Transcript
>> HINOJOSA: In this
fast-changing, digital world,
what's the future of personal
privacy?
Of social interaction?
Of education?
Of our democracy?
A conversation with Harvard
Kennedy School professor Nolan
Bowie.
I'm Maria Hinojosa.
This is One on One.
>> HINOJOSA: Professor Nolan
Bowie, welcome to One on One.
You are, my gosh, you are one of
those renaissance men, so I'm
going to list a few of the
things that you've done in your
life.
You are a lawyer, you're a
professor at the Kennedy School
of Government, you are a former
member of the U.S. Naval
Reserves...
This one I just loved:
Former Assistant Special
Prosecutor at the Watergate
Special Prosecution Force.
Oh my god.
And you're an artist and a
writer.
I don't know how you do all of
these things.
How do you do it all?
>> BOWIE: It's usually one at a time.
>> HINOJOSA: (laughs) So not
multitasking?
>> BOWIE: Well, that too, on occasion.
>> HINOJOSA: But fascinating,
even though you devote your life
to understanding communication,
democracy, literacy, access,
you are not one of those people
who is on Facebook, on Twitter,
communicating all the time with
the masses.
>> BOWIE: Well, one of the reasons I
have time to do the other things
is that I'm not on Facebook and
communicating with an amorphous
mass of people who, you know,
distract your attention from
what you may think is more
important.
>> HINOJOSA: So those of us who
are, for example, in the media
and who are feeling quite
challenged in terms of reaching
all of these audiences,
especially in the public media.
What are you saying to us, in
terms of audiences and reaching
them?
Are you saying, "Look, you're
going about it the right way,"
or do we need to stop and
reconfigure?
>> BOWIE: Well, I think we need to
value our personal time.
What we have in common, as human
beings, is a 24 hour day.
That's probably the greatest
resource that anyone has.
Once you lose it and it passes
by, you can never regain it.
So, you know, what impact do you
want to make in the world, in
your society, among your
friends, whoever you consider
your friends to be?
If you want to communicate to an
audience, I think the most
important thing is the content
of the message.
If it has a buzz, if it's
attractive to others, they will
hear it, they'll repeat it to
others, and, you know, establish
you as the person who was the
originator of a particular idea
or an explanation.
I don't think you have to be on
all media all the time, because
most media right now is
interconnected in any of that.
You have synergy where the
dominant media companies have
trickled down to all of their
other owned properties.
Eventually, it winds up all in
the same pool.
As a matter of fact, if you...
there are very few sources for,
say, news, for example.
You know, a lot of it is
aggregated, so it doesn't matter
what particular channel you go
to, you generally get the same
middle channel news unless you
are willing to explore sort of
the competing ideas on the
edges, whether it be the right
or the left.
>> HINOJOSA: So you say...
So there's more, of course, now
we know multiple channels,
multiple points of access.
Does it really mean that we're
hearing multiple voices,
multiple opinions?
>> BOWIE: Well, no, but that's not to
say that the possibility of that
cannot occur.
But what you have generally are
dominant voices, and many of
those are basically traditional
corporate voices, or the voices
with the dominant brands in the
analog world are also the
primary sources of most of the
content where people actually go
to get news or information or
entertainment.
That's not to say that there's
no space for, say, bloggers or
for ordinary individuals to
communicate.
It's just that the internet, you
have to understand, is very wide
and deep, and it's easy to get
lost in it.
It's not necessarily, at this
point in time, a medium of mass
communications.
>> HINOJOSA: So, when you say
that it's wide and deep, there's
also the question of who in fact
has access to it to dive in?
And there's an assumption in our
country, and I would say even an
assumption of people around the
world, that everyone has access
to this, that everyone has
access to a computer, that
everyone can get online.
I mean, you see everybody with
their phones.
In fact, as someone who has
studied issues of access, it's
not like that at all, right?
At least in our country, there
is a percentage of people who
are excluded outside because of,
what, poverty and...?
