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DEBATING THE CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT IN AUSTRIA

Krems, Austria: Cultural issues tend to feature in our debates in two ways. They are raised by an angry right still trying to repeal the spirit of the sixties, or to find divisive wedges with which to polarize the electorate along generational, religious and “moral lines.”

On the left, they get subsumed in discussions of education and occasionally media. Years back, when media researcher George Gerbner was alive, there were discussions of the broader “cultural environment,” which was said to be as important as the physical environment. See this link for more on George’s pioneering work on the effects that media has on all of us.

Unfortunately, he’s ahead of its time concept that has faded in importance with media reformers today more interested in lobbying for government polices and stimulus monies rather than in raising public awareness or in sharpening a cultural critique.

Here in Europe, there are cultural debates that involve a discourse over technology, public interest values, and author’s rights. There are discussions about support for creative industries, fair payments for artists, musicians and filmmakers and subsidies for cultural products. You wouldn’t know, unless you studied the poster for the Academy award winning movie, “Slumdog Millionaire,” that it was, in its early days, subsidized by a pan-European film program. There are advocacy groups, guilds, unions, telecoms, ISPs, national societies, and cultural activists here at the University of the Danube in Austria debating all this.

It’s a complicated environment because there are so many countries, 27 nation states languages and traditions. There are many institutions that offer subsidies in the name of cultural diversity and other goals. There may be the ideal of a united Europe but there are many national and trade cleavages.

I was invited to share my own experiences—something that would be rare in my own country. He’s how this Forum describes itself:

EU XXL FORUM

The EU XXL Forum is a high-level conference on recent European developments relevant to the audiovisual sector. Gathering film professionals, stakeholders of umbrella association and business agents, legal experts as well as political representatives from all over Europe, EU XXL film offers an unique opportunity for exchange of information and experience, positioning and networking to professionals of the European creative sector. 2008 EU XXL film welcomed over 300 participants from more than 25 countries and initiated successfully the “Informal European Media Policy Meeting.”

The EU XXL Forum 2009 consists of four days with highly interactive working meetings in small working groups and plenary debates, presentations and panel discussions on different issues. In addition, there are film screenings and lots of interaction with folks from all across Europe.

Here are some of the issues that were discussed:

Content Online dedicated to the possibilities and requirements of creating sustainable models for fair remuneration, enabling creative forces to share in the profits from online exploitation of their works; against the background of the on-going discussion on “content levy” models and related ideas of an adaptions of European copyright frameworks.

Due to this years ‘ focus on authors’, a special working group at the panel on “Where’s My Money” will be dedicated to the situation of authors: If every text is available digitally for free, who will pay for the content?

What should be in public service broadcasting? I am on this panel:

Writes Alexander Scheuer:

“Five hundred fifty million individuals in the EU have a difficult choice to make each day: “What should I watch today and, more importantly, on which channel?” While the number of available choices is growing all the time, most broadcasters are complaining about decreases in the number of viewers, especially among the youth segment. A few studies on national usage of media have reported something that parents know from personal experience: Young people are putting together their own programs. (…)

The European Commission has also been closely examining the matter of public-service broadcasting over the past ten years. In a number of cases it has, mainly as a reaction to complaints from privately owned competitors, examined whether each country’s system conforms to the requirements of Community law concerning state aid and services provided for the general economic interest. (…) This Communication is currently being revised. Past investigations and proceedings of the Commission and related decisions of the European courts in this matter are of particular interest to certain countries.

At the same time the debate about programming quality has heated up in a number of member states. There is a relatively large amount of uncertainty about finding a feasible middle course between the state’s responsibility for what the public-service media provide on the one hand and the broadcasters’ constitutionally guaranteed freedom with regard to their programming on the other. The cultural objectives and services provided by public-service media are repeatedly the focus of this discussion. (…)

Assuming that maintaining the balance between programming objective and ratings becomes more difficult and the dual system breaks down even further, how will individual broadcasters define themselves without their counterpart in the public-service or private segment? Maintaining their identity will in part depend on the extent to which broadcasters can benefit from the opportunities offered by the digital media, most importantly the Internet and mobile telephony, in a time of digitalization and diversification and offer young people something they find attractive.”

WHAT ARE AUTHOR’S RIGHTS

Mercedes Echerer, an Austrian actress and former MEP [Member of the European Parliament] discussed this issue, writing:

“Globalization of the art and culture market has accelerated considerably as a result of digitalization. Internationalization of the possibilities for distributing art and culture is bringing with it a large number of opportunities and challenges. Copyright is the economic key for creatives and producers, including in a digital context, as it offers legal protection from abuse. At the same time it isn’t always effective everywhere.”

Copyright, a virtually inexhaustible topic, is regularly put to the test - and is also a regular part of the EU XXL Forum’s agenda. The Commission Proposal on an extension of the term of protection is very controversely discussed and will be - just before the final voting of the European Parliament - one of the major issues adressed by the panel.

On the other hand: Copyright contract law in particular, an integral part of copyright, often doesn’t receive the appropriate amount of attention by politicians. Minimum standards, including minimum fees or at least author-friendly criteria for determining these fees, represent the core of a long-awaited copyright contract act.

One of the controversial issue involves copyright and a proposal to extend it by fifty years. Artists like Danish singer Pia Raug find this troubling because in the end most copyrights are controlled by big music companies, not individual artists.

How Right Is Copyright?

