Page 219 - Carbon Capitalism and Communication Confronting Climate Crisis

18 CONCLUSION: ONE MONTH IN THE LIFE OF THE PLANET … 215

social media corporations must accept that they are publishers in their own
right and not simply neutral technological ‘platforms’ for distributing
content produced elsewhere (Bell and Owen 2017), and assume full
responsibility postings on their sites, a requirement backed by fines for
carrying material that circulates demonstrable untruths.
Secondly, investigative inquiry and specialist environmental reporting in
the press needs to be supported by subsidies paid for out of the public
purse rather than relying solely on donations and subscriptions from
readers.
Thirdly, public service broadcasting’s relative autonomy from state
control and its entitlement to an income free from the need to accept
advertising and sufficient to fund comprehensive investigation and analysis,
needs to be vigorously defended and guaranteed. At the same time, public
broadcasters should be supported in extending their public service remit to
position themselves as central nodes in a digital network of public insti-
tutions offering access to comprehensive information, analysis and reasoned
debate on key issues (see Murdock 2016). As the central argument of this
book makes clear however, any proposal to develop new ways of orga-
nizing public information, participation and debate needs to ensure that it
is not piggybacking on a communications infrastructure whose operation
and use exacerbates climate crisis (see also Cubitt 2017: 168). This vision
of a new digital commons is part of a much wider re-imagining of eco-
nomic, social, and cultural relations.

REASSERTING THE COMMONS

The recent appropriations of land and resources by fossil fuel companies are
the latest instances in a process of commercial enclosure whose history
stretches back to the origins of industrial capitalism and colonial adven-
turism. The foundational promotion of private property rights required the
wholesale destruction and replacement of previous forms of economic and
social organisation built around the idea of the commons.
At a practical level the commons fostered shared access to clusters of
resources considered necessary to sustaining life and well-being; grazing
rights, fishing rights, access to timber, plants and foodstuffs in forests and
woodlands. Contrary to influential arguments supportive of marketisation,
which have seen shared access leading to the progressive depletion of
resources as individuals compete to maximize their personal advantages,