>> BOWIE: Well, let me first deal with
the so-called digital divide on
a global scale.
We have probably close to seven
billion people in the world
right now, and at most, right
now, it's close to 1.8 billion
people who have actually gone
online or use the internet.
It means that while 1.8 billion
people are online, and that's a
lot of people, it means close to
five billion are not.
In the United States, we have
what most people refer to as a
digital divide.
I use the term "Digital
Divides," I put an 's' behind
this.
You know, there's a divide based
not only on wealth and
educational attainment here, but
in terms of age, in terms of
place of residence and place of
speed.
For example, Hispanics and
blacks tend to have connectivity
to the internet increasingly
with mobile communications
devices like cell phones.
>> HINOJOSA: Latinos are, in
fact, in terms of social media,
and in terms of activity, very
engaged.
>> BOWIE: Right.
Well, um, cell phones tend to be
cheaper than notebook computers
or desktop computers, but they
do have limitations.
Even though you can communicate
with them extremely well, either
through voice or texting, you
can't produce a lot of creative
kinds of activity like you would
if you had a keyboard and were
looking at a larger screen.
You can't be a good computer
artist using a cell phone and
not having a big screen
computer.
So, you know, it has its pluses
but it also has its minuses, it
has these costs.
>> HINOJOSA: Well, paint a
picture of what that looks like
so people can kind of have it in
their heads.
I mean, I, for example,
recently was traveling in the
Caribbean, and people were
talking about, you know, the
access to cell phones and IM and
texting as a way of, you know,
popular forms of democracy.
Very interesting.
But then I was with Haitian
people.
They were illiterate and,
therefore...
barely literate in terms of
numbers.
But, um, what good does, you
know, this tool of democracy
provide if, in fact, you have
people who are too poor to know
how to read or to have access to
using one of those fancy phones?
>> BOWIE: Well, you mentioned literacy,
and that's one of the key issues
of divides.
It's part of the state's role in
providing universal education to
its population.
>> HINOJOSA: Well, everybody
assumes that the United States
of America is a fully-literate
country.
>> BOWIE: Wrong.
>> HINOJOSA: Wrong?
>> BOWIE: Yes.
You can look at some of the
studies done by the U.S.
Department of Education, Adult
Education, in terms of literacy
attainment.
You have a, uh, large...
close to 49% of the population
that have difficulty reading the
news.
It's kind of hard to define
literacy with a hard line, but
they tend to be at the lowest
two levels of literacy levels,
one and two, which means that
while they may be able to mouth
the words necessarily, they
don't understand the
comprehension of what the words
mean.
They have a tendency not to file
for applications for job
promotions.
They tend to not understand
complex bus or public
transportation schedules.
Things like that.
And that's not to say that
they're not bright, because many
people who are illiterate have
phenomenal memories, and that's
how they get around and they're
quite functional, but we do have
a problem, and it's related to
both race and poverty.
You can... there's a correlation
of people who live in low-income
housing or inmate populations
that have lower degrees of
literacy.
I'm on the board of something
called Literacy.org, which is
based on, uh... it's also
coupled with, uh, the, uh,
UNESCO's International Literacy
Institute.
Illiteracy is a problem we think
is just in the, um, undeveloped
or developing countries, but
it's also here, even in the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts...
>> HINOJOSA: In fact, the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts
has some pretty extraordinarily
high numbers.
>> BOWIE: Well, high numbers on one
end, but high numbers on the
lower end, also.
Too many adults who have too low
a level of literacy, and without
the facilities to give them
training and, because of budget
cuts, they're being reduced,
also.
>> HINOJOSA: It could get worse.
So, this is the name of one of
your classes at the Harvard
Kennedy School: "New Media,
Surveillance Access, Propaganda,
and Democracy."
>> BOWIE: Right.
>> HINOJOSA: So, you're actually
also... not only are you...
are you propagating for more
democracy in terms of access...
>> BOWIE: A better quality of
democracy, also.
