The Inevitability of Billboards

Let me admit right away to feeling ambivilence about sweeping categorizations of "the cultural logic" of our times. Making big claims about cultural trends on the level of postmodernism, neoliberalism, empire, etc is of course lifeblood of many academic critics, especially those of the 'theory' bent. Even trends such as fragmentation or "suspecion of grand narratives" often appear more interesting to critics as pangea-like formations rather than in their fragmented particularities. It can be a bit too tempting to reduce what's going on in the world at any one time to a set of understood principles. Maybe there's not other ways of writing effectively about such trends without a good dose of overgeneralization.

With that half-hearted qualification, let me attempt to squeeze some culture into some overgeneralized boxes myself. The box is a big one, a very popular one these days among cultural theory folks - neoliberalism. The cultural fragment I'd like to place in the box is a story by America Public Radio's Future Tense (http://www.publicradio.org/columns/futuretense/2007/02/05.shtml#009646).

The story's lead: ClearChannel Outdoor is suing the muncipality of Minnetonka for cutting off power to two digit billboards. Minnetonka is one many communities around the country who have passed laws prohibiting moving billboards due to the risk of distracting drivers. So how do you think this story would be structured - maybe some opposing views on whether billboards with moving images distract drivers? Maybe some interviews of people's opinions of moving billboards? No, while about a 10 seconds is given to a county attorney explaining the way Minnetonka defines "flashing billboards" in their ordinance, the arc of the story follows the inevitibility of this technology.

First, comes testimony that "the new technology [digital billboards] is the way world we're living in." According a ClearChannel Outdoor VP, "advertisers are demaning a proper forum to display their messages . . . it is an evolution of media. . . it is somewhat inevitable."

I guess there's no messing with advertizers' demands. Future Tense certainly doesn't suggest that option. After the ClearChannel interview, the story shifts over to Carnegie Mellon "Professor of Design" Ben Fry. He starts by describing another kind of evolution, that of the human's natural response of a attentiveness towards motion. The inexonerable evolution of marketing sophistication has caught up with human evolution. Whereas our "long-ago ancestors who would be eaten or killed" without an instinctual response to motion, today the utility of this instinct might go to waste if it wasn't for modern innovators, like advertisers.