Page 75 - Carbon Capitalism and Communication Confronting Climate Crisis

60 J. LEWIS

can produce high quality, popular programmes while embracing principles
of public service, it receives public funding. But for the commercial sector
as a whole, their survival in a capitalist economy depended upon finding
other ways to organise the routine production and consumption of objects.
This has led to two equally damaging responses for the environment and
our ability to tackle climate change.
The first—which I shall discuss in more detail in the next section—is an
increasing dependence on advertising as a source of income. The second is
a drive towards the proliferation of media and communication devices for
the reception, communication, storing and playing of content. This pro-
liferation is twofold: it involves an expansion in the range of devices that
receive, send and play content, and a reduction on the lifespan of those
devices. The first of these forms of proliferation has, at least, the merit of
convenience: so, for example, while we may use a phone, a tablet, a laptop
and a PC to do many of the same things (as well as more traditional devices
like televisions, radios etc.), they each have their own benefits depending
on where we are.
The second form of proliferation is more environmentally damaging and
is generally disadvantageous for most consumers. Faced with a decline in
sales of many cultural objects, the media and communications industry
have, in a metaphorical sense, begun to turn hardware into software.
Planned obsolescence is not a new idea in industrial production, not least in
a media and communications industry that has made it a fine art (Sterne
2007). But it is now pursued with an unprecedented zeal, making the
lifespan of communication and playback technologies increasingly fleeting.
The strategy for turning hardware into software is both physical and
psychological. Obsolescence is built-into most electronic devices we now
use. They are, in essence, a digital smorgasbords of components, some of
which require renewing (like rechargeable batteries), some which may be
regularly or occasionally upgraded (such as processors), and some relatively
stable components (such as sound and image reproduction). But they
increasingly come in one sealed container, so that, constrained by the
inflexibility of its packaging, it will last only as long as its least durable
component.
The mobile or cell phone—perhaps the most ubiquitous object of the
digital age—is a conspicuous example of this kind of built-in obsolescence.
Apple, a market leader in the higher end of this market, designed