>> HINOJOSA: A better quality of
democracy, more awareness of the
have nots.
You're also very concerned, as
are many Americans, about the
issue of our loss of personal...
you know, kind of our loss of
personal privacy.
>> BOWIE: Well, they go hand in hand.
I don't think you can have a
true democracy if, uh, citizens
don't have privacy.
>> HINOJOSA: And yet, everybody
says, "Well, wait a second, we
understand privacy, but we are
living in different times now,
and therefore, if you have to
frisk me in a way that I've
never been touched before at the
airport, or you have to use my
internet information in a way
that I never thought, I'm
uncomfortable, but what can
I do?"
And you say...?
>> BOWIE: Well, we can do a lot, but we
need public policies in place to
help us protect the shrinking
expectation of privacy that we
may have.
Now, the Fourth Amendment of the
U.S. Constitution provides us
with a reasonable expectation of
privacy, but unless you know the
capacity of the given
technology, and they're being
invented all the time, uh,
unless you know who's gathering
your information, your personal
information, and what they're
doing with it, it's hard to be
able to say that you have
a right of privacy.
And privacy is not just a single
value, it's a multiplicity of
values, some which compete with
one another.
Initially, I think it was
Brandeis who defined it as a
right to be let alone.
>> HINOJOSA: Oh, I would love to
have that right to be...
(laughs)
>> BOWIE: Well, does anyone have the
right to be let alone...
>> HINOJOSA: I don't think we
do.
>> BOWIE: ... and still participate in
society?
>> HINOJOSA: I don't think we do
at this point.
>> BOWIE: And then, subsequently, it's
been sort of, uh, evolving into
a right to be able to, uh,
define yourself to the outside
world.
In other words, that you might
have control of your personal
information.
In this world that we live in
now, private corporations,
advertisers, third-party, uh,
Numerati, which is made up of
the mathematicians who use very
sophisticated algorithms to look
into large databases to find
patterns so that they can
anticipate our behavior and
ultimately maybe control it.
So, they sell this information
after processing it to third-
party advertisers who, uh, then
know how to hypodermically,
one-to-one, suggest that we buy
a certain thing or do a certain
thing...
>> HINOJOSA: Oh my gosh.
>> BOWIE: ... because they know what
kind of decisions will give us a
shot of dopamine and make us
happy.
>> HINOJOSA: Oh my god.
Give me one example of where you
think that that...
>> BOWIE: Well, it happens all the
time, and we don't think of it
as that.
If you bought book on Amazon,
they may suggest books.
If you download movies or get
them through the mail through
Netflix, they make suggestions
all the time based upon your
prior behavior.
You know, we're creatures of
habit in that we're likely to
repeat a past activity which has
given us pleasure rather than
experimenting and trying
something new and taking a
chance with the new because, you
know, we're somewhat insecure.
>> HINOJOSA: So, there's
something about you that a lot
of people don't know, that...
which is intriguing, that you
are married to Lani Guinier.
She was nominated by President
Clinton...
>> BOWIE: She was nominated, at least
initially, for an appointment as
Assistant Attorney General for
Civil Rights.
>> HINOJOSA: And then something
happened.
And you were living that behind
the scenes, and I'm sure that
must have been a really...
you know, as somebody like you
who studies the media and the
use of media and images,
what did you take away from what
happened with your family, with
Lani Guinier, in that year?
>> BOWIE: Well, she was denied the
opportunity to even, um, present
who she was to the larger
public, to defend her positions
and her writings before Congress
and let them decide, since they
actually had the authority in
terms of advice and consent.
And largely, I think it was a
consequence of, uh, President
Clinton not willing to fight the
good fight for, um, principles
as well as a friend.
And that, um... he was under
assault at the time, he had
just, uh... he was, uh, being
pushed back with his own
initiatives in terms of
health care and gays in the
military at the time, so a lot
of it, I think, had to do with
unfortunate timing.
>> HINOJOSA: Well, what was that
like to essentially realize
that, you know, here are these
ideas, and essentially in our
country...
