them are mine, having watched it repeatedly with various friends and family members over the years. Battle at Kruger is one of the most extraordinary nature videos you... Continue Reading →
Last night I attended an excellent event put on by the Public Policy Forum called Social Media and Democracy: What Can Be Done? at which no less than 5 smart and highly informed guest speakers from journalism, government, academia, civil society and the tech sector discussed the state of the internet and the threat of 'surveillance... Continue Reading →
As of this writing, a week after the release of the extraordinary Sense8 Christmas special on Netflix, Rotten Tomatoes lists only 5 reviews of the show. Barely enough to trigger the Tomatometer. This is ridiculous and needs explaining. For by rights this mind-expanding, action-packed and shockingly beautiful adrenalin shot of television should be widely celebrated and... Continue Reading →
Oral Culture = OS1 Literate Culture = OS2 Networked Culture = OS3 The rise of Donald Trump can be usefully understood as a product of the disruptive collision of oral, literate and digital cultures, or what I call OS1, OS2 and OS3, aka the Operating Systems (OS) of human civilization. That collision is the defining... Continue Reading →
I read with interest this thoughtful article by Diane Ragsdale about the challenges posed by digital tools to arts audiences, as well as the many excellent comments that followed. I added my own comment, which I will post here as it was fairly substantial: This is a fascinating topic, but I would argue that our... Continue Reading →
If I have been away from this blog for a while (I have) it's only because I have been so totally focused on The Media League, my brand new digital business/digital culture venture, which has been exciting but all-consuming. Happily, here's a link to a new article about us featuring an interview with yours truly:... Continue Reading →
What does a book mean in Cuba? A cell phone in Iran? What do the millions of miles of fibreoptic cable wound round the earth mean to you, to me? How are those meanings changing? How are our changing tools changing our world? Changing us? These questions concern artists in every corner of the world,... Continue Reading →
Thanks Max. Thanks Phil. Max is Max Middle, poetic curator, and Phil is Phil Minton, veteran vocal confabulator from the land beyond the sea and maestro of Ottawa's briefly resplendent Feral Choir, which I was part of, one of 25 growling, howling vocalists in sensible shoes. (Nikes in my case. Phil wore Chinese slippers.) We... Continue Reading →
Hi. This post lists and links to my first 50 posts on this blog, indexing 50 brief critical essays on contemporary media culture. Topics include The Leveson Inquiry, Occupy Wall Street, Privacy, Music, Food, Economics and more. Try one. 1. Happy Birth Day! my blog is born 2. Gifts and Books, Books and Gifts books as... Continue Reading →
In New Zealand, electronic-bracelet-wearing Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has gone on the offensive again, launching a new dance video produced by Black Eyed Peas' musical director Printz Board that directly attacks John Banks, the NZ cabinet minister whom Dotcom claims asked for – and received – an anonymous and illegal $50,000 campaign donation from him.... Continue Reading →
John Sobol 