Wednesday, April 07, 2004

Some thoughts:

(1) While I agree with a lot of what Schiller says, doesn't it seem at times like he's getting a little too radical and conspiratorial? For example, when he says that the U.S. Postal Service was "pressured" to scrap their own email system for a commercial one.

(2) I skimmed through Chapter 4, and Schiller had some really interesting things to say about universities. He says their adopting a corporate model based on efficiency, wherein the max amount of customers (students) are taught by the min amount of employees (faculty) at the lowest cost for the institution, but the hightest possible cost for the consumer (students). I thought this was very interesting, and just looking at UW, I see it happening. Our tuition constantly goes up, faculty is constantly cut, and it seems that the grad students who can perform a type of research that yields more $$ for the university have a much better chance of getting in and staying in than others. Universities are becoming more business-like every day, and this is quite a dangerous thing.

(3) I think that this book came out before some of the hugest media mergers in history (For example, AOL-Time Warner). I wonder what Schiller would have to say about that, and if it would be enough for him to abandon his last scrap of hope for a future that isn't dominated by this pervasive international conglomerates.

-josh

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