From: Giu1i0 Pri5c0 (gpmap@runbox.com)
Date: Mon Jul 07 2003 - 04:31:40 MDT
I think one of the main problems that the extropian - transhumanist movement faces is lack of favorable exposure on mainstream media. The little exposure that we get tends to be mocking or openly hostile. The likes of Kass and Fukuyama get much more and much better exposure.
By mainstream big media I simply mean getting a lot of readers (hits, listeners, viewers, ...) and being recognized as a player by other mainstream big media. Miscellaneous examples: The Economist, MSNBC, Slashdot, Salon. A quick investigation on alexa.com reveals who the real players are. Another measure is advertising revenue: we can define mainstream big media as whoever is able to get substantial advertising revenue. Only a handful of players do.
How to get much more and much better exposure? I think there are two possible strategies:
--- A) "Infiltrating", "penetrating" or "colonizing" existing mainstream big media. B) Creating transhumanist-friendly mainstream big media. --- A is something that we should certainly do. Getting a good transhumanist-friendly article published on MSNBC or Salon means giving it much more exposure than publishing it on all transhumanist ezines together. Systematically getting transhumanist-friendly content published on mainstream big media can win us better recognition and many, many new supporters that have not been exposed to transhumanist thinking in a favorable light so far. So my advice to everyone is, choose a mainstream big site that you like and submit them well-edited version of whatever good article you write for the lists or for transhumanist journals. My own favorite is Always On (www.alwayson-network.com), the successor of Red Herring. I plan to post there frequently as it is more transhumanist-friendly than others and is clearly aimed at becoming a big player (AO is the successor of Red Herring). One problem with penetrating existing mainstream big media is that it may be not so easy since they already have their own hidden agenda. For example, Slashdot has a focus on open source software and Linux, and the editors make sure that this remains the main focus of the magazine. So, we should perhaps study the feasibility of B): Creating transhumanist-friendly mainstream big media. What I have in mind is a popular mainstream megawebsite with articles, reviews, interviews, lots of news, streaming radio/video, mailing lists, RSS, polls, subscriptions, prizes, big names, all the frills you want, millions of readers, listed everywhere, large advertising income, and where 25% of the content is dedicated to advancing extropic - transhumanist thinking. It is not unusual for popular media to have an agenda, see the Slashdot example above. We would have to be careful not to focus only on the agenda too much, 25% of transhumanist content should be enough. The remaining 75%? Current affairs, books/movies reviews, tech gadgets reviews, tech news, interviews, market trends analysis, stock talk, fiction, music, gossip, guest blogs, jokes, ... all you need to build a big audience. Of course there should be no content incompatible with the transhumanist agenda. We could think as something like Salon (original content), something like Slashdot (links to external content), a mix of the two, or a Slashdot model gradually evolving into a Salon model. The business model: paid advertising, plus reselling content. The revenue could be shared between the ExI, the WTA, and the individuals who participate. The name? it should be chosen very, very carefully. My own favorite is Extropizza (a pizza is a good metaphor for a fixed base plus whatever you like, and the name is crazy enough to be noticed and remembered). Can we pull Extropizza together? I think yes, with all the brainpower, expertise, IT skills and variety of interests that we have on the lists. I think with a good webmaster and ten persons able to contribute good and varied content (in many cases it would be sufficient editing a bit a post to the lists), we may aready achieve a good platform upon which to develop things. I look forward to your comments. --- G. P. WEB: http://prisco.info/giulio/ WAP: http://prisco.info/wap/giulio/index.wml Email, phone, fax, PGP: see WEB/WAP Yahoo, MSN: gpmap
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