Slow Media
Discussion
“Slow media takes the speed out of information, news, and political communication by reducing the amount of information and communication flows. Users engage more deeply with each other and with content. Slow media does not distract users with advertisements, it is not based on user surveillance, and it is not undertaken to yield profit. It is not simply a different form of media consumption, but an alternative way of organising and doing media – a space for reflection and rational political debate. (Fuchs, 2021: 363) Slow media and slow political communication are not new. Club 2 in Austria and After Dark in the UK are prototypical examples. The journalists Kuno Knöbl and Franz Kreuzer designed the Club 2 concept for the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF). It was a discussion programme that was usually broadcast on Tuesday and Thursday. The first programme was broadcast on 5 October 1976, the last on 28 February 1995. 1,400 programmes were broadcast on ORF (Der Standard, 2001). Club 2 had a new edition that was broadcast from 2007 to 2012. However, a different concept was used that did not adhere to the original principles.
In the UK, the media production company Open Media created a similar format based on Club 2 under the name After Dark. After Dark was broadcast once a week on Channel 4 between 1987 and 1991 and occasionally thereafter. In 2003, After Dark was shown for a short time on BBC.
The producer of After Dark, Sebastian Cody, describes the Club 2/After Dark concept as follows:
- Namely, the number of participants in these intimate debates (always conducted in agreeable surroundings and without an audience) was never less than four, never more than eight (like, as it happens, group therapy); the discussion should be hosted by a non-expert, whose job rotates, thus eliminating the cult of personality otherwise attaching to presenters; the participants should be a diverse assortment, all directly involved in the subject under discussion that week; and, most importantly, the programme was to be transmitted live and be open-ended. The conversation finishes when the guests decide, not when TV people make them stop. (Cody, 2008)
The concept of Club 2 sounds rather unusual to many people today, as we are so used to formats with short duration, high speed and the lack of time in the media and our daily lives. Open, uncensored, controversial, live discussions that appeal to the viewer and the audience are different from accelerated media in terms of space and time: Club 2 was a public space where guests met and discussed with each other in an atmosphere that offered unlimited time, which was experienced publicly and during which a socially important topic was discussed. Club 2 was a democratic public space in public broadcasting.
Space and time are two important dimensions of the public political economy. However, a social space that offers enough time for discussion is not yet a guarantee for a committed, critical, and dialectical discussion that transcends one-dimensionality, penetrates into the depths of a topic and highlights the similarities and differences of different positions. Public space and time must be organised and managed in an intelligent way, so that the right people participate, the atmosphere is appropriate, the right discussion questions are asked, and it is ensured that all guests have their say, listen to each other, and that the discussion can proceed undisturbed, etc. Unlimited space, a dialectically controversial and intellectually challenging space, and intelligent organisation are three important aspects of publicity. These are preconditions of slow media, non-commercial media, decolonised media, and media of public interest.
We need slow media. Online and offline. Let us decelerate the media and create slow media 2.0. Is a new version of Club 2 (Club 2.0) as part of the digital public sphere possible today?
Club 2.0 is an example of a public service Internet platform that helps advancing democratic communication and the digital public sