Commercial Breaks on TV: Antiquated or Here to Stay?

By the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the impact of computer technology on television was already promising to be nothing short of revolutionary. Yet people seemed only able to grasp the contours of an upcoming basic shift both in how television would come to be delivered and how programming would be financed and presented. Young adults were on the leading crest of the wave. Even by 2012, they typically watched television programming from laptops and even ipads rather than television sets. Meanwhile, an older demographic was learning how to integrate television screens with the internet such that movies could be downloaded on a laptop and shown on a larger screen, completely bypassing commercial television even stored on “tibo” from interlarding the home.

Being somewhat slow, to say the least, in picking up on computer technology, I was afforded a hint in 2012 of what the new technology portended for television as my viewership dwindled down to PBS, movies on dvds, and television news from abroad available on the internet.  Even after just a few years of this new commercial-less habit, I found the occasional television movie with commercials on TNT and TBS to be rather unpalatable on account of all the commercial breaks. Just a few years earlier, I would have thought nothing of the interruptions. They were as though blinks to eyes. The human brain has an amazing ability to “ignore” the banal if it is taken as a given rather than contingent. It is the shift from “necessary” to “contingent” that the advent of computer technology had already by the second decade of the twenty-first century begun to “awaken” in human consciousness regarding television commercial-breaks. That a perceptual change, if shared by many, could impact society so tremendously in terms of changed mores is the real story here.

In my own experience, watching episodes of Downton Abbey on PBS uninterrupted by commercials for up to two hours at a time afforded me a new viewing experience regarding a television serial beginning in 2010. By the last few episodes of the third season, it had dawned on me that by being so ensconced for an uninterrupted hour or even two in the audio-visual story-world of Downton,  I could really get into that world of the story precisely because my perception of it was sustained. This experience, as well as that of Game of Thrones, gave me a new sense of how full the experience of story-telling can be. That is, being absorbed in a story world a lot and especially without interruption can enable a viewer to really "get into" that world as an assumed context for the narrative. From such a basis, the viewer can more fully appreciate the depth of characterization such as the case in Downton Abbey, whether it be Mr. Carson’s struggles with early twentieth-century “modernity” or granny’s Machiavellian nature, which is not so dark because it is for the good of the family. Moreover, a sustained experience of a fine manner of speaking and of manners can make an impression on a viewer’s own manner. Abstractly put, a more complete and richer experience of story-telling is afforded by the viewer being in the story-world as per a sustained perceptual experience. Returning from such an experience to a “chopped up” movie shown on commercial television, one is apt to find a new impatience with the commercial breaks. Were there really this many before? They are ruining the movie.  The flight away from commercial television has undoubtedly been facilitated as a result. In effect, the new experience had already made the old one obsolete even if the networks had not yet reached this insight.

If my experience of shifting from commercial to non-commercial television and dvds is any indication, the further decline in viewership could make commercial television networks even more desperate for quick-cash programming, such as the low-class American “talk shows” and “reality shows” that make such excellent fodder for weight-loss commercials (yes, “ouch”). The perpetuation of this strategy would only facilitate the flight of the more discerning viewers to less unseemly programming that is available at alternatives to commercial television and even the television set. As commercial-television viewership continues to decline, more pressure to add even more commercials for the networks to break even would mean even more “cheap” programming and more “chopping up” of shows and movies with commercial breaks. More people would be just fine passing on cable or satellite altogether and leaving the television set “unconnected.”

As a result, the role of the television set in the typical house or apartment would change fundamentally, including even how it is perceived. The device would go from something that is always on to something that is only used occasionally and for certain purposes, such as to play a dvd or serve as a larger computer screen for internet or movies. There was a time when I would have freaked out had my television set not been able to receive any channels. I remember the sense of panic when a storm would knock out cable. I’m cut off from the outside world! Even as early as 2013, however, I had become just fine with the “box” being left unconnected. I didn’t even bother hooking up my digital box. I had come to perceive the televsion as something that is to be used with my dvd player. I watched Downton Abbey simply by clicking “watch online” at PBS on my laptop. I felt no desire to watch anything on commercial television. Why go through the motions to be connected? Maybe keeping the home a little less connected is not such a bad thing after all.

Viewing the television set as a device to be occasionally used to play a downloaded movie or dvd would mean no longer seeing the set as something that is to be almost always on or even necessarily hooked up to receive broadcast channels. The addiction to constancy can thus perhaps be broken, if only in terms of television. In a sense, the transformation dimly anticipated even as early as 2013 would be one of increasing quiet, and thus privacy in the home as the outside world that is admitted is more closely narrowed to particular story-worlds of interest, absent exogenous “messages” and even programming.

