MEDIA IS POLITICAL
Media shapes perception by selecting, arranging, and representing reality
1-THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE
POVERTY
HUNGER
CLIMATE CHANGE
WAR
VULNERABILITY – NATURAL CATASTROPHE
INFLATION
CORRUPTION
IGNORANCE
WHO WE ARE – WHO DO WE BECOME
WHOM DO WE TRUST – WHY
The current population of the entire Americas—North America, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America—is approximately 1.062 billion people in 2026.
CULTURALLY DIVERSE
Decisions capable of destroying economies—or civilization itself—can proceed without any reliable demonstration that the governed understood and authorized them.
Decisions about the foreign and military policy of the United States have persisted across elections, repeatedly increasing military expenditures as the population has doubled and tripled ss domestic needs and economic costs of war have grown.
Escalation of warfare in the middle east could culminate in nuclear winter, with billions of deaths.
Yet the public that bears responsibility for these decisions doesn’t understands the policies nor has it had the opportunity to learn, consider and authorize them.
IF WE DON’T MAKE THESE DESCIONS,
WHAT EXACTLY DRIVES GOVERNMENT DECISIONS?
PAY TO PLAY
Why are some rewarded?
WHOM are we listening to-why?
What is our credit rating?
What is the power of knowledge?
What does success mean?
MEDIA CREATES ILLUSIONS
INSTITUTIONS REFLECT
OUR COLLECTIVE POWER
IMAGES PROMOTE PEOPLE
THAT ARE OTHERWISE UNKNOWN
Collective Organization
Projecting Public Power
WHO DETERMINES WHAT FACES CYCLE IN SCROLLING MEDIA
PROJECTING POWER
IN A DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
POWER IS THE AGGREGATE WEALTH OF THE NATION
OUR PERCEPTIONS ARE SHAPED BY MEDIA CONTENT
WHICH FACES DO WE SEE
WHY ELON MUSK?
WHY RICHARD NIXON?
WHY J.D. VANCE, JOE BIDEN, SYLVESTER STALLONE?
WGHI WRITES THE ALGORITHMS
THAT MANIPULATE OUR EMOTIONS
AND SHAPE OUR PERCEPTIONS OF THE WORLD
FOR WHAT PURPOSE?
GLOBAL ONLINE PLATFORMS
HAVE NO MORAL CODE
NO ETHICAL STANDARDS
NO ACCOUNTABILITY
WHO BENEFITS?
HOW IS THAT DECIDED?
WHO DECIDES?
HOW DO WE CHANGE THAT?
OUR PERCEPTIONS OF REALITY ARE SHAPED BY MEDIA
THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE WE ARE MISSING
THE MESSAGE IS THAT PUBLIC REALITY
IS A STORY
TO HAVE AN IMPACT ON REALITY
CHANGE THE MEDIUM
The medium is the structure
Through which the public world is created
THE NATIONAL DEBT EXCEEDS $40 TRILLION THE CURRENT YIELD ON 10-YEAR US TREASURY NOTES IS 5.01%
US TAXPAYERS PAY
2 trillion 4 billion dollars
($2,004,000,000,000)
INTEREST ON THE NATIONAL DEBT ANNUALLY
WE ARE LED BY MEDIA
TO IGNORE THIS COST
AND TRADE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS
(LIFE, LIBERTY AND PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS)
FOR ILLUSIONS
THE MEDIUM SHAPES WHAT WE THINK IS IMPORTANT
WHAT DO WE ACTUALLY WANT?
WE INCENTIVIZE CLIMATE CHANGE
BY REWARDING GLOBAL WARMING
NUCLEAR WARFARE
ASSASSINATION
GENOCIDE, WILD FIRES, HURRICANES AND FAMINE
WHO BENEFITS?
WHO DECIDES?
GLOBAL PROBLEMS
RESULT FROM LOCAL ACTION
NOT GLOBAL AUTHORITY
MEDIA TELLS US, “LOOK AT THIS! NOW LOOK AT THIS!
THIS IS HAPPENING!”
WHAT DO WE WANT? WHAT DO YOU WANT?
IS THIS DEMOCRACY?
When decisions are made without public input, communities are left to protest.
Public power moves things faster than communities can understand or respond.
THE MEDIUM MUST REFLECT OUR AMBITIONS
AND EVOLVE WITH US AS WE BECOME
2-POLITICS IS LOCAL
FOR MEDIA TO REFLECT WHAT AND WHOM WE ARE
IT MUST BE INCLUSIVE
Democracy does not mean one authority imposing on another
DEMOCRACY IS ABOUT INCLUSIVE CONSENSUS
Democracy occurs when autonomous communities set their own priorities
CHANGING THE GAME
ON THE CUSP OF AN INTENTIONALLY DESIGNED POLITICAL MEDIUM
Not merely creating better content,
Intentionally re-designing the information environment through which people in autonomous communities understand reality, form judgment, establish relationships, and coordinate action.
