[FC-discuss] Words, phrases, and the coining thereof

[Matthew J. Agnello]

When I interviewed librarians at ALA, none of them knew what the "free  
culture movement" was. They understood the term "intellectual freedom  
on the Internet" or "freedom of information" much more clearly, and  
when I clarified to mean remix culture and copyright, they got that  
immediately, although they had mixed feelings about it.

They tended to group freedom of information and open access together,  
and they believed it's important to know information and have access  
to it but felt less concerned about controlling or re-using it in  
artistic ways. Contrast that to when I visited the Do It Yourself  
video summit. At DIY, they immediately understood the term "free  
culture," because I was talking to people who did political remixes  
regularly.

Now, to qualify, people from CC and the EFF were at DIY, so the people  
in the audience were more likely to understand the terminology. ALA  
was not as familiar with those issues. In my opinion, the views of  
both groups depended heavily on their perspectives relative to  
information/culture. The librarians looked at information as something  
to collect and analyze but not change. The artists and remixers (and  
academics) looked at information as something to manipulate. Their  
interests affected their views of what freedoms were most important.  
Now that's an oversimplification, and an individual's views are much  
more complex. But the important point is that those phrases will have  
different meanings among different groups as well as different  
meanings unto themselves.

Best,
// Matt


----------
Matt Agnello
http://www.hungryfilmmaker.com
< matt.agnello at gmail.com >

On Feb 28, 2008, at 6:03 PM, Nelson Pavlosky wrote:

> * Free Culture
> * Access to Knowledge
> * Freedom of Information
> * Freedom of Expression
>
> Knowledge/information/culture.  Freedom/liberty.  Is there a term we
> could use that would encompass all of these concepts at once?  I  
> believe
> that Students for Free Culture would tend to support all of the above
> concepts, but each of those four phrases has different connotations  
> and
> none of them truly include all of the others.
>
> "Free Culture" may come the closest simply because we are part of the
> free culture movement and we are vaguely supportive of all of the  
> above,
> but "free culture" does have connotations of caring about e.g.  
> copyright
> and remix culture, and does not have e.g. the "open government"
> connotations of "freedom of information".  I frequently try to import
> all of the above phrases into "free culture" but I get the feeling  
> that
> people don't really get what I'm talking about, since I am trying to
> shovel a truly insane amount of issues into a single overloaded term  
> and
> few people are familiar with all of the issues I am trying to cram  
> under
> that banner.  It may be better to use a neologism or bring forth an
> obscure little-known term rather than overloading "Free Culture".
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Peace,
> ~Nelson Pavlosky~
> Co-founder, Students for Free Culture
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at freeculture.org
> http://freeculture.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss

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