Royal Pains: The U.S. Media's Buckingham Madness

While Britain prepares for its most famous and politically significant wedding in nearly two decades, the American media appears to be leaving its marks all over London. According to a new Nielsen study focusing on television and Internet news practices, outlets in the United States have spent twice as much time covering Prince William and Kate Middleton’s ceremony as those in the United Kingdom.

From the couple’s engagement in November to this week’s wedding countdown, American news organizations ranging from The Huffington Post to MSNBC have grabbed onto feelings of royal anticipation. The major three television networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC have already flocked over to Buckingham Palace in preparation for the event, anchoring their morning and evening broadcasts from London as part of a week-long extravaganza.

And while hovering reporter’s notebooks over the upcoming wedding bells is a geographically and financially easier act for the British media to perform, the American idea of celebrity has crushed all preconceived conventions. Three employees of NBC News, choosing to remain anonymous for their security, told The New York Times that their company plans to have over 200 people on site covering William and Kate’s nuptials by Friday. According to them, these resources are being shoved into the region in an effort to encourage “the thinking that it’s a happy, fairy-tale story—and America needs happy stories right now.”

Much of this so-called happiness on this side of the pond, historians state, is associated with a desire for political distance and escapism. In paying attention to the personnel and character shifts in Buckingham Palace, Americans feel like they are learning more about the British perceptions of celebrities and figureheads.

“[American media] is fascinated with things royal partly because they’re different from what we have,” insists Fred Leventhal, emeritus professor of British history at Boston University. “The glamour that attaches itself to some presidents, like Kennedy and to a lesser extent Obama, is politicized, and many people don’t go along with it. The royal family are exotic, and they’re free from all those conflicted political questions.”

However, because of the geographical distance between the two countries and governments, many U.S. news outlets are failing to recognize the political relevance of the wedding. Instead they are using it as an excuse to distract the American public from domestic issues. The media’s role, now more than ever, must be one of confrontation, recognition, and understanding of the nation’s most crucial issues, such as those hitting our military, our economy, and our political offices. Television and Internet news providers alike cannot waste time in losing sight of their medium. Instead, they need to redirect their efforts and provide citizens with the means to become and remain effective, day-to-day decision-makers. And while I don’t doubt that Friday’s wedding will be a beautiful and spectacular event to watch, let’s leave the oversimplification to the folks at Disney.

All Aboard The Bandwidthwagon: 2012 And The Trials And Tribulations of Technology

Most of us recall the first time we used the Internet, how excited we were to run to our bulky-at-the-time computers and test out all it had to offer. We could follow news headlines from around the world, find message boards to talk about anything from quantum physics to quarter pounders with cheese, and even order ourselves a nice personal pan pizza to fuel our adventures. That is, of course, after we waited and went insane hearing that ear-piercing dial-up tone over and over again. I can’t begin to describe the days and nights I would stare at the walls, hearing it, practically begging myself to order a supersize cup of cyanide to go along with the pepperoni.

Seeing and using the Internet in the 90s and now even more so today is to recognize a complete shift in the way we run our lives. From Tweeting the 140 characters that describe our lives best to sharing photos from last year’s ComicCon, our existence thrives on how we present ourselves to other people. As such, it is only appropriate that political seeds sprout from within these crevices.

Earlier this month, President Barack Obama took charge of his re-election campaign, beginning it not with a giant stage or great big balloons, but with a video camera and an email address, sending 13 million supporters words of assurance regarding his attempt at a second term. On Wednesday, Obama will be visiting Facebook headquaters in California and live chatting with site founder Mark Zuckerberg, answering people's questions posted on the social network.

Republican challengers are also grabbing onto the bandwidth wagon, choosing to create online videos to supporters and undecided voters alike in an effort to modernize following John McCain’s 2008 statement that he does not use email. Republican candidates Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty ridded themselves of the mystery, instead giving clear pictures to the public about their goals to run for the White House.

"Pre-Obama, the political world viewed digital as a box that had to be checked," said Bryan Merica, a Republican media consultant, to the Los Angeles Times. "What Obama did was show this is a tool we can use to not only fundraise but win elections."

Obama’s 2008 campaign, considered the gold standard for online politics for its use of sites such as YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook, was not only significant because of how it attracted the youthful, tech-savvy voters, but also because of its drastic progression from prior campaigns. In 2000, Republican presidential candidate John McCain received $500,000 in 24 hours via online donation. In 2004, Democratic candidate Howard Dean used MeetUp.com to attract the web surfer demographic.