Pia has written: “I am a performer but I clearly see the pit falls. Many of my colleagues – at home and abroad – have been fooled by the sweet talking. My assessment is that it will only be taking money from the living and giving it to the dead! I sense the ghost of the Majors whispering once again in the background. Very few of us recorded our first works a 5 and even fewer of us can expect to live to become more than a 100. The only ones to truly benefit from the extension will be the heirs maybe as far into the 4th or 5th generation – PLUS – – and here is the catch: THE MAJOR RECORD LABELS AND PRODUCERS! Does this story ring a bell?”

One outgrowth of the seminar will be forging a resolution with recommendations to bring to European political leaders in Brussels.

Me And Karl

I am giving a session later today and showing a film. My own involvement was described this way:

News Dissector - Karl Kraus Of The Internet Age a “focus script” workshop conversation with Danny Schechter

“Mediacritic, TV-journalist, producer, filmmaker and author Danny Schechter worked for ABC and CNN before he changes sides and founded the independent media platform mediachannel.org - world’s largest online media issues network. His critical documentaries focus on global policy and the structural changes in the media industry. Emmy award winning Schechter comments sharply and up to date in a daily blog under his nick.”

I love this reference to my “nick.”

I was not aware of the person I was being compared to, so I wikkied him. What a fascinating and controversial character:

Karl Kraus (April 28, 1874 – June 12, 1936) was an Austrian writer and journalist, known as a satirist, essayist, aphorist, playwright and poet. He is regarded as one of the foremost German-language satirists of the 20th century, especially for his witty criticism of the press, German culture, and German and Austrian politics.

Here’s more on my soulmate Klaus:

“Kraus’ masterpiece is generally considered to be the massive satiric play about the First World War, Die letzten Tage der Menschheit (The Last Days of Mankind), which combines dialogue from contemporary documents with apocalyptic fantasy and commentary from two characters called “the Grumbler” and “the Optimist”. Kraus began to write the play in 1915 and first published it as a series of special Fackel issues in 1919… Also in 1919, Kraus published his collected war texts under the title Weltgericht (World court of justice). In 1920, he published the satire Literatur oder Man wird doch da sehn (Literature or You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet) as a reply to Franz Werfel’s Spiegelmensch (Mirror man), an attack against Kraus….

Kraus saw the press as his supreme enemy and the “nether regions” of literature: his views on societal and cultural issues were less clearly defined, and his political preferences were shifting. He sympathized now with Social Democrats, now with Archduke Franz Ferdinand. In some ways, Kraus’ criticism prefigured contemporary critics of the press such as Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman. But it must not be forgotten that Kraus’ criticism was primarily moral, not political. Moreover, his cultural background was not that of the ‘New Left’ but instead that of the Austro-Hungarian Empire: his emphasis on precision, and his dislike of rhetoric and the baroque demonstrates links between his views and those of Ludwig Wittgenstein (in his early works) and Adolf Loos, amongst others.”

REALITY SANDWICH, ANYONE?

I should note that there is a cultural debate here taking place about the future. See this site: RealitySandwich.com Check out Michael Brownstein’s latest poem, The Near Future.

THE AFGHAN-PAKISTAN RIDDLE

One of my favorite journalists Pedro Escobar comments for Real News:

ARTICLES OF NOTE:

From CarolynBaker.net • THE PANIC PHASE OF COLLAPSE HAS BEGUN

• CHARLES HUGH SMITH: HOW TO GET THROUGH A DEPRESSION AND ENJOY LIFE

• From DXM: BANKS INSOLVENT

Top U.S. Banks Just Acknowledged They’re Insolvent by bobswern - dKOSter

Based upon the fair-market value of their securitized loan assets in conjunction with annual federal accounting requirements, Bloomberg’s Jonathan Weil informs us this evening that eight of America’s top 24 banks are insolvent in: “Wells Fargo, B of A Loan Values Are a Scary Sight.”

Yes, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, SunTrust, KeyCorp, Fifth Third Bancorp, Huntington Bancshares Inc., Marshall & Ilsley Corp. and Regions Financial Corp have formally acknowledged that–for all intents and purposes–they’re currently insolvent.

• BLOOMBERG: Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Sheila Bair Says Insurance Fund Could Be Insolvent This Year

LETTERS

Steve Crowley, a k.a. Mono, writes from Las Vegas:

Have to admit I wouldn’t have found this on my own, but it was near the top of my Google News summary this morning;

Nevada has been a pretty hardcore “red” state, and in avoiding any sense that a society must pay for those things that allow a people to claim to be civilized, it avoided a responsible tax policy with a “bugger thy conventioneer’s expense account” and “newbie buy-in” fees strategy to accompany what it saw as a perpetual growth machine. The result, Nevada’s in the cellar with the dregs of the deep South in most meaningful rankings. In addition to the well publicized housing crisis, the state is in near collapse, and to my mind Reagan Republicanism can’t die fast enough.

PARIS SCREENING OF IN DEBT WE TRUST ANNOUNCED

Frank Meagher and Sebastian Caldwell of Silverfish Films proudly invite you to a special screening of “IN DEBT WE TRUST” by award winning director Danny Schechter, « The News Dissector », who will be joining us live on the big screen after the film.

Stay ahead of the curve & bring your friends.

When: Thursday March 12th at 19H15

Where: JOE ALLENS RESTAURANT - 30 RUE PIERRE LESCOT - PARIS 75001

Metro line 4 Etienne Marcel

I hope we can get some similar screenings going in the US of A.

Comments to Dissector@mediachannel.org