I'm a big fan of James Berardinelli, whose movies reviews are often quite philosophical and read more like cultural commentaries than the sort of "two thumbs up" nonsense we've grown accustomed to hearing from reviewers. Anyway, I was reading his review of Pump Up the Volume, one of most interesting films of 1990, and was struck by how the themes of this film are similar to what's happening now with teenage bloggers and "pirate" internet radio stations. I've also been reading some Andrew Feenberg lately. Feenberg likes to point out that it's not so much that technology determines our culture as the other way around; the interests of the dominant group tend to get hard-wired into technological devices. When a disinfranchised or marginalized group finds a way to use technology that either circumvents or challenges the authority of the dominant group, that group responds first by punishing the "evil doers" with litigation, then changing the technology itself to close off the hole.

I'm thinking here of how the main character in PUMP (Mark Hunter) uses his "pirate radio station" as a blog--taking aspects of his personal life, mixing in relevant commercial music, and broadcasting it "illegally" over the airwaves for his classmates. Naturally, the dominant group is worried control of their "intellectual property" and the threat to their commercial base, but what really ignites the controversy is when a kid commits suicide after calling in and talking with Mark. The town goes on a "seek and destroy" mission that has dire consequences for Mark.

Obviously, the dominant groups fear the unfiltered and often consequential broadcasts of the disenfranchised, whether that be the "pirate radio" of a teenager or the "obscene" ranting of an unhappy adolescent blogger. The FCC has long regulated radio content and ensured, to varying degree of success, that programs that threaten the hegemony be properly censored.

USF uses blogs pretty extensively in first-year composition, and we've already felt compelled to censure bloggers who were a bit too frank about their sex lives. I'm sure we'd also intervene if a student grew too candid with criticism of his or her instructors, particularly anything that might be deemed libelous. As usual, though we say "Talk about anything," what we really mean is, "Talk about anything but things that might upset our control of the classroom."

How long until the only people allowed to publish online will be those with the proper license and who are willing to accept legal responsibility for what they dare publish?