Mediacracy

Did you know that the word "mediacracy" exists? It does, although the Blogger spell check, and the AOL spell check put red squiggly lines under it.

References were reluctantly revealed by a Google search, after helpful suggestions that I might really be looking for "mediocrity" or perhaps "mediocracy" (which latter, btw, contained politically biased suggestions that mediocracy referred to the most recent Republican administration.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediacracy
Mediacracy is a situation in government where the mass media effectively has control over the voting public.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mediacracy

Noun[edit]. mediacracy (countable and uncountable, plural mediacracies). Rule by the media; a situation in which the media dominates or controls the populace...

 

www.unwords.com/unword/mediacracy.html

Definition of mediacracy :. 1. (n.) Government, usually indirectly, by the popular media;

 

And there were three or four more sources. Apparently, great thinkers have been opining about the media controlling the voting public for several years. In former times, the great newspaper barons were allegedly thought to be potentially dangerous opinion makers and kingmakers.  

If newspaper barons interest you, there are some vigorous discussions of the part played in UK political elections using this search   However, I'm more interested in the types of social order that might inspire world building in a steam punk, cyber punk, science fiction, futuristic or fantasy novel. 

 

In a past blog post, I've opined about a Pharmacracy, and for a compendium of almost all the forms of government from acracy to xenocracy, go here:http://phrontistery.info/govern.html

I particularly like Stephen Crisomalis's term "kakistocracy" and the excessively polite explanation for a word surely derived from "poop". 

(See http://www.heptune.com/poopword.htmlhttp://www.heptune.com/poopword.html )  And, by the way, the top ten pages of a Google search led me to a Brazilian football player. I had to know the scatological synonym for "kaka" and search for "kaka + ...." in order to find the poop-word site.

 

It must be said, the phronitistery site's excellent list does not include "Pharmacracy", nor does it include "Mediacracy", but "pharma-" and "media-" may be of Latin origin, and "-cracy" is Greek.

 

 How did I get onto this train of thought? A confluence of blogs. One was a blog post by Chris Castle which discusses the power of Search, and asks how far, in theory, a search engine with a monopoly and flexible morals could influence an electorate.

https://musictechpolicy.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/the-devils-greatest-trick-after-canada-could-google-throw-a-u-s-election/

 

One of many interesting speculations in the piece is what would happen if, for example, a search engine gave users the option to filter out the name of a political candidate that they disliked. Such as "Trump".  What if the Search engine imposed a filter without being asked... such as making rapid encounters with "kaka" of the excremental kind  hard to find?  Or the helpful attempts to direct me to "mediocrity" or "mediocracy".

Chris Castle's blog post also discusses the power of the media to influence pharmaceutical drug taking by a suggestible populace. Drug marketers create a drug, and then create a need (or the perception that there is a need), for what the drug does. A solution in search of a problem!

 
http://journalistsresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/CJR-2005-07-Bitter-Pill.pdf

 

The next article was Philly Law Blog, ostensibly partly about the erosion of The First Amendment, or at least of free speech. (I usually follow the law blog for information on current doings relating to copyright matters.)

 

https://phillylawblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/09/this-is-the-article-central-high-school-doesnt-want-you-to-see/

I googled The First Amendment: 

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

Perhaps the loophole is the word "Congress".  It seems that the press itself, also various universities, and a State department of education or two are able to abridge freedom of speech without the assistance of Congress.

As a writer and a logophile, I am bemused and offended by the continual banning of words, and dictionaries dropping words, and the touchy feely folks who tinker with politically incorrect words in the worlds' most important religious texts. There is quite a difference between forgiving "trespasses" and forgiving "debts"  for instance.

 

The final blog article was by Richard Russo for the Authors Guild, among other things comparing the permissionless innovativeness of Google to that of the scavenging seagulls in Finding Nemo.

https://www.authorsguild.org/industry-advocacy/richard-russo-on-authors-guild-v-google/

Not only does the word mediacracy exist. Some might suspect that a mediacracy has been established, and we never noticed.

