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peristaltorAlmost a year ago, I wrote a plea letter to Radiolab, a most enjoyable show tainted by the bane of an increasing number of podcasts, commercial advertising. I begged them to abandon the commercial model, perhaps to replace it with an option giving listeners commercial-free content in return for a modest donation.
Their most recent podcast opens with a counter-argument, and offer of extras for a donation of $75, quite a bit more than the $5/year I suggested. Ah, but then they blew it. Immediately after the donation plea came the fucking ads, this time for REI and some anti-virus pusher.
Which really pissed me off, since I like REI. Their flagship store here in Seattle is beautiful, a joy to visit. I even buy their stuff (on occasion; it's an indulgence). Sadly, that must end now. One does not do business with those that promote actions contrary to the common good.
Of course, it does me no good to do this without notice. Here's a draft:
After that is written, I will enclose it in another letter, this one to Radiolab proper. Another draft:
So, that was my bellyaching. A question might be asked: Why? Why am I tilting my joust at such silly windmill dragons? Fair enough. I thought about just that this morning.
I just finished reading Eli Pariser's The Filter Bubble, his exploration of how personalized web services might damage human society. When you search for a topic on Google, for example, Google takes all of your past searches, all the content of your G-Mail account, all of your Google Earth goofings and YouTube viewings, and builds a composite model of your personality. It then uses this model to guess which of the gazillion hits in its database will most please you, and puts those on top of its search results.
This is all well and good, until we take into account that Google has become a kind of encyclopedia of today, a reference. References should be universal, the touchstones of our collective lives we call society. A word might have multiple definitions; but for a dictionary to order those definitions based upon who is looking up the word—or even delete some—does no good service to either the looker-upper or to the society in which that looker-upper lives.
There's something else to consider:
Similarly, advertising has become the background noise of our society. It is ubiquitous, so much so that few notice it and even claim to "tune it out," like freeway road noise; yet it has well-documented power over our decision making process. Seriously, if you want to see just what power it has, do without any commercial media for an extended period. Go hiking for a few days. Or grab a book and pull the tube plug. Take an internet diet (I'll still be here when you get back, I assure you).
When you return, as I have on several occasions, you'll be jarringly amazed at how glaringly intrusive that former background noise has become. What we do not know we notice can hurt us.
As an alternative to a complete pulling of the plug, I have been trying (and mostly succeeding) in finding alternatives to letting advertising mediate and shape my life. Tivo is one tool, though not a perfect one. Podcasts are another. I have dropped podcasts that take the ads too much to revenue heart. There is, however, an inherent problem with even acknowledging this situation.
Were enough people to complain about ads, content providers might be able to provide some ad-free content. After all, the means to do so is quite available. That would, however, make the existing commercials people see and hear all the more obvious. Remember, effective ads are not necessarily ones we recall, but ones that affect our behavior most seamlessly. Consider this data point from Pariser:
"If personalized persuasion works for products, it can also work for ideas." One of those ideas is the idea that ads themselves are ubiquitous and unavoidable. When the overall number of ads drops, conscious notice of the remaining increases, and perhaps the tolerance for the same drops in proportion. Our noosphere, our zeitgeist, starts to reject the ads simply because they are more noticeable.
Questioning the role or purpose of ads in our lives; that would be advertiser poison.
Some might brand me a conspiracy nut simply for questioning the need—or even the possibility—for leading ad-free lives. I think one would be awfully naive to reject the power of money that ads reflect. Undoing that power by rejecting the medium of its presence is both a highly liberating idea . . . and one that must not even be discussed.
That's why, I suspect, only one of my ad-free podcast plea letters has been answered. To even discuss this as a problem is to admit that the problem exists. Were it not for the intertubes, I doubt this idea and my pursuit of it would exist at all.
Sorry for the rant. I hope it was at least a bit entertaining.
Their most recent podcast opens with a counter-argument, and offer of extras for a donation of $75, quite a bit more than the $5/year I suggested. Ah, but then they blew it. Immediately after the donation plea came the fucking ads, this time for REI and some anti-virus pusher.
Which really pissed me off, since I like REI. Their flagship store here in Seattle is beautiful, a joy to visit. I even buy their stuff (on occasion; it's an indulgence). Sadly, that must end now. One does not do business with those that promote actions contrary to the common good.
Of course, it does me no good to do this without notice. Here's a draft:
Dear REI:
I write this with great sadness. Though I would not be considered a very frequent visitor, I do enjoy your products and your store. I fear I must now avoid both, simply because I recently heard on the podcast of NPR's Radiolab an advertisement for your stores.
Though I'm quite certain you meant well, commercial advertising on public media simply must stop. It has compromised the very non-commercial, public service principal our public broadcast system was established to enshrine and respect.
I do hope you reconsider this inappropriate sponsorship, and will happily return if and when this reconsideration occurs.
Sincerely. . . .
After that is written, I will enclose it in another letter, this one to Radiolab proper. Another draft:
Dear Radiolab:
Almost a year ago, I wrote you to express my distress at the advertisement your show was running, and to suggest an alternative to generate revenue without such ad spot sales. To your show's credit, you were the only podcast that bothered to acknowledge my message.
Sadly, it seems, a decision in the right direction was made, but not made completely enough. On the "Colors Sneak Peak" show I recently heard Robert's $75 donation pitch . . . followed immediately by commercial advertisements for REI and some anti-virus company.