>> BOWIE: Well, good ideas don't
always...
>> HINOJOSA: Freedom of speech
and essentially...
>> BOWIE: ... have the opportunity to
be heard.
What it showed me is that even
someone who is very bright, who
is articulate, who is ready...
we have no rights to access
media, ultimately, unless
through ownership or the grant
of an exclusive monopoly license
from the government.
So in other words, um, access...
effective access is very limited
to wealth, and increasingly so,
which has a negative impact on
the quality and type of
democracy that we have or can
have.
>> HINOJOSA: So what is the
takeaway that we... those of us
who remember what happened when
Lani Guinier was there, what is
the takeaway?
What did you take away
as an academic, as an
African-American academic, um,
seeing this happening within
your own family?
What do we need to learn
from that?
>> BOWIE: Well, you have to work with
what you have, and you have to
explore other avenues and
opportunities to reach your
goal.
Her goal was basically to have a
voice so that she could
articulate to a broader American
public what the issues were
involving discrimination and to
suggest different sets of legal
remedies and political remedies.
And that negative publicity,
particularly that appeared in
the Wall Street Journal and then
followed by other media, saying
that she had strange hair, that
she was anti...
>> HINOJOSA: Oh my god.
>> BOWIE: Well, I mean, you know...
>> HINOJOSA: They actually said
those things?
>> BOWIE: Well, they did, but, you
know, she was strong enough to
sort of brush that off and move
on.
What she found was that the
amount of publicity, even though
it was negative, opened up
opportunities.
People wanted to find out who
she really was.
So she ultimately wound up on
the lecture circuit.
That particular incident
probably made her a more... even
attractive to, uh, Harvard Law
School, where she became the
first African-American woman who
was tenured at the Law School.
And it also, I think, had
something to do, in the long
run, with me getting to the
Kennedy School.
So it wound up being
serendipitous.
>> HINOJOSA: So...
But I guess, you know, again, as
high profile African-American
academics, um... you know, and
sure, now we have a president
who is African-American, but...
but we are far from being that
advanced, inclusive country that
I guess many of us still imagine
that we are.
I mean, you are highly critical
of the state of things in the
United States of America, not
only in terms of media and
access to media, but in terms of
race relations, too.
>> BOWIE: Yes, well, there's good
reason to be so, and I think,
also, every nation needs its
critics.
If everyone were to sing to the
choir, that would not be
democracy and there would be no
push for any kind of
improvement.
You can't be satisfied with
mediocrity or a compromise of
core values.
In terms of opportunities for
meaningful social and political
reform, I think it's much more
difficult now than before Obama
was elected president, and it's
not just his fault or his
administration's fault.
It has a lot to do with
corruption in terms of economic
policy, of corporate
criminality, I think.
The politicized U.S. Supreme
Court, particularly with the
negative impact of its decision
in Citizens United v. the
Federal Election Commission,
which has wide implications in
terms of... I see it as
undermining democracy and
promoting plutocracy, where
wealth ultimately determines
political outcomes.
>> HINOJOSA: Well, you know,
I think that one of the things
that you've done in this
extraordinary curriculum of your
life, which is really quite
amazing, but again, I was really
fascinated with you serving as
an Assistant Special Prosecutor
for the Watergate Special
Prosecution Force.
I mean, you were, at that point,
living in a moment in our
country's history when... talk
about corruption, it could not
have been clearer, and at the
highest level.
And I guess, you know, having
served there, having been
through that, and then where we
are now in these modern United
States of America.
So, progress?
Or entrenched divisions that are
so deep and so profound and so
entrenched in terms of money and
elites and all that, that we're
all, you know, we're all kind of
victims here?
>> BOWIE: Well, we're only victims if
we allow ourselves to be.
Ultimately, in order to overcome
the negative effects and impact
of organized money, whether it's
corrupt or otherwise, is by
organizing people.
