Tag Archives: House of Lords

British Political TV ads — courtesy of Europe?

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The European Court of Human Rights could be green­light­ing the kind of polit­ical advert­ising that the United States has grown used to.

Russ Taylor at Ofcom­watch aler­ted me to the rul­ing.

My caveats?

  • The Gov­ern­ment doesn’t want it
  • News­pa­pers don’t want it
  • Polit­ical parties can’t afford it.

Con­tinue read­ing →

Wealth, leisure and the attention economy in the 18C

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Whistlejacket by George Stubbs (1762)A while back, Clay Shirky (Gin, Tele­vi­sion and Social Sur­plus) invoked 18C Eng­land in arguing that gin was the enabling — and stu­pefy­ing — tech­no­logy of rapid urbanisation.

Tele­vi­sion, he argued, played the same role in — pre­sum­ably, he doesn’t really elab­or­ate — the sub­urb­an­isa­tion of the US in the second half of the 20C. The stu­pefac­tion of gin was chem­ical and pub­licly degrad­ing. The stu­pefac­tion of TV was elec­tronic and the degrad­a­tion? Well, you either stood with Neil Post­man or you went with the flow. Con­tinue read­ing →