28
percent have more market share than the 20 percent held by their print versions?
How do we get to Cornish and Russwurm amid what Rebecca Mackinnon describes, in “Consent of the Networked : The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom” (2012), as a global crisis in which “[w]estern companies and financiers” work with governments around the world to turn the Internet into “networked authoritarianism” and a “digital bonapartism” assisting to “marginalize the opposition and manipulate public opinion much more subtly than in the old days?”
And how do we get there when, if nothing else, what the sagas of Bradley Manning, WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden reveal is the privatization of U.S. national security, the dissolution of privacy online and the precariousness of “watchdog” journalism?
For some, however, all is not lost. At this year’s gathering of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) veteran journalist Roland Martin said, “This is the best time to be a free agent in our history. We get to build our brands.” Former NABJ president Gregory H. Lee, Jr. said, hopefully, that, “The game has changed, and so we have to find new ways and think bold,” even while lamenting the trend of television news outlets mimicking their sports counterparts by hiring what Richard Prince referred to as “usurpers {who} are politicians and advocates.”
For some, however, all is not lost. At this year’s gathering of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) veteran journalist Roland Martin said, “This is the best time to be a free agent in our history. We get to build our brands.” Former NABJ president Gregory H. Lee, Jr. said, hopefully, that, “The game has changed, and so we have to find new ways and think bold,” even while lamenting the trend of television news outlets mimicking their sports counterparts by hiring what Richard Prince referred to as “usurpers {who} are politicians and advocates.”
So let us also be encouraged to think boldly, to think radically about how new media technology can positively impact a black public sphere. The Internet has not changed the devolving black public sphere. Serious struggles over access to the Internet and its content, battles over “net neutrality,” where people go once online and who will get paid for that traffic still remain and pose challenges to the creation of a more vibrant black public sphere. Serious struggles over access to the Internet and its content, battles over “net neutrality,” where people go once online and who will get paid for that traffic still remain and pose challenges to the creation of a more vibrant black public sphere.
According to Morgan Maxwell, a Social Psychology doctoral student at Virginia Commonwealth University, despite the potential reach and possibilities for exchange provided by the Internet, “... the struggle to hear a collective pro-black voice, amidst the noise of Worldstarhiphop and Mediatakeout, remains incredibly difficult to overcome. The digital age has, in many respects, failed to deliver the defensive, galvanizing, and formidable pro-black voice that Cornish and Russwurm conceptualized and provided nearly two hundred years ago. However, with the development of a few maverick sources of pro-black journalism, I am optimistic that such a digitized voice may still emerge in the future.”
Existing optimism can only be realized with an equal and sober reflection upon the potential for a radical black public sphere to exist and thrive online. One step is to simply look at the rankings of websites most popular among black and young audiences. As the following list demonstrates bold, radical, transformative thought and politics are hard to find online and are certainly by no means guaranteed by new media technology. g
9. NNPA.org
8. FinalCall.com
7. BlackAmericaWeb.com
6. TheRoot.com
5. TheGrio.com
4. AllHipHop
3. MediaTakeOut.com
2. WorldStarHipHop
1. HuffingtonPost.com
89,385
34,170
5772
3059
2478
2321
464
248
20
1 Numbers taken from alexa.com August 15, 2013.
*Inverse Rank to
Top Sites Targeting/Visited by Black America/Black Youth1