Media Domination

"Murdoch is an object lesson in the dangers of concentrated cross-border power. Such power is always problematic because it is apt to reduce diversity, squeeze out the regional and local, and stifle dissent "

A fantastic summation from the Guardian Unlimited website. The article written by Peter Wilby, former editor of the New Statesman and Independent on Sunday, illustrates very clearly the impact a monolith like Rupert Murdoch has on each and every part of the media he chooses to dominate.

City Hippy article

Here's an article written on City Hippy. The comments at the end of the piece make for interesting reading. There is a question posed -

Philder said...
'Surely if we're talking green, the best approach would be not printing the thing to start with?'

City Hippy said...

'as long as they do print a crappy free paper for people to look at whilst shuffling to work, there may as well be a green page in it raising awareness and keeping the agenda in the forefront of people's minds.'

Herein lies an interesting point. How much influence can the general public have over the production of freesheets? At the critical point where they are faced with a choice - do we take the paper or not? - can we say for certain that if people did not take the paper less of them would be produced? No, of course not. So if print production numbers are not influenced by public 'take-up' then what is the driving factor behind freesheets? The Advertisers or The Publishers?

Thoughts?

an aside

Just saw this great animation on YouTube
Very cool, but a tad twisted....

flickr url

well, things are progressing here; slowly but ever so surely. Big thanks goes to Hans, my good mate from Germany, who is building the all new website, which'll make the whole operation look a lot more professional. Have a look at work in progress if you're interested
The other news is that I've created a flickr site in order to tap into their vast and prolific online community.

International Freesheet War

It seems the freesheet war is gathering pace around Europe. I've just been looking at a number of blogs that are reporting increasingly aggressive behaviour from the continents newspaper manufacturers which is interesting in itself. But how many people are considering the environmental impact of this trend? I'm hoping that my new website will be of interest to all those people taking part in this debate, whatever angle they're coming from. And that's the point there are so many different angles aren't there. With so many different questions being posed about the social and environmental impact of these freesheets, do the public on their way to/from work have a say in this matter? Can they impact on the spread of these papers by simply not taking them? Or are the freesheets an inevitable business strategy?

Technorati Profile

5-4-3-2-1

projectfreesheet.com is go!!

well, at least I've got some blurb up and am ready to start recruiting you lovely people. But I guess first of all I need to start by explaining myself and what I'm up to. I was reading an article in The Ecologist magazine written by Jon Hughes recently and it inspired me to start an art project which marries up my main interests - the environment and photography.

When I read the article it struck me as a very good example of contrasting approaches to life in the 21st Century. On the one hand you have 'big industry' being faced with increasing competition, tighter operating budgets, and more aggressive marketing techniques than ever; on the other hand there are the concerns of the people who see more waste and irresponsible consumption than ever before.

So, i thought, here is an art project that could serve as a raising-awareness-about-an-issue initiative. I would go round all the tube lines and stations, recycling centers, waste sub-contractors and the like and take photos that would end up as a collage and eventually an exhibition. But thats a tad 20th century innit...

So how about inviting people to upload their own photos of freesheet newspapers wherever they see them? In the gutter, on the tube, on the bus, etc etc. They're everywhere!! If we try to get people to upload their photo's we could aim to collect 1.5 million or so. That's how many issues of these freesheets are being handed out every day.

Currently I have built a very basic website and need to start raising some funds in order to build a proper one. If I'm going to try to upload 1.5 million images from Londoners (though i guess they could come from further afield) then I need some pretty smart apps and programs to automate the whole process. And in case you didn't think 1.5 million images sounds like very many - 1.5 million photos equates to 200 images per day for 21 years!!

So, if you're interested, watch this space where I'll be updating my progress.

btw, any ideas or suggestions would be most welcome!!