While the most successful campaigns were, and still are, the ones that effectively mix technology with political and social relevance, as seen by Franklin D. Roosevelt's use of radio and John F. Kennedy's use of television, today's world of online media is at a crossroads never seen before in the world of Washington. Given the ways in which the Internet has changed, providing virtually anyone with the ability to develop platforms and opinions in such tangible, easy-to-learn ways, mystery still remains about how much more room there is for candidates to develop their own edges without having the competition quickly attack back. But this demand for political and technological innovation, mixed with challenges regarding stepping up above the rest is what will, in the end, best define this journey.

For the 2012 Presidential Election, presumably one of the last to feature voters born before the Internet's initial rise, Americans are sure to be conscious, one way or the other, of all aspects of the political battles. From finding clarity on the issues to skimming over the confusion, the growth of online networking will inevitably grab onto the minds of voters, leading them to new ways of connection never seen before in the world of politics. With the journey in progress, citizens can only sit back in their office chairs, maybe grab a slice of pizza or two, and enjoy the ride.

Going Mobile: Cable Television Technologies Heat Up

Last week, Time Warner Cable launched an iPad app that allows customers to stream its content live on the tablet device in an effort to widen the scope of television onto the growing digital scale. But for the company whose newest commercial features a woman taking a bath while watching the $500 toy, this restructuring could end up doing more harm than good.

Miranda Witmer, the cable provider's Chief Programming Officer, calls the move not only seminal in efforts to modernize cable television to the growing at-your-fingertips crowd, but also crucial in corporate attempts to ensure the victory over "secure networks" over the "open Internet" (To see TWC's press release regarding the new app, click here).

Of course, in theory, Time Warner's app, which claims to give its 15 million viewers access to over 30 live-streaming networks free of charge, seems like an ingenious idea, sealing the deal on years and years of hard work to allow

access to, quite literally, worlds of broadcasting (click here for PC Magazine's YouTube demo of the app). Especially since over a half-century ago, in the days of what we can now only refer to as broadcast technology's caveman times, most homes solely consisted of one television set. Typically, it was just a giant box of wood with speakers to its side and a tiny, colorless screen in its middle. No remotes, just sons and daughters being assigned "Button-Pressing Duty."And cable access? Keeping track of all the channels back then was often not unlike counting the fingers on your hands.

With all of this in mind, being able to say that we live in a world of immediate access, where everything is a drag and a click of the fingertips, should be quite a simple thing to do. And most people do exactly that, but without a knowledge of the fine print.

The app is only functional when used within the confines of a customer’s home, thereby rendering the idea of a portable cable-streaming device useless. Having the silver screen almost always within feet should be enough for most people. Unless, of course, you decide to listen to Time Warner by hopping into the bathtub and spending the night watching TV with your rubber ducky and your iPad at hand.

Secondly, cable programs viewed through the app are not counted in the Nielsen ratings. As a result, the decisions of the consumers to expose themselves to this aspect of the media are being undermined for solely technical reasons. The essence of this long-established and comprehensive system is to take every viewer’s actions and preferences into account. Without this ability, the main idea behind television as a means by which to embody the masses becomes useless.

But perhaps the most controversial aspect of fusion of media dynamics is the fact that the networks themselves are not being compensated for their streams on the new app, also for merely technical reasons.

Following legal threats from News Corporation, Discovery Communications, and Viacom, three of the largest cable network operators in the country, Time Warner Cable has agreed to yank their live programming from the new popular app.

"We believe we have every right to carry the Fox Cable Networks, Viacom, and Discovery programming on the iPad app," the cable service provider wrote in a statement. "But, for the time being, we have decided to focus our iPad efforts on those enlightened programmers who understand the benefit and importance of allowing our subscribers--and their viewers--to watch their programming on any screen in their homes."

What is at stake here is not the fear of media overload, as it is specifically the consumer's responsibility to gain an appreciation for variety and diversity of exposure or risk irrelevance, but rather the role of corporations in establishing honesty and consistency with the general public. In supporting a mobile application that does little to honor the judgments of content producers and viewers alike, this media-centric society is failing to recognize one of the core principles of communication--choice. Getting such a point across is not easy these days, as many often tend to get lost in the gloss and buzz of technology's growing potential. And while knowledge of what computers and machines can do is of great importance to our future as a society, reminding ourselves of the media's essence is always something to squeak the old rubber ducky about.

TWCableTV App Website: http://iwantmytwcabletvapp.com/