Hearsay Culture 1.0 Site (2006-2021)
Covering modern technology and Internet issues
Hosted by Dave Levine.

Hearsay Culture now airing on Freirad 105.9 radio, Innsbruck, Austria

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I’m thrilled to announce that Hearsay Culture will now be airing monthly on Freirad community radio, Innsbruck, Austria! Freirad will be selecting one show per month to air on Wednesdays at 2pm (local time). Next week’s selection will be my interview with Prof. Susan Sell.

So that there’s no confusion, Hearsay Culture’s radio home will remain at KZSU-FM (Stanford) and that relationship and air schedule is not changing.

Hearsay Culture’s relationship with Freirad was forged by Hearsay Culture guest Valentin Dander, who was a DJ on the station. Like KZSU, Freirad is a public/community radio station but unlike KZSU, was born as a pirate radio station that challenged state media dominance in Austria. Given my interest in supporting and contributing to public media and our collective efforts to share information for the betterment of all, I am excited about this new relationship and look forward to our collaboration. Thanks much to Valentin and everyone at Freirad!

If you have suggestions for other public media outlets — particularly radio and other non-Internet sources — that might like to air Hearsay Culture, please email me at dave@hearsayculture.com.


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Show #207 — Harmen Groenhart on public media accountability — posted

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I’m pleased to post Show #207, March 19, my interview with Harmen Groenhart of Fontys University of Applied Sciences, School of Journalism, Tilburg, The Netherlands, on public media accountability. I met Harmen at a conference on transparency held at HEC-Paris last year. Harmen studies the role of transparency in the operations of public media, a critical issue that supports the credibility institutions that establish our willingness to consume (or ignore) media. In our discussion, we examined Harmen’s theories and principles for an effective transparency regime, and the meaning of transparency and accountability in communications generally. It was a terrific discussion!


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Show #206 — Prof. Orly Lobel, author of Talent Wants to Be Free — posted

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I’m pleased to post Show #206, March 5, my interview with Prof. Orly Lobel of University of San Diego School of Law, author of Talent Wants to Be Free: Why We Should Learn to Love Leaks, Raids, and Free-Riding. Orly has written a timely account of the benefits of mobility of labor and ideas in the modern economy. Examining a range of issues from the impact of trade secrecy on employee mobility to new forms of innovation that rely on sharing, Orly has written an insightful examination of the under-explored area. As I see it as a wonderful and valuable extension of pioneering work by AnnaLee Saxenian, I greatly enjoyed the interview!


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Putting the Public’s Interest Back into the “Public Interest”*

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* which is related to one of Hearsay Culture’s core principles.

As I mentioned on this week’s show (which will post soon), next week I am going to have an exciting announcement about increased blogging here at Hearsay Culture. This is great news and I’m very excited about it. By the way, no need to worry about its impact on the radio show/podcast, as it will augment rather than supplant or substitute for it!

Meanwhile, in the spirit of blogging, I thought I’d post a link to an essay that I’ve published on the need to conceive the “public interest” broadly when creating intellectual property and technology law. Unfortunately, the United States Trade Representative’s first serious efforts at including the public in lawmaking (think Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement) suffers from a narrow definition of the public interest, which will move us further down the road of polarization and imbalance in the law.

This is a critical issue that is actually related to my goals for Hearsay Culture. From day one, I’ve wanted to produce a show where individuals and groups that don’t talk to each other enough can interact. That’s why Hearsay Culture’s guests are not just IP and tech law professors like me (as wonderful as those people are), but scholars from a variety of fields and people operating in the “real world” (and sometimes in ways that many don’t like). So too, policymaking cannot afford to be siloed, as we all suffer for it. We need to mix it up and be challenged in substantive ways, and often.

I hope that you enjoy my essay (or at least find it informative and thought-provoking), and look for my announcement next week!