The change being advanced can be viewed as rather positive in nature. Ironically, removing from the television set its constant airing of programming could return the home to its pre-television quietude. Moreover, the addiction to constancy—such as in constantly smoking or constantly having the television on—may come to be viewed as a distinctly twentieth-century cultural phenomenon. Put another way, activities that in other eras would have been indulged in occasionally may in the context of the twentieth century have fed an addiction to constancy—an almost-obsessive desire to keep doing something notwithstanding the decline in its marginal utility. Often the activity or product constant in use is rather insignificant, and thus easily hackneyed into daily use. Rather than viewing a drink or cigarette as indulged in occasionally for social occasions, “cocktail hour” and “a cigarette with coffee in the morning” (and, indeed, having a coffee every morning) were allowed to become part of the popular culture in the twentieth century, at least in America. The resulting dire health impacts should have given people a hint that items geared by their nature to occasional use at best were part of a compulsive desire for constancy. The regular or even constant use of such banal items overstates their significance.

Although not having the health downside of nicotine or caffeine, television too had come by the 1970s to a constancy not justified by the underlying significance of the programming. “Being connected” meant always having the TV on in one’s house, even if this meant giving up too much control over what enters one’s home (e.g., commercials). The “being connected” to the outside world we allowed to become a constancy. Silence eclipsing the “white noise” was as though tantamount to succumbing unconditionally to a void of existential emptiness. How strange this fear would have sounded to a person living in the Victorian world before even phonographs and telephones, not to mention radios and televisions.

If one had looked to the future from 2012 or even further back in 2010, the question might have been whether computers would come to be sucked into the illusion of constancy-as-fullness, essentially replacing the television set as hegemon in the house. Already by 2013, smartphones and ipods had become the new means for constant connectivity (especially for young adults). Is this sort of constant communication really a deterrent to the sort of boredom that comes with an empty sense of being? Ironically, might there be more fullness of being were stillness or quiet to return as the default in the home? Perhaps a hypertrophic desire to constantly be connected externally undercuts one’s connectivity to oneself and one’s family. Severing the television cable permits an opportunity. The question is perhaps whether we moderns have the stamina to tolerate the resulting sense of void in our homes without instinctively filling it with another means of constant connectivity. Put another way, might the twentieth century household be remembered as an aberration rather than as the beginning of the modern world come into our living rooms? At the very least, the eclipse of commercial television means more control for the viewer in terms of what is admitted into the home.

The Commercial Media as Gate-Keepers Looking Down on Bloggers as "Non-Journalists"

In a few days during July in 2010, the American media was obsessed with Shirley Sherrod, who in a tightly edited video clip had made apparently-racist statements about not helping a caucasion farmer because he was caucasion. She was quickly fired by Tom Vilsak, the US Secretary of Agriculture, who, like the journalists and the NAACP, had failed to look at the full video.  The day after Sherrod was fired, the NAACP looked at the full video and realized that she was actually a racial healer rather than racist.  In the fuller video, she said, “I have come to realize that we have to work together … we have to overcome the divisions we have.”  Even as she used questionable language, such as “his own kind,” it should not be forgotten that the clan killed her father.  In other words, she deserves some slack.  At any rate, it was not long after the NAACP’s about-face that the agriculture department and the media were doing also doing an about-face. According to the NYT, “the White House and Mr. Vilsack offered their profuse apologies to her for the way she had been humiliated and forced to resign after a conservative blogger put out a misleading video clip that seemed to show her admitting antipathy toward a white farmer.”

Bill O’Reilly of Fox apologized—though while suggesting that Sherrod “very well could have seen things through a racial prism” and had been “blatantly partisan” on the job possibly in violation of the Hatch Act so she should not work in government.  O’Reilly was apologizing for not having done due diligence in “reporting” the story by watching the entire video before making a judgement. Like so many other journalists, he lept at the story without adequately checking the source—the video or Sherrod herself.  Even as the journalists were apologizing for their bad work, they wanted to distinguish themselves as journalists from the “blogger” or “activist” who had posted the edited video clip in the first place. O’Reilly promised his viewers that they could still come to him for good journalism even as he had gotten the story wrong.

