Stomping Out The Democracy Stompers, Social Networks Mean That We Can't Be Silenced

The Revolution is happening now, and yes, it is being televised. And Facebooked, and Tweeted, and emailed… Following the recent political unrest in nearby Tunisia, Egyptians are openly into the pro-democracy act - once again - taking to the streets to call for the ouster of autocratic President-for-Life Hosni Mubarak, and in revolt of the corruption in government and suppression in their society. This speaks to the power of smart ideas, particularly good ones – once they catch on, they grow and intensify like a wildfire.

Because standing up for democracy is a very smart idea.

We can thank technology for this, the enabler of information sharing, but at the end of the day, regardless of the medium they are transferred by, it is the ideas that count, and the great ones that take hold and last.

Democracy is so long overdue in this region, a region that has suffered under the leaden boot of autocracy for a much longer time than it should. People were not happy with this arrangement, but what could they do before they had living, viral social networks to voice disdain for their leader or to help organize protests and uprisings?

As in most repressed societies, the only choice for citizens was to keep their collective head down, hope they didn’t get on the bad side of the government, and pray that it would all change one day.

Well, guess what? It seems that one day is here. Encouraged by the impact the Tunisian protests made with the very quick series of resignations in the government, Egyptians are out en masse in the streets pushing their rulers to do the same, with unrest not seen since the bread riots in 1977.

Regardless of the outcome, at the very least, it shows the autocrats that they can’t rule by fiat as easily anymore. The cracks in their calcified and obsolete system are visible to the world.

More to the point, it demonstrates that there’s no stopping an excellent idea, and democracy is one of the very best and longest lasting ever invented by us - and an idea that's now being helped along by a Tweet, a Facebook post - or a million.

What Goes Up Must Come Down / MediaPost

The Council of PR Firms is really upbeat about where our industry is heading this year. I could feel the optimism leaping from its recent quarterly survey, wherein over 80% of the companies polled said their final 2010 revenues exceeded the figures of the previous year. Even better, almost 60% of respondents expected PR budgets to be higher in 2011, with just 2% thinking that they will decline.

Why? New clients are coming through the gate. Another figure well in positive territory was the 56% of respondents opining that new business prospects were stronger than at the same time the previous year.

Well, duh. 2009 was a real crapper of a year, so comparing bad and worse doesn't reveal a totally accurate picture.

I don't want to be the Cassandra on the catwalk here and say that bad times are going to creep back and bite us. On the contrary, I'm thrilled about the council's news and think those optimistic projections are terrific for our industry. Positive vibes are contagious. Those delicate green shoots we waited for to sprout last year have now grown into bushes (well, knee-high little ones, at any rate). Clients did return in 2010, and although they weren't spending as much as they were previously, at least they were spending. At the same time, those new accounts -- that 56% of respondents are excited about -- started to emerge.

Budgets are rising; skepticism is melting. Hooray for that.

Continue reading here.

SKINNING ADVERTISERS, SELECTIVE CENSORSHIP AND BLACK KETTLES

Like Mark Twain’s favorite inevitabilities (death and taxes), grass-roots censorship seems to be something we’re stuck with. Thanks to the efforts of the innocuously-named Parents Television Council, big-name advertisers like Taco Bell, H&R Block and Wrigley have pulled ad their spots from MTV’s controversial new program Skins. We’ll save the discussion about why H&R Block would advertise during young adult programming for another time.

The advertisers were shocked – gasp, horror, faint! (because of course they had no idea about where their ad dollars where going) when they discovered that Skins depicts teenagers having several varieties of sex (jealousy perhaps?) and drug consumption, and withdrew their commercials accordingly. I’ll leave aside the question of why anyone, in our theoretically enlightened modern era, should be so surprised that teenagers engage in this behavior. After all, the United States has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in the industrialized world. I’ll also sweep past the disturbing idea that major corporations with huge ad budgets and resources can be so easily cowed and spineless.

I’ll blow past these, because the really irritating element of the PTC’s push is its hypocrisy and ugly, self-righteous moralizing. They are defining moral-threatening content on their own, extremely narrow basis; essentially, it’s the sex and drugs that bother them. However, fast food outlets and manufacturers of harmful, sugar-packed drinks can target teenagers and children in their spots, and that’s fine? America has the most serious childhood obesity problem, sorry not problem – epidemic - and that kind of highly-targeted advertising is one of the causes of it. Excessive consumption of fat and sugar-laden food and sodas has a direct and proven effect on this nation’s health, as opposed to some underage nudity or fake pill-popping. It’s a shame the PTC isn’t particularly keen on addressing that much more pressing problem.

And, like any sort of censorship effort, the PTC’s push aims to kill the patient instead of simply removing the appendix. If content is so ugly and offensive, anyone can exercise their rights as a consumer and a citizen of democracy and CHANGE THE CHANNEL. No one is forcing anyone to watch. If enough people channel-flip away from Skins, the advertising will melt away in a hurry, so mission accomplished. The wider American viewing public should vote with their remote controls whether the show should be broadcast, not a heavy-handed reactionary group like the PTC.

What’s your view? Is the Parents Television Council right to pressure advertisers to drop Skins and sweep these issues under the front mat so that the county can continue with its sex-ed programs that teach children abstinence and produce the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the world?

I think this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, don’t you?

Read more about this in The Huffington Post: Is It MTV's Job to Raise Our Children?