heresy writes:

"Advertising, treated as commercial speech and invested with First Amendment rights, enables giant private economic entities, in direct proportion to their command of resources, to shape national economic activity as well as national consciousness. The needs of individuals -– actual individuals –- hardly are congruent with the goals of billion-dollar companies.” –- Howard Schiller, Culture, Inc.

New York City’s public spaces are under seige by government collusion with private interests, in a business arrangement that would clearly undermine democratic principle and practice in the informational-cultural sphere.City Council is trying to pass a multi-billion dollar, 20-year franchise contract to major corporate media conglomerates with a bare minimum of public awareness or input. The proposal would eliminate independently run newsstands in favor of standardized, corporate-controlled kiosks covered in 82 square feet of backlit advertising.

The deliberate secrecy with which the proceedings have been handled illuminates why control over the mass media and the general system of information distribution functions as a key element in maintaining the status quo. The determining factor in the population’s ability to adequately understand an issue is its ability to connect a proposed policy to the self-interest of all parties involved. How the media then treat or ignore a problem constitutes a critical exercise of power.

In this instance, the failure to broadly publicize the proposal and its implications for the future of the city represents a willingness of City Council, in concert with the publishing, advertising and the real estate industries, to conspire against the public for the purpose of corporate mass-marketing and political manipulation.

The Deputy Mayor, Dan Doctoroff, is lobbying for New York City to be selected as the Olympic site in 2012 or 2016, and wishes to impress the site-selection committee with our suitability. By filling Manhattans’ streets with giant corporate ads, he hopes to convince the oil, soft drink, automobile, beer, etc. companies to put up megabucks toward Olympic sponsorship.

The unmentionable purpose of aggressive privatization within the public sphere is the creation of a properly controlled environment, within a social system of power that seeks to standardize our thoughts and behavior around the demands of production and consumption.

“Media –- by altering the environment, evoke in us unique ratios of sense perceptions. The extension of any one sense alters the way we think and act – the way we perceive the world.” -- Marshall McLuhan

By eliminating independently owned and operated newsstands, the proposal effectively extends the corporate information monopoly over one of our more accessible systems for disseminating ideas and opinions, narrowing the range of perspectives available for consideration and making the whole notion of a free press suspect.

The proposed contract will convert the streets of Manhattan into nearly a total corporate-commercial environment, a homogenous, self-contained machine for the corporate colonization of consciousness. The political implications are shockingly Orwellian. With the Republican National Convention coming to town in 2004, a stronger corporate presence will make the streets an even more inhospitable place for the free circulation of ideas, let alone social action.

We are calling on all media activists, organizations, and concerned citizens to protest the on going invasion of all our public spaces, and our minds, by an unending flood of overwhelming, distracting, flashy, moving, useless and unwelcome advertisements everywhere. The billboard industry has crossed the line -– it is no longer communication, but a not-so-subtle form of coercion.

We must demand public hearings on this proposal.

If the media capital of the world can be sold to CLEAR CHANNEL and VIACOM, you can bet that other major markets will soon follow.

HELP US FIGHT TO KEEP PUBLIC SPACE PUBLIC

Tell everyone, we must stop the vote! Express your outrage to:

Mayor Bloomberg 212-788-3000

Speaker Gifford Miller 212-788-7100

Help Support Sidewalk Newsdealers

Sidewalk Newsdealers once stood as the classic symbol of the quirky, durable, street-wise New York City Survivor. After putting 80% of these unique little enterprises out of business over the years by starving them of income, it is now proposed that each stand be covered by 82 square feet of backlit advertising. This yields over $13,000 per month in corporate advertising revenue, per stand, with not one penny going to the newsdealer.

Newsdealers are being forced to jettison their existing structures, which many of whom are still paying for, and accept the “new-improved” ad covered models. They are going from independent business people to attendants, taking care of someone else’s kiosk.

Publishers now rely on income from advertisers, rather than eager customers. The clear agenda of the “Street Furniture”/outdoor advertising/billboard industry, is to provide an advertising vehicle with no content at all, as cheaply as possible. This policy will reduce our exposure to a diversity of ideas, while subjecting us to just another mock-perfect mall or arcade of video ads.

The Snapple-Snafu: "In-School" Advertisements just part of the Curriculum?

The road to the biggest prize in sports marketing and its interlocking rings is lined with glowing walls of advertising, some of them well-disguised as vending machines, others soon to take the shape of newsstands and trash recepticles. The billboard contract being discussed today and its liquid-gold sweeteners is a giant mis-step onto a bottle-strewn and slippery slope. The prize here is no medal though, it is the tender eyes and minds, and brand-loyalty, of a city full of already ad-bombarded, and sugar-overloaded children.

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&edition=us&q=sna pple&btnG=Search+News

For more information contact:

Steve Stollman: 212-431-0600
Steve@localexpression.com
www.localexpression.com

Kelly Patrick Hanlin (aka Kelly Heresy): 646-239-6324
SynthExpNYC@yahoo.com