Beyond the momentary obsession that the media enjoyed at Sherrod’s expense—the obsession itself being a problem missed by the journalists themselves—this case allows us to glimpse how journalism changed so much in the first decade of the twenty-first century. The case put journalists in the position of distinguishing themselves from bloggers when both had engaged in bad judgment. Hence Bill O’Reilly’s statement that his viewers could come to him for good reporting (rather than have to rely on bloggers) in spite of the fact that he had just engaged in bad journalism and may have done Sherrod another injustice even in his apology. To be sure, the blogger had erred in posting such an edited video clip without providing the context.  However, given the opining of many mainstream journalists who work for media companies and the actual news provided on blogs, the line between “journalist” and blogger are blurred.  Hence the journalists working for media companies were sure to distance themselves from the blogger, who they said was not a real journalist, even though they had all made the same mistake. Were there a clear distinction to be made between the journalists and the bloggers, the former would have done better work—but they didn’t.

Back in 1984 when Daniel Schorr was working at CNN, he objected to the network’s plan to couple him with John Connally, who had been the Governor of Texas and a Secretary of the Treasury, to cover the Republican Convention. It was improper, Mr. Schorr said, to mix a politician with a journalist. In 2010, journalists were saying that it was improper to mix a journalist with a blogger. By then, many television journalists were giving opinions, and were thus closer being politicians, while many bloggers were providing news even before the networks. Lest the journalists point to their educational credentials from schools of journalism, how many American journalists in the nineteenth or even the twentieth century majored in journalism?  Is learning on the job at a newspaper so much different than the entrepreneurs who free lance at their own blogs to provide news?  If these are so different, why didn’t the “journalists” in the Sherrod case catch rather than perpetuate the blogger’s mistake? The proof is in the pudding.

The fact is that many bloggers are able to provide news because a person does not have to study journalism to have access to some information that is new. As a blogger myself, I have not found myself in this position—hence I confine myself to providing analysis based on my years of formal education and on the news provided by others—bloggers or “journalists.”  I must admit that I am more apt to trust the news from a company simply because there are institutional requirements for verifying stories, though as the Sherrod case shows, a media company’s procedures are not always sufficient. The difference between a news company and a blogger is perhaps in the checking or verification function, rather than so much in the getting of news (though the companies have more resources).  Even so, news can come from a variety of sources—not just from people who have a BA in journalism.  As a consequence, there is more of a need for verification—precisely because there are so many blogger/entrepreneurs operating. To dismiss them by saying they are not really journalists is an over-reaction and ill-founded. However, to insist on due diligence and verification on any report is even more pressing. Perhaps rather than have their journalists invoke artificial diremptions, news organizations could hire or contract per piece with many of the bloggers who are providing news so the latter could have access to the organizational wherewithal to verify stories.  These bloggers would then have the advantages of being entrepreneurs and of having the wherewithal to do due diligence.

Daniel Schorr, a protégé of Edward R. Murrow at CBS News and an aggressive reporter who got into conflict with censors, the Nixon administration and network superiors would likely see the advantages that bloggers have in terms of freedom, while being worried (as I am as well) concerning the due diligence limitations faced by the entrepreneurs. He got his first scoop, which earned him $5, when he was 12. A woman fell or jumped from the roof of the apartment house where he lived, and he called the police, interviewed them about the victim and then called The Bronx Home News, which paid for news tips.  Had there been an internet, he likely would have been a blogger. Would that have made a difference?

While good to a point, a profession’s gate-keeping can be readily subverted into simply keeping people out who are otherwise doing good work. In spite of the Sherrod blogger, other bloggers have been providing news—otherwise, the media companies would not be citing them as sources. Rather than fighting the bloggers, the “journalists” who got the Sherrod story wrong might offer a hand; they might just find that they will be helped in return. News is like water in a stream—there are many feeder streams.  Moreover, the nature of news is freedom,which is inherently broad rather than circumscribed.  This is particularly so in a high-tech world where the internet has had a democratizing effect in expanding the sources of news and analysis.  In this context, we might be wise to remember Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson concerning the need for an educated electorate rather than try to monopolize information-getting to those in the club.

Source on Schoor: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/24/business/media/24schorr.html?_r=1&hp
Source on Sherrod: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/us/politics/22sherrod.html?scp=1&sq=sherrod&st=cse

Social Media Companies: Is Blocking Political-Protester Content a Political or Business Decision?

The question of the role of social media internet companies as protesters have used social-media platforms to communicate before and during protests exploded on the world stage in "Arab Spring" going in the Middle East in early 2011. Lest it be presumed that the companies' respective policies were relevant only in terms of what content (or users) was allowed and how that content could impact events on the ground, the policies themselves reflect the claim made by the West of what liberty means. In other words, if social media companies were (allowed to be) oppressive or otherwise not respectful of their customers, the overall message to the oppressed in the Middle East could not have been that greater freedom is indeed possible because it exists in the West. Lest our own private sector unwittingly undercut the words and efforts of the protesters, we might want to use this case to ask if we couldn’t be freer too.

