Once content is broadcast over public spectrum it becomes part of the ether. This is vital to democratic discourse. To do otherwise is being part of the problem.

Sut Jhally - Media Education Foundation

Academics have good jobs with good pay. Yet they still insist on charging top-dollar for their video work. Why?

Jhally often tells his MTV story, yet MEF is a just another video store. ...Does MEF allow academic fair-usage to their work?

Can Jhally be an academic, dedicated to informing a public, and a media (non!)profiteer charging $200-$400 per video? Which is it?

MEF gets millions of viewers over 15 years! YouTube can potentially provide millions of viewers in a single day. Yes, I know YouTube and Google are preeminent media capitalists, but even puny little sites like Media Nipple, using it's own solo server, has had 500,000 page views over 22 months. And note: Nobody "forces students to think" these days.

Critical Civic Media should be an opposition to advertising. Jhally skirts the option of full, equal, open citizen participation. We all should be making media... and doing it for free. Civic media is civic discourse. The public can (and should) do much more than watch.... or, making videos for "a few thousand dollars"?

Critical Civic Media literacy does not mean "the ability ot see what is being done to them." It means becoming fluent in the language and technique of media. Citizens have the tools already... now, it is time to stand up and speak. Corporations do not control our culture - our actions do. Censorship is when MEF charges for their work... and more so when it is justified with "old fashioned liberal education" double-speak. What does "take it back" mean?

Even McChesney sees the hole in Jhally's argument...

"Dr. Jhally, if you want people to see your important work - give it to them. The Internet is for much more than just "organizing". It is our digital ether. Your documentary filmmaking "media system" is little different from Blockbuster, PBS or MSNBC. Your unspoken point here is that giving academic work away means less MEF (non!)profit."

The videos in Cultural Farming were made for "free." And they are given away for free - on the Internet. Anyone with an inclination can do the same. This is the "environment" in which Cultural Farming operates -- it is today's reality of "means of production and distribution". Maybe this is a fundamental diference between MEF and Cultural Farming. Jhally has a different POV of "exactly the world we live in."

MEF is only one kind of media producer/distributor. There are many other varieties; and the others must be equally supported. As important as Jhally's documentary work is, the flaws are overwhelming.