Naming and Constructing the Frame

Yes, yes, the air is thin up here.  At the conclusion of a meeting I chaired here at the Curb Center a few years ago, the participants, at meeting's end, presented me with a sweatshirt embazoned with "Captain Macro."  Alan has correctly nailed me as hopelessly addicted to the Big Picture.

A few quick bullets about points from Alan, Marian, Adrian, and Andras:

   *  It feels as if "creativity" in all its permutations pushes us toward "voice" and "awakening the imagination."  It's difficult to bring heritage into creativity, I think, and the awakening the imagination stuff, through important, is also pretty easy for mainstream power to trivialize.

   *  Alan is right about "culture;" in policy conversation it's mostly used to invoke identity politics and that starting point is often unhelpful.

   *  Andras indicates that expressive life will (or does) produce "blank stares."  To me this might be a good thing as we are afforded an opportunity to fill in those blanks.  The problem with "art" and "culture" is that too many people think they already know exactly what the terms mean and that pre-sets the limits of any conversation.

   *  Adrian's question about who or what can actually carry a new policy frame forward identifies a huge problem.  It's quite astonishing that in a society with such a vigorous and varied expressive life there's no single voice speaking for the public interest in relation to the whole.  There are some scattered allies -- advocacy groups dealing with Internet access, and similar groups advancing fairness in media, localism in broadcasting, and so on.  Also there are several organizations that advocate on behalf of a more-nuanced copyright/IP regime, and they would also be natural partners.  But there exists no single entity that can walk into the office of a governor, member of congress, or FCC commission and say "We are the group that works to insure that America's expressive life is aligned with public purposes."  I keep pressing our friends at Americans for the Arts to inch toward this role, and their National Arts Index certainly is based on many indicators that imply a broadening of their policy lens, but AFTA hasn't yet stepped out to claim this broader territory.  Just as advocacy on behalf of nonprofit and artist funding would benefit if we were part of a larger policy sector, I think media and IP advocacy would also benefit through a connection with the nonprofit arts.

A quick anecdote to suggest the small ways in which public interest policies affecting expressive need to advance in the current environment.  The Curb Center runs the Arts Industries Policy Forum in DC; it's funded by Ford, has 66 members, and brings together career staff from Commerce, Judiciary Committee, FCC, NEA, State -- many, many of the entities that work with legislation or regulation that shapes the US cultural system -- for bipartisan, policy neutral seminars on cultural topics.  One Forum member, an FTC attorney, co-authored a paper arguing that, in the case of "three-to-two-mergers" in industries like health care and media, the effect of the merger on "consumer choice" should be as important as assessing the impact on "price."  Now, this is a very specific recommendation and a bit arcane, but such a new policy would target mergers of, say, record companies, and would also help inflence big issues like access to heritage.  If consumer choice had been taken into account by the Dept. of Justice and the FTC, would the Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger been approved?  Some day, a la the environmental movement, there might be one grooup that would make the case for expressive life and the public interest within our democracy.  In the short run, we need to find ways to cobble together a network of interested parties who focus on media, art, IP, trade, and international engagement.

I'm so pleased Ellen Lovell brought up the recent Supreme Court decision.  Let's talk about it!