>> HINOJOSA: And that doesn't
mean organizing people on
Twitter or on Facebook?
You're talking about organizing
people to actually go to the
street, to be physical?
>> BOWIE: In some ways, yes.
Traditional grassroots type of
organizing, you know, the kind
that took place in, say,
Wisconsin, the kind that's
taking place, uh, without the
violence, in the Middle East,
which is sort of a spontaneous
kind of people's democracy.
Maybe we need that here, also,
in this country, to protect our
core values, which we think are
essential.
I'm a beneficiary of the
National Defense Education Act,
which helped me to get through
college.
That law was a consequence of
Congress' fear of the success of
the Soviet Union's launch of
Sputnik.
Now, President Obama has said
that we're again in a Sputnik
moment, that we need to react
the way that Congress did and
think about where we headed
and what the nature of our
society is and what the real
threats are.
For example, the National
Defense Education Act, I think,
needs to be updated today with
something like a National
Defense Education Information
and Knowledge Act, something
that would provide subsidies to
get more graduates of colleges
and universities among ordinary
people who are quite capable of
succeeding in a knowledge-based
global economy, because if we
don't have a work force that's
productive and creative, it's
going to have, and is having, a
negative impact in terms of our
security.
>> HINOJOSA: So what is it that
you want people to do, Professor
Bowie?
>> BOWIE: Well, know what you're
consuming and why.
Try to use it to empower not
only yourself and your
communities.
I was an advisor to the Knight
Commission that studied the
types of content needed in order
to enable and empower a
democracy, and it was not, uh,
Netflix and movies and other
kinds of distractions.
It was the kind of information
that included what's happening
at city hall, what's happening
at the state legislature, what's
happening with the federal
government in terms of services.
We have an opportunity now,
because Congress had mandated
that the FCC develop a national
broadband plan, and the United
States is one of the few
advanced countries still without
a national broadband plan...
>> HINOJOSA: Hard to believe.
>> BOWIE: ... to develop a, uh,
infrastructure for the 21st
century.
However, that was not done.
Most of the Commission's plan
looked only for ten years that
everyone would have a, um, ten
megabytes per second in terms of
access, and they would call that
high-speed broadband.
Whereas now, if you look at the
kind of access available in
South Korea, Hong Kong, and even
Kansas City, upcoming, as a
consequence of a gift from
Google, they have one gigabyte
per second access.
We should be looking for an
infrastructure that covers the
whole nation, one that is... has
the term in it: ubiquitous.
One that has a timeframe and
goals and time tables so that we
can measure the progress, that,
if we don't meet the timetable,
then government will declare a
market failure and become the
service provider of last resort.
>> HINOJOSA: So for people who
are interested in this, who want
to be engaged, what do you want
them to do, Professor?
What it is... you know, what
should they do?
Should they be online?
Should they be going to the
library?
Should they be working with
literacy in our country?
You know, regular citizens who
are consuming this media... what
is the message that you want to
leave them with in terms of
their engagement and what they
should do?
>> BOWIE: Well, I want them to become
informed, first of all, and that
means they're going to have to
start reading.
Now, they can read online.
I do a lot of my reading online.
Or they can go to the libraries.
I would hope they would go to
the libraries in order to create
greater and greater demand so
the libraries can be saved and
be protected into the future,
even with new services.
Already, there are sort of
community centers for single
parents, primarily working
mothers, for the kids to go to
after they get out of school.
They have to... what democracy
is about is a, uh, conversation,
an ongoing conversation among
neighbors and ordinary people
engaged in discussing common
problems, seeking common
solutions.
I think that they ought to
practice democracy, and not just
once every four years or once
every two years during
elections.
>> HINOJOSA: All right, well,
Professor, thank you for sharing
those thoughts and for
practicing democracy right here.
We appreciate it.
Thank you, Professor Nolan
Bowie, for joining us.
>> BOWIE: Yeah, thank you very much.
>> HINOJOSA: Continue the
conversation at
WGBH.org/oneonone.
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