Hyperlinking to Hyper-Enlightenment
Open Media Center was established to create the platform for a free and open media. In a pluralist society, the primary responsibility of all media is to nourish the life force of a free and open democracy. Instead, neglect of this crucial role by the corporate-owned media has poisoned the bloodstream of our democracy. Commercial media chose to pursue profits instead of the public good. We invite you to step away from media-driven consumerism and help us create an open society, vibrant democracy, and thriving marketplace for all citizens.
Open Media Center aims to deliver an expanding set of "programs" through a growing number of "channels." What are channels? Unlike channels available from cable or broadcast TV, Open Media Center groups programming by subject or interest area. These programming groups become channels. Content is generally delivered through the Internet using a wide variety of electronic technologies. Limited "off-line" distribution of some material is available.
Open Media Center takes its inspiration from the collaborative nature of open source software development. The free software movement gave us, among many other technological treasures, the powerful computer operating system known as Linux. Beginning as a few lines of humble code written by a college student, Linux has grown to challenge the dominance of tech titans like Microsoft. We believe that free and open media, created by citizens for citizens, is the foundation for a new and democratic "operating system" to replace the corpo-state controlled regime currently governing our society.
Because no one else is going to save us. Multinational corporations need compliant consumers, not thinking citizens. Profits, not people, are their central focus. Fostering democracy is not their agenda. Instead, they resemble totalitarian states. "Investors" (Wall Street's high rollers) rule them. Highly-paid overlords (executives) manage them. Employees are their landless serfs. But we consumers give them life. And how do they show their gratitude? By poisoning our environment. Privatizing "reality" with relentless marketing spin. And squandering the taxes we pay to turn our welfare state into a warfare state.
At Open Media Center, we absolutely believe that all citizens have a fundamental responsibility to keep themselves informed. As citizens, we must ensure that information available to us is accurate, timely, thorough and pervasive enough to allow us to make good decisions on how we govern ourselves. Somewhere along the path to the pursuit of happiness we turned that responsibility over to others, and it has cost us our democracy. In order to have any hope in forming a more perfect union, we must reform our media, the lifeblood of our democracy.
The good news is that we have the resources to do that now. Not only is information, both good and bad, ubiquitously available and inexpensive to access. The tools we need to create, publish and distribute information have also never before been so cheap and plentiful. A growing movement of people--bloggers, citizen journalists, artists, activists, and others--are taking advantage of these resources to create a sort of "citizen's media." Although embryonic in its development, this new media has the opportunity to coalesce into a truly independent information network. Open Media Center's mission is to focus on helping make this emerging citizen's media a powerful enough force to help us reclaim our democracy. We invite you to join us.