According to Ebele Okobi-Harris, the director of the business and human rights program at Yahoo, which owned Flickr at the time, the case of el-Hamalwy, an Egyptian activist whose uploaded pictures of security agents were abruptly taken down by Flickr staff, prompted internal discussions at the company about whether Flickr should reconsider its approach. What if the photos had been his own and he had not yet backed them up? Flickr’s abrupt and unannounced action suddenly seems quite oppressive. Fortunately, managers at Flickr were at least thinking about the issue. “As the uses of these social networks evolve,” Harris said, “we have to start thinking about how to create rules on how to apply rules that also facilitate human rights activists using these tools.”[1]

Harris “pointed to the challenges of balancing the existing rules and terms of service for users with the new ways that activists are using these tools. One challenge is whether a company should maintain its commitment to remain neutral about content, even when politicized content could offend users or even put people in danger. ‘Does a company take responsibility for the content?’”[2] For instance, what, el-Hamalawy asked, would Flickr do if a group that opposes abortion wanted to post photographs of doctors who perform abortions? In his own case, el-Hamalawy “said Flickr’s decision to take down the photos left him not only frustrated and angry but also terrified. ‘Everyone knew that I had released those photos,’ he said. ‘Then the photos were gone. I couldn’t sleep. I was thinking that at any minute, they were going to come for me.’”[3] Would Flickr managers have been responsible for el-Hamalawy’s death had it been occasioned by Flickr’s action?  Or was it his own act in uploading the photos in the first place that put his life at risk? To be sure, Flickr should at least have notified him before taking down his pictures; the company was certainly responsible for causing him fear. However, this incident seems more like bad business to me than unethical conduct on Flickr’s part. Whether a customer is a protester oppressed by a dictatorship or simply a novice photographer who has uploaded her own pictures, there does appear to have been reason to withhold one’s trust from Flickr.

Beyond the matter of bad customer relations—which seems to be getting worse in American business--the question of whether social media, which has included Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube among others, has been unwittingly biased toward oppressive governments even if only from a desire to maintain control over its site must be addressed. 

In early 2011, it became clear that social-media companies were increasingly being used by activists and pro-democracy forces, especially in the Middle East and North Africa, to the chagrin of the respective governments. As Harris asked of Flickr, does a social media company have responsibility for the content?  Furthermore, should such a company be susceptible to the influence of angered governments, whether in identifying users or barring their content?

According to The New York Times at the time, the “new role for social media has put these companies in a difficult position: how to accommodate the growing use for political purposes while appearing neutral and maintaining the practices and policies that made these services popular in the first place."[4] In November 2007, YouTube had removed videos flagged as “inappropriate” by a community member "because they showed a person in Egypt being tortured by the police. They were uploaded by Wael Abbas, another Egyptian blogger involved in opposing torture in Egypt. After a public outcry, YouTube managers reviewed the videos and restored them.”[5] Had the managers been influenced by Egypt in taking down the video, the company would have effectively taken sides in the Egyptian dispute between its government and people. 

Prime facie, removing videos or photos of the police torturing one or several of their own citizens is pro-authoritarianism and anti-liberty. In other words, the very act enables aggression by states against their own people, whose liberty is treated as a wanton step-child. YouTube's initial decision to pull the videos back in 2011 was in this sense a political decision. Accordingly, it should not have been labeled as simply a business decision. Seen in this light, YouTube's employees enjoyed power beyond what working on business entails and thus entitles. 

Alternatively, the issue could simply be whether a warning notice is appropriate given the graphic nature of anti-government material. I made the horrible mistake, for example, of watching the slow beheading of a Western hostage by a terrorist group in the Middle East. Even a year or two later, I could still hear the man’s raspy voice shouting for dear life as his throat was being gradually deprived of air. Because I ignored the “graphic content” warning,  perhaps the issue facing YouTube in 2011 does indeed go beyond whether such a warning should apply. In my case, my curiosity got the better of me. Should YouTube have been responsible for protecting me from myself? That could be good business, as I stayed away from the platform for a while because I realized what emotional power "real" videos could have. Yet this would open YouTube employees and their managers up to grasping what is actually political power, at the very least if the subject matter itself is political. A blurry line exists between business and political power in the business realm. Power-aggrandizement can take advantage of the discretion. Perhaps social media managements could limit their intervention only to extremely graphic content, with review taking place in the company in the particularly harsh cases.  Still, in a free society, citizens ultimately must take responsibility for ignoring warnings.

