Two weeks ago, Tyree Simmons, a.k.a. DJ Drama, a prominent producer of “mixtapes”—compilation CD’s featuring unreleased and usual unlicensed songs—was arrested on racketeering charges (as reported in the New York Times on January 22, see “Cracking Down on Mixtape CDs”). However, although it is true that he profited off of music that he was not licensed to reproduce, it would be a mistake to pass off DJ Drama’s CD’s merely as unlicensed copies of other people’s music. The mixtape does not merely reproduce culture—it produces it. DJ Drama is regarded by the rap-savvy as an artist in his own right. In selecting and arranging the songs on a mix, DJ Drama performs a creative act; an act that, in itself, impacts culture, as made evident not only by his reputation throughout the rap underground, but also in his ability to make or break artists. Yet the cultural force of his mixes goes far beyond the rap underground—major record labels have approached him and many other such DJs to offer them jobs as talent scouts and producers of licensed compilations. In short, the producers of the so-called dominant or “mass” media follow the lead of DJ’s like Drama. Although the existence of a dominant media has lead many to believe that the rise of the mediated society has lead to a centralized production of culture, the case of DJ Drama, a member of Atlanta’s rap underground, reveals the reality—that in the age of global media, culture continues to flow in from the periphery.

Furthermore, the example of DJ Drama illustrates two trends of current media technology. The first is the effect of digital information technology on the informational commodity. In the market society, an industry can grow up around any commodity that can be produced in a material form. Although one may be able to commodify his/her own ability to recite information, an information industry (to mass produce the commodity for the market) can only exist if the information is tied to a material manifestation that the typical consumer cannot easily produce him/herself. For centuries, media technology did exactly that. After the invention of the printing press, while one had the ability to copy an entire book by hand, so as to create a free copy for a friend, it became easier to simply purchase a copy from a printer, who could produce them cheaply en masse, hence the rise of “print capitalism.” The same phenomenon can be attributed to the rise of the early recording industry (the reproduction of records was no simple task), as well as the early film industry. Thus, tied to various material forms that were difficult to reproduce, information began to be mass-produced for the market. Over time, the information industries grew—and became more centralized. However, the “digital revolution,” which was initially conceived for marketing purposes, has challenged the mass production of informational commodities. By storing information in coded arrangements of numbers that can be easily interpreted and reproduced by personal computers and other accessible technology, digital technology has essentially liberated information from its material manifestation. As computers become more widely disseminated, the power to reproduce information is restored to the average person. As a result, information becomes liberated from the sphere of capitalist economics, and thus is no longer controlled by centralized industry. DJ Drama’s ability to obtain and distribute music with digital technology bears a testament to this shift. Thus, to some extent, when DJ Drama distributes mix CD’s, he is distributing them as cultural items, not as commodities. Rather then reinforce a mainstream culture, digital technology has empowered those outside the mainstream.

Of course, one will note that not only was music being illegally distributed in this case—it was actually being profited off of. It would be a mistake to think that, although information has to a large extent been liberated from its commodity form, it will ever cease to be commodified in some measure. However, the illegal sale of mixes speaks to another trend sparked by new technology—the rise of commodities produced by the masses, as opposed to those produced for the masses. At the time of the birth of the media industries, production was expensive. As technology like printing presses, movie cameras, and recording devices were immensely costly, it was only worth producing newspapers, books, films, and records in large quantities. This meant that media was only produced by those in the industry, and accounts for the rise of the centralized dominant media. However, new technology has undermined the centralized industry by making production (as well as distribution of materials) affordable and available to much of the population. Hundreds of millions throughout the world own computers, digital cameras, digital recorders, printers, and CD burners, which means that a perplexing number of people have the power to participate in the commodity trade of information. If DJ Drama’s mixes are viewed to be in some part his creation, then, in producing and selling CD’s, DJ Drama may be regarded a manufacturer of commodified information. Thus, even if digital technology has not eliminated the commodity trade of information, it has decentralized the production of commodified information, and shifted power to the periphery.

Though many found DJ Drama’s arrest to be a crushing defeat, the fact that the story landed on the front page of the New York Times business section is proof of the cultural impact one person at the margins can make in today’s world of global media. If that’s not sufficient evidence of global media’s democratization, I don’t know what is.

I’m a sophomore with no concentration at the moment. I’ve often been frustrated by the narrow analysis of society made by economists, political scientists, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, etc, and thus prefer to examine society through a broader lens. Accordingly, I’ve discovered that I have a predilection towards critical theory, which I imagine might be useful for a class like this. Also, I’ve worked as an intern with a group that pursues open government and freedom of information, which, to some extent, is in line with the spirit of the class. What motivates me? I’ve been told again and again by adults that their generation messed things up and left our generation in one heck of a predicament—and I completely agree. Maybe it’s typical for any given generation to claim that it’s the last before the end of the world comes, but I think that, in our case, we might actually have some serious crises (like, mondo serious) threatening us, and I’d really like to avoid it if at all possible. What with Ecological threats, security threats, an economic bubble in danger of bursting (i.e. the national debt), and the gradual erosion of democracy in America, we’ve got a lot on our plate, and these problems aren’t going to solve themselves. In fact, a solution will take the coordinated effort of the entire nation, and in some cases, the entire globe. But how can such coordination ever be accomplished? I think media might be the beginning of the answer. I believe that media can be used both to lure people towards their own good and to lure them away from it, and thus it can actually be a liberating force. As of now, the power of media to solve major problems has hardly been unleashed. Yet as media becomes more and more democratized, it becomes more and more in our power to use it to prevent disaster, and to save lives. And I think that’s pretty cool. Which is why I want to take this class. Plus, I don’t really have much practical experience with media production, just intellectual endeavors inside and out of the classroom, so I’m excited to learn the “how to.”