<nettime> tactical media: lets work on advertising networks

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Tactical Media Italy: Turn Down Advertised Products
The professor is getting desperate, but what about the rest of the planet?
by Paola Di Maio


One of the few things media tycoon Berlusconi and I have in common is that
we both believe is that the Italian state broadcast network, RAI, has been
managed in an appalling way for the past fifty years or so.

The level of political control (lottizzazione) is inadmissible - each
political party in power is proportionally represented in the management,
nepotism rules, it's impossible to get a job, and once in the job nobody
gets ever kicked out, and the news are always the same. Boring, stale and
largely untrue.

Of course we disagree on most other things, including his proposed
solution: get his team in the management, decide who should run what
programme, and sack various key professionals that do not suit him.

To be honest, I would be quite glad if he did sack all of them -  but maybe
I am just bitter because I have never been offered a job at Rai.
 I do think that Rai is little better than Berlusconi's private networks. 


That politicians should run the media is rather unsavoury, yet it happens
all around. We know the problem.

Professor Umberto Eco this weekend has launched a rather frantic appeal to
all citizens in the daily La Repubblica to all dormant well fed lethargic
Italian crowd. Let's boycott Berlusconi owned television by not buying the
products advertised there, he says.  Let's curb Berlusconi's economic power
by diminishing his commercial grip on the market. Eco has been frustrated
for a long time, now he must be getting desperate.

Sounds like a good idea, say a few. It would never work, say others.

Let's give it a try, I would advise. It's time that people took commercial
decision making into their own hands, and make independent choices.
Tactical media, direct representation, call it what you want.
 I decide what I I consume, and why.

But this particular motion could have a much bigger impact. Not just on the
privately owned television, and their advertising network. It should not be
about a handful of illuminated italians against the power of advertising
which got into politics and dominates economics, but about citizens around
the world who realize their attitudes, behaviours and habits are not
spontaneous, are often induced and manipulated to serve somebody else's
purposed and can work against them. 

Alerting the dormant crowds who wake up in the morning, go to work, get
kicked in the arse and go back to sleep that they are living rather
miserable unaware lives just to feed the industrialists is a long overdue
action. Not only in Italy, but In Europe and in the world at large.

If people consumed less, and more intelligently, the entire global economy
could be turned on its head within five to twenty years. Local economies
could thrive - work for all? - wealth better disseminated and waste and
pollution reduced. What about that. Some may think its utopia, I think it
could work very well, and actually it's the only way out this messy global
situation.

So I hope the lethargic citizens, who wake up, go to work, consume, watch
television and go to bed just make someone a million a day, can wake up and
make a decision in their lives that in the long run could help change the
world. It's in our hands. Let's not waste the opportunity to make a choice.
 

http://www.repubblica.it/online/politica/econsumo/econsumo/econsumo.html

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