 

Rowena Cherry

Open Letter From Authors' Guild (Richard Russo)

Authors are joining The Authors' Guild in record numbers. Here's why:

An Open Letter to My Fellow Authors

It’s all changing, right before our eyes. Not just publishing, but the writing life itself, our ability to make a living from authorship. Even in the best of times, which these are not, most writers have to supplement their writing incomes by teaching, or throwing up sheet-rock, or cage fighting. It wasn’t always so, but for the last two decades I’ve lived the life most writers dream of: I write novels and stories, as well as the occasional screenplay, and every now and then I hit the road for a week or two and give talks. In short, I’m one of the blessed, and not just in terms of my occupation. My health is good, my children grown, their educations paid for. I’m sixty-four, which sucks, but it also means that nothing that happens in publishing—for good or ill—is going to affect me nearly as much as it affects younger writers, especially those who haven’t made their names yet. Even if the e-price of my next novel is $1.99, I won’t have to go back to cage fighting.

 

Still, if it turns out that I’ve enjoyed the best the writing life has to offer, that those who follow, even the most brilliant, will have to settle for less, that won’t make me happy and I suspect it won’t cheer other writers who’ve been as fortunate as I. It’s these writers, in particular, that I’m addressing here. Not everyone believes, as I do, that the writing life is endangered by the downward pressure of e-book pricing, by the relentless, ongoing erosion of copyright protection, by the scorched-earth capitalism of companies like Google and Amazon, by spineless publishers who won’t stand up to them, by the “information wants to be free” crowd who believe that art should be cheap or free and treated as a commodity, by internet search engines who are all too happy to direct people to on-line sites that sell pirated (read “stolen”) books, and even by militant librarians who see no reason why they shouldn’t be able to “lend” our e-books without restriction. But those of us who are alarmed by these trends have a duty, I think, to defend and protect the writing life that’s been good to us, not just on behalf of younger writers who will not have our advantages if we don’t, but also on behalf of readers, whose imaginative lives will be diminished if authorship becomes untenable as a profession.

I know, I know. Some insist that there’s never been a better time to be an author. Self-publishing has democratized the process, they argue, and authors can now earn royalties of up to seventy percent, where once we had to settle for what traditional publishers told us was our share. Anecdotal evidence is marshaled in support of this view (statistical evidence to follow). Those of us who are alarmed, we’re told, are, well, alarmists. Time will tell who’s right, but surely it can’t be a good idea for writers to stand on the sidelines while our collective fate is decided by others. Especially when we consider who those others are. Entities like Google and Apple and Amazon are rich and powerful enough to influence governments, and every day they demonstrate their willingness to wield that enormous power. Books and authors are a tiny but not insignificant part of the larger battle being waged between these companies, a battleground that includes the movie, music, and newspaper industries. I think it’s fair to say that to a greater or lesser degree, those other industries have all gotten their asses kicked, just as we’re getting ours kicked now. And not just in the courts. Somehow, we’re even losing the war for hearts and minds. When we defend copyright, we’re seen as greedy. When we justly sue, we’re seen as litigious. When we attempt to defend the physical book and stores that sell them, we’re seen as Luddites. Our altruism, when we’re able to summon it, is too often seen as self-serving.

But here’s the thing. What the Apples and Googles and Amazons and Netflixes of the world all have in common (in addition to their quest for world domination), is that they’re all starved for content, and for that they need us. Which means we have a say in all this. Everything in the digital age may feel new and may seem to operate under new rules, but the conversation about the relationship between art and commerce is age-old, and artists must be part of it. To that end we’d do well to speak with one voice, though it’s here we demonstrate our greatest weakness. Writers are notoriously independent cusses, hard to wrangle. We spend our mostly solitary days filling up blank pieces of paper with words. We must like it that way, or we wouldn’t do it. But while it’s pretty to think that our odd way of life will endure, there’s no guarantee. The writing life is ours to defend. Protecting it also happens to be the mission of the Authors Guild, which I myself did not join until last year, when the light switch in my cave finally got tripped. Are you a member? If not, please consider becoming one. We’re badly outgunned and in need of reinforcements. If the writing life has done well by you, as it has by me, here’s your chance to return the favor. Do it now, because there’s such a thing as being too late.

Richard Russo
December 2013

 

Click for the Guild application form.

 

Click for the PDF version of this letter.

If you are eligible to join, and decide to do so, you can--if you wish-- give credit on your application form to the author who convinced you to join. 

As an Authors' Guild member, you can buy health coverage. I have their dental coverage through TEIGIT (The Entertainment Industry Group Insurance Trust) which is a Cigna policy. It's great. It even offers orthodontistry coverage.

Best wishes,

Rowena Cherry