Regarding Facebook, The New York Times reported on March 26, 2011 that the company “has remained mostly quiet about its increasing role among activists in the Middle East who use the site to connect dissident groups, spread information about government activities and mobilize protests. But Facebook is now finding itself drawn into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has been pushed to defend its neutral approach and terms of service to some supporters of Israel, including an Israeli government official. Yuli Edelstein, an Israeli minister of diplomacy and diaspora affairs, sent a letter [in March, 2011] to Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, asking him to remove a Facebook page created that March named the Third Palestinian Intifada." The page, which called for an uprising in the occupied Palestinian territory that May, had more than 240,000 members at the time. "As Facebook’s C.E.O. and founder, you are obviously aware of the site’s great potential to rally the masses around good causes, and we are all thankful for that," Mr. Edelstein wrote. "However, such potential comes hand in hand with the ability to cause great harm, such as in the case of the wild incitement displayed on the above-mentioned page." Facebook had, so far, not removed the page. The administrators of the page were not advocating violence so the page fell within the company’s definition of acceptable speech, company officials said. "We want Facebook to be a place where people can openly discuss issues and express their views, while respecting the rights and feelings of others," said Andrew Noyes, a spokesman for public policy at the company. Facebook was trying to maintain its neutrality without getting political. 

The problem is, “wild incitement” could pertain to the pro-democracy rallies that had been taking place throughout the Middle East at the time. Even if violence were being called for in the Intifada, would Facebook (or Instigram) remove such content if it had been put up by an Egyptian or Libyan protester?  More pointedly, what if a page or photo referred to “wild incitement” in the midst of being attacked by government troops or police? How far removed is an occupied people to such intimidation on a daily basis? Should they be barred from tweeting, “Come help me at X intersection b/c police are beating my elderly parents”? The staff at Facebook were smart not to intervene in disputes between a government and its people. If anything, an America-based company should have a bias in favor of liberty in taking the side of the oppressed, for the United States came into existence from British oppression. Relatedly, the U.S. Government itself acts in concert with its own beginning whenever it takes the side of a people protesting against governmental oppression. Of course, American companies acting in favor of American values make de facto political judgments and decisions whose application in other cultures may be ill-fitting or even inappropriate. 

Yet it is possible that particular company policies are inherently to the advantage of vengeful governments and thus a threat to Facebook’s customers under those governments. For example, The New York Times reported at the time that “Human rights advocates have also criticized Facebook for not being more flexible with some of its policies, specifically its rule requiring users to create accounts with their real names. Danny O’Brien, the Internet advocacy coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, cited the case of Michael Anti, an independent journalist and blogger from China whose Facebook account was deactivated in January because he had not used his state-given name to create it. In addition to losing the ability to publish and communicate on Facebook, and not wanting to use his real name because of China’s strict rules governing freedom of speech and harsh response to those activists who violate them, he . . . lost the contact information for thousands of people in his Facebook community. ‘One can’t expect all of these services to provide everything to everyone,’ said Mr. O’Brien. ‘I think that part of the solution is to provide people with a dignified way of leaving the service.’”

O’Brien was giving too much credit to Facebook. It is insufficient to expect Facebook to have merely provided its customers with a dignified way to leave (or be deprived of service). In addition, Facebook ought to have respected the preference of some of its customers to anonymity, especially if their respective real names could bring them into harm's way. Facebook would have still had those customers’ contact info (more of which could be demanded and verified in such cases), so anonymity would not have been an excuse to get away with unethical or illegal conduct, such as publicly defaming someone by making false claims. At the very least, I contend that a person’s anonymity being refused is a basis for that person to lie ethically about being on Facebook. 

Moreover, Facebook’s insistence at the time that real names must be used adds to the argument that the U.S. Constitution should be amended to include an explicit right to privacy. Much of the criticism of Roe v. Wade is actually that the justices “found” such a right being implicit in that constitution. Even people in favor of making abortion legal could (and have) raise the objection. Another entails whether the decision should be federal or have remained with the States. 

While the problem regarding Facebook's insistence that customers use their real names may have had implications for U.S. constitutional law, bad business (i.e., bad customer service) may have been Facebook's underlying problem. In fact, Facebook having had respect for its potential and actual customers who preferred anonymity could have sent a message stronger than any from the protesters or human rights advocates in the Middle East, namely: “Look over here! Real freedom is indeed possible!”

1. Jennifer Preston, “Ethical Quandary for Social Sites,” The New York Times, March 27, 2011.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.