Though I detest the phrase "get off the fence," I feel here it actually makes sense. To be considered a "public" broadcaster, commercial advertising must simply not be a part of your operations. Radiolab cannot simultaneously solicit donations from its listeners and dun them with commercial spots, no matter how cute the producers think those spots might be. (Having listeners dun themselves; seriously, that's demeaning.)
To verge briefly into language probably unfitting a public radio audience: one might support oneself financially by joining a church order or by selling sexual favors, but the church that allows its nuns and priests to be both saints and whores deserves neither our attention nor our respect.
Below you will find a copy of a letter expressing my concern written to REI, just so they know there will be consequences for their decision to inappropriately support your endeavor. (I have written similar letters to other Radiolab advertisers, something I realize in retrospect I should have shared with you as well. For that oversight, I apologize.)
I do hope you reconsider this path. Again, I am in favor of solicited donations. I have just finished writing checks totally over $400 to support other podcasts (albeit those sensible enough to avoid running ads). Should you like some of my modest means, you need only explicitly explain that you understand the need for some to avoid commercial advertising, and make available podcast episodes to which I can subscribe that are free of such commercial spots. If the price is reasonable, I will happily subscribe.
Sincerely. . . .
So, that was my bellyaching. A question might be asked: Why? Why am I tilting my joust at such silly windmill dragons? Fair enough. I thought about just that this morning.
I just finished reading Eli Pariser's The Filter Bubble, his exploration of how personalized web services might damage human society. When you search for a topic on Google, for example, Google takes all of your past searches, all the content of your G-Mail account, all of your Google Earth goofings and YouTube viewings, and builds a composite model of your personality. It then uses this model to guess which of the gazillion hits in its database will most please you, and puts those on top of its search results.
This is all well and good, until we take into account that Google has become a kind of encyclopedia of today, a reference. References should be universal, the touchstones of our collective lives we call society. A word might have multiple definitions; but for a dictionary to order those definitions based upon who is looking up the word—or even delete some—does no good service to either the looker-upper or to the society in which that looker-upper lives.
There's something else to consider:
There's another tension in the interplay of identity and personalization. Most personalized filters are based on a three-step model. First, you figure out who people are and what they like. Then, you provide them with content and services that best fit them. Finally, you tune to get the fit just right. Your identity shapes your media. There's just one flaw in this logic: Media also shape identity. And as a result, these services may end up creating a good fit between you and your media by changing . . . you. If a self-fulfilling prophecy is a false definition of the world that through one's actions becomes true, we're now on the verge of self-fulfilling identities, in which the Internet's distorted picture of us becomes who we really are.
(Eli Pariser, The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You, The Penguin Press, 2011, p. 112.)
Similarly, advertising has become the background noise of our society. It is ubiquitous, so much so that few notice it and even claim to "tune it out," like freeway road noise; yet it has well-documented power over our decision making process. Seriously, if you want to see just what power it has, do without any commercial media for an extended period. Go hiking for a few days. Or grab a book and pull the tube plug. Take an internet diet (I'll still be here when you get back, I assure you).
When you return, as I have on several occasions, you'll be jarringly amazed at how glaringly intrusive that former background noise has become. What we do not know we notice can hurt us.
As an alternative to a complete pulling of the plug, I have been trying (and mostly succeeding) in finding alternatives to letting advertising mediate and shape my life. Tivo is one tool, though not a perfect one. Podcasts are another. I have dropped podcasts that take the ads too much to revenue heart. There is, however, an inherent problem with even acknowledging this situation.
Were enough people to complain about ads, content providers might be able to provide some ad-free content. After all, the means to do so is quite available. That would, however, make the existing commercials people see and hear all the more obvious. Remember, effective ads are not necessarily ones we recall, but ones that affect our behavior most seamlessly. Consider this data point from Pariser:
The same data that provides personalized content can be used to allow marketers to find and manipulate your personal weak spots. And this isn't a hypothetical possibility: Privacy researcher Pam Dixon discovered that a data company called PK List Management offers a list of customers titled "Free to Me—Impulse Buyers"; those listed are described as being highly susceptible to pitches framed as sweepstakes.
If personalized persuasion works for products, it can also work for ideas. There are undoubtedly times and places and styles of argument that make us more susceptible to believe what we're told. Subliminal messaging is illegal because we recognize there are some ways of making an argument that are essentially cheating; priming people with subconsciously flashed words to sell them things isn't a fair game. But it's not such a stretch to imagine political campaigns targeting voters at times when they can circumvent our more reasonable impulses.
(ibid., p. 122, emphasis mine.)
"If personalized persuasion works for products, it can also work for ideas." One of those ideas is the idea that ads themselves are ubiquitous and unavoidable. When the overall number of ads drops, conscious notice of the remaining increases, and perhaps the tolerance for the same drops in proportion. Our noosphere, our zeitgeist, starts to reject the ads simply because they are more noticeable.
Questioning the role or purpose of ads in our lives; that would be advertiser poison.
Some might brand me a conspiracy nut simply for questioning the need—or even the possibility—for leading ad-free lives. I think one would be awfully naive to reject the power of money that ads reflect. Undoing that power by rejecting the medium of its presence is both a highly liberating idea . . . and one that must not even be discussed.
That's why, I suspect, only one of my ad-free podcast plea letters has been answered. To even discuss this as a problem is to admit that the problem exists. Were it not for the intertubes, I doubt this idea and my pursuit of it would exist at all.
Sorry for the rant. I hope it was at least a bit entertaining.