Tyranny of Corporate Media

We had a productive meeting this morning at Seward Cafe with Lisa, Rakel and myself. At 8 a.m. no less! I shared with the group my thoughts so far- about Aaron Swartz, about access to information, about what the future looks like. Lisa asked me: What do you want the play to be about? Harder to answer than I realized! I said when I was first thinking about this play, about a year ago, it was this idea of net neutrality. But then when I started talking about it, I realized I don't exactly have a firm grasp of what net neutrality is! And then I started talking about the SOPA/PIPA stuff that was going on as I've been talking about this piece. I told her about my idea of how in the future, everyone is connected through their brains- somehow wired to link them to the web. Lisa, wisely, said that perhaps I need to focus more. And I realize that I'm getting too wrapped up in plot. I need to take a step back. Anyway- I'm just going to copy some of the notes that Lisa took: Brainstorm List One The Tyranny of Corporate Media- What is it about? Corporatization of Media? Access to Information? Copyright? Fair Use? What the public wants vs. what is in the public interest? Corporate control of content? Pip Sopa/Net neutrality What do you want to take away from this? (we discussed that I'm more interested in raising questions than "explaining" or "teaching") The idea of corporations are people- what is the nth degree of that? Brainstorm List 2 What does the future look like? Darm basements no museums or libraries. No information sources think tweeting media/tech connection the environment is destroyed. one one percent of people are educated 99 percent of schools to be workers for products branding is everywhere entertainment is huge everyone lives in high rise apartments there are no cars b/c we've run out of gas the currency is the data in the interests of corporations There's no freedom of speech. And finally, these guiding questions: What can "we" the corporation do to make "you" (the audience) consume and produce media in our interest? How can we write your life. So! It's all still in brainstorming stages. Stay tuned. Lisa suggests the following source material: "White Noise" by Don Delilo The film "Thank You for Not Smoking" "Back to the Future, Part II"