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Show #205 — Prof. Susan Sell on international relations and transparency — posted

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I’m pleased to post Show #205, February 26, my interview with Prof. Susan Sell of the Elliott School of International Affairs at The George Washington University on international relations and transparency. Susan is one of the leading experts on the processes and conditions that allow for international relations and negotiations to operate effectively and openly. As a scholar with years of experience observing and writing about the nuances of negotiation and diplomacy, her insights with regard to the recent and ongoing battles over the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations are key to our collective understanding of the state of international relations today. We discussed a variety of issues related to the current state of the TPP negotiations and international diplomacy generally. As a huge fan of her work, I greatly enjoyed our discussion.


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Show #204 — Prof. Peter Swire on NSA spying and the President’s Review Panel — posted

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On a day when there is yet another revelation about the extent of the NSA’s efforts to collect all of the world’s communications, I’m pleased to post Show #204, February 19, my interview with Prof. Peter Swire of the Scheller College of Business at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a member of President Obama’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies. As one of the members of the President’s panel, Peter had the opportunity and the privilege to both assess the NSA’s programs and make recommendations about how to scale them back under the law. Because the range of the programs is yet to be known (assuming that the public will ever know the full extent of the NSA’s activities), the interview reflects a snapshot of what could be discussed on February 17, 2014. Nonetheless, Peter’s insights and reflections on the scope and impact of these programs should help inform the public and policymakers as we grapple with what has occurred, and is occurring. Thanks to Peter for taking the time, and I greatly enjoyed the interview.


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Show #203 — Ethan Zuckerman, author of Rewire — posted

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It is spring break here at Elon, which means that I can now post several new shows and some great new projects and affilitions. Thus, get ready for a flurry of Hearsay Culture activity, beginning with Show #203, February 5, my interview with Ethan Zuckerman, Director of the Center for Civic Media at MIT and author of Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection. Rewire is a wonderful and insighful study of how people connect using the Internet and modern communication devices, and how information flows throughout this network. Ethan takes a clear-eyed view of the power and limitations of the technology and how we use it, offering a perspective influenced by his years as a communications scholar. I was thrilled to have Ethan on the show and enjoyed the interview!


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Show #202 — Prof. Ed Lee on the SOPA battle — posted

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I’m pleased to post Show #202, January 29, my interview with Prof. Edward Lee of Chicago-Kent Law School, author of The Fight for the Future: How People Defeated Hollywood and Saved the Internet — For Now. [Disclaimer: I was heavily involved in the opposition to SOPA and PIPA.] Ed has written a terrific account of the events and people that contributed to the extended policy battle around SOPA and PIPA. Having done much primary research about the people and machinations that lead to SOPA and PIPA’s eventual defeat, Ed has written an extremely valuable historic accounting that should guide scholars for years to come. In our discussion, we delved into some of these stories and the implications of the process that lead to SOPA and PIPA’s defeat. I greatly enjoyed the interview!


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Show #201 — Jonathan Band on international IP lawmaking — posted

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I’m pleased to post Show #201, January 22, my interview with Jonathan Band of policybandwith.com. Jonathan has been at the center of many major technology policy issues, from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), over the past 20 years. As Jonathan represents many clients as a lobbyist, I was excited to have him on the show to discuss the current lay of the land in Washington in IP policy. We had a wide ranging and candid discussion of the policy and politics of IP, both at the domestic and international levels. I hope that you enjoy this timely discussion!


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Show #200 — Denise Howell’s interview with me — posted

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At last, the big moment: here’s Show #200, Denise Howell‘s wonderful interview with me! I had a great time being on the other side of the proverbial “glass,” and developed a deeper appreciation for the great work of all 199 previous guests. Denise asked me about my history in radio, as well as my current non-Hearsay Culture substantive focus on information flow and system issues in hydraulic fracturing and international trade.

After Denise’s interview, I ran through the long list of people who have helped make Hearsay Culture possible. It is a LONG list. I am in your debt.

I hope that you enjoy the discussion, and thanks again to Denise for being a great interviewer! To that end, and most of all, thanks to YOU for listening! Here’s to 200 more.


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