Drawing on that more skeptical outlook, let’s investigate in greater depth the claims made for these technologies with reference to television and the environment, before moving to discuss the world of work in greater depth. We’ll see that for now, at least, cybertarian rhetoric in these areas fails on its own terms.
Consider the bold assertions made above by Netflix and IBM. The evidence for television’s demise is as sparse and thin as the rhetoric about it is copious and thick. Historically, most new media have supplanted earlier ones as central organs of authority or pleasure: books versus speeches, films versus plays, singles versus sheet music. TV blended them. A warehouse of contemporary culture, it merged what had come before, and now it is merging with personal computers (which were modeled on it) to do the same.25 The New York Times presciently announced this tendency over thirty years ago with the headline “Television Marries Computer.”26
Television’s robust resilience is especially salient when it comes to current affairs: 94 percent of the U.S. population watches TV news, which has long been its principal resource for understanding both global events and council politics. During the 2004 U.S. presidential election, 78 percent of the population followed the campaign on television, up from 70 percent in 2000.27 Political operatives pay heed to this reality. Between the 2002 and 2006 midterm elections and across that 2004 campaign, TV expenditure on political advertising grew from $995.5 million to $1.7 billion—at a time of minimal inflation. That amounted to 80 percent of the growth in broadcasters’ revenue in 2003–2004. The 2002 election saw $947 million spent on television advertising; 2004, $1.55 billion; and 2006, $1.72 billion. The correlative numbers for the Internet were $5 million in 2002; $29 million in 2004; and $40 million in 2006. The vast majority of electronic electoral campaigning takes place on local TV—95 percent in 2007.28
We might examine the famous Barack Obama campaign of 2008 and its much-vaunted use of the Internet. Here’s the deal: Obama’s organization spent the vast bulk of its energy and money on television. The Internet was there to raise funds and communicate with supporters. The U.S. presidency cycles with the summer Olympics. Few candidates commit funds to commercials in prime time during this epic of capitalist excess, where the classic homologues of competition vie for screen time—athletic contests versus corporate hype. Obama, however, took a multimillion-dollar package across the stations then owned by General Electric: NBC (Anglo broadcast), CNBC (business-leech cable), MSNBC (news cable), USA (entertainment cable), Oxygen (women’s cable), and Telemundo (Spanish broadcast). TV was on the march, not in retreat: on election night 2008, CNN gained 109 percent more viewers than the equivalent evening four years earlier. The 2012 U.S. presidential election was again a televisual one. How many U.S. residents who watched the debates between Mitt Romney and Obama preferred the Internet to TV as their source? Three percent. How many watched on both TV and the Internet? Eleven percent. How many people shared their reactions online? Eight percent.29
In Europe as well as the United States, TV rules the roost by a long way when viewers seek news. Worldwide, owners of tablets like iPads are the keenest consumers of television news. These gadgets are adjuncts, partners, to the main source. If anything, they stimulate people to watch more television.30
The green qualities of new media technologies are as dubious as claims for their hegemony over TV. The Political Economy Research Institute’s 2013 “Misfortune 100: Top Corporate Air Polluters in the United States” placed half a dozen media owners in the first fifty.31 Cultural production relies on the exorbitant water use of computer technology, while making semiconductors requires hazardous chemicals, including carcinogens. At current levels, residential energy use of electronic equipment will rise to 30 percent of the overall global demand for power by 2022, and 45 percent by 2030, thanks to server farms and data centers and the increasing time people around the world spend watching and adding to screens.32
