Duane Elgin
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Is Communication Revitalization the Secret to Avoiding Collapse?
The physical crises we confront reveal a deeper crisis in our collective communication. The most profound environmental crisis we face is the crisis with how we use the electronic environment—specifically, the public airwaves that we legally own as citizens (in the U.S.). To illustrate, a recent survey shows that an overwhelming majority of individuals in the U.S. recognize climate disruption is a profound threat to our future and want the government to take action to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Despite this understanding by individuals, the public is unaware that a collective consensus exists. A primary reason for our collective ignorance is that the broadcast media, which has a legal responsibility to serve the public interest, is instead ignoring threats to our future and is promoting a consumerist mindset. Broadcast television is creating a cultural trance where we are entertainment rich and knowledge poor. The broadcast media are profoundly complicit in perpetuating ignorance of threats to our future as well as our collective consensus for meaningful action.
Despite the growing power of the Internet, surveys show that a majority of people continue to get a majority of their news about the world from television. Importantly, most people do not know that, in the U.S., the public legally owns the airwaves used by broadcasters (ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX). TV broadcasters have a strict, legal obligation “to serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity” before they serve their own profits. It is time to take back the airwaves from an ethically impoverished mass media that sets the agenda for the mass mind and ignores threats to our common future. By programming television for commercial success, the TV industry is programming the mindset of civilizations for ecological failure.
The bottom line is this: If we are to take practical steps to awaken collectively, then we must create a dramatically more responsive media environment. Although many people have turned away from television in disgust with its excessive commercialism and adolescent programming, the reality is that in the U.S. and around the planet, the overwhelming majority of people get most of their news about the world from this source. At this pivotal time in human history, we cannot afford to turn away from the primary technologies that dominate our collective communication and consciousness.
It is vital to recognize the different strengths of two different communication technologies: television and the Internet. Television generally offers programming that is shallow but has a reach that is very broad. The Internet provides stunning depth but has a reach that is very narrow. Individually, they have tremendous limitations. Together, they are powerful, synergistic tools that can transform the communication of democracies.
We are massively under-utilizing our powerful communication technologies and as a result, we are losing the race between communication and catastrophe. A core challenge of this generation is to mobilize our extraordinary tools of local-to-global connection and consciously communicate our way into a sustainable, meaningful, and thriving future. As the media goes, so goes our mass consciousness and so goes our future. A citizen-based, trans-partisan movement –- a “citizen’s voice” movement — could break the trance of consumerism and bring forth an entirely new level of communication about our collective future — local, regional, national, and global.
One of the most powerful and important actions we can take is to hold the TV broadcasters that use our public airwaves accountable for serving the public “interest, convenience, and necessity.” Nearly all of the world’s problems are, at their core, communication problems. Therefore, the future of the world will depend largely on the quality and depth of human communication. I agree with Lester Brown: “The communications industry is the only instrument that has the capacity to educate on a scale that is needed and in the time available.” The most difficult challenge facing humanity is not devising solutions to crises; rather, it is bringing a new level of conversation and consciousness into our democracy that empowers us to look beyond short term consumerism and to see a future of both great adversity and great opportunity.
See my website for extensive writing on these themes: http://www.DuaneElgin.com Also, see:
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