COORDINATED ACTION NETWORKS
A MEDIUM TAILORED FOR EACH COMMUNITY
SO THAT WHEN SOMETHING NEEDS ATTENTION
1. You just have to show up
On your community’s platform
2. Look and listen
Problems, ideas, concerns
Personal experience
3. Interact
Find common interests
Challenge assumptions
4. Question information
Find out what holds up
5. Define actions
Negotiate
Challenge
Propose
6. Build consensus
A collective voice
7. Authorize collective action
Coordinate resources
COMMUNITIES HAVE TALENT AND RESOURCES
What they lack is a MEDIUM that connects their knowledge, interests, relationships, resources, and authority for democratic decision-making and action.
COORDINATED ACTION NETWORKS
A NEW MEDIUM DESIGN
FOR AN INFRASTRUCTURE
FOR DEMOCRATIC ACTION
A process through which people
share reliable information;
trade experiences and goods
identify uncertainties;
examine objectives, alternatives, risks, and consequences;
aggregate power
hear different points of view;
make agreements; define differences create boundaries
authorize common priorities ands set limits;
Coordinate resources and action;
preserve commitments and public records; and
hold institutions and representatives accountable
CAN IS ALSO LIFE-SAVING COORDINATION IN EMERGENCIES
CAN Emergency Features
maintain communication
coordinate volunteers
communities support others
share vital resources
facilitate government efforts
WHO DECIDES WHAT HELP MEANS?
Much of philanthropy follows a familiar structure:
Funders identify a problem.
Organizations design an intervention.
Institutions allocate resources.
People receive services.
Success is measured in beneficiaries reached.
But relieving suffering does not necessarily change who holds the power to make consequential decisions.
CAN SUPPORTS iNDEPENDENT COLLECTIVE ACTION
CAN is not principally an intervention delivered to underserved people.
CAN is infrastructure through which people cease to occupy the institutional category of “underserved beneficiaries.”
CAN participants define the problem, establish what is true, determine priorities, make consequential choices, coordinate resources, and hold institutions accountable.
PLAYAS DE TIJUANA
DEVELOPERS WANT TO BUILD 9 HIGHRISE TOWERS WITH 1600 UPSCALE APARTMENTS, AND A HOTEL AND SHOPPING MALL
IN A CONSERVATION AREA
Water & energy outages are already frequent
Traffic is already intolerable
RESIDENTS ARE OBJECTING
THE COMMUNITY ISN’T ORGANIZED
The community remains inside the process the development system already knows how to defeat: hearings, objections, petitions, scattered evidence, procedural delay and exhaustion.
A colonial relationship does not require malicious intent.
It exists whenever the authority to define problems, determine priorities, allocate resources and judge success remains outside the community, while the people living with the consequences are treated primarily as recipients of decisions made on their behalf.
Food, housing, healthcare, education and emergency assistance are essential.
But relief is not self-government.
A community should not have to remain powerless in order to qualify for help.
CAN makes collective agency itself the infrastructure
When we have a say in development decisions
Sustainable development
happens when communities sustain themselves
Global Warming Is Addressed
WHEN GLOBAL COOLING IS INDEPENDENTLY ACTIONABLE
Climate change is global, but actions that produce—or reverse—it are local
Communities must therefore be actors, not beneficiaries
Community consensus drives coordinated action
Homes can be affordable
Communities can be livable
Childcare can support parents
Parks can be preserved
Local economies can thrive
Government decisions can serve the governed
What people agree on—right now, moving the world
CAN’s architecture does not assume that today’s human institutions, today’s internet, or today’s electromagnetic communications represent the final form of intelligent relationship.
THE MEDIUM AND MEDIA ARE EVOLVING
AI OCCURS IN MEDIA
Human communication has already moved from speech, writing and print to electronic and global digital networks. Physics may eventually reveal forms of communication we do not presently understand. Artificial intelligence is already creating relationships with forms of intelligence that are not human.
CAN is not designed around a particular communications technology. It is an architecture through which autonomous intelligences can understand one another, establish identity and provenance, determine what can be trusted
negotiate relationships and boundaries, establish consent, coordinate consequential action and preserve autonomy.
HUMAN COMMUNITIES ARE TECHNOLOGIES FOR SURVIVAL
COORDINATED ACTION NETWORKS
Communications infrastructure through which autonomous intelligences can understand one another, establish legitimate relationships, and coordinate consequential action without surrendering their autonomy.
CAN begins with geographically bounded human communities–not as a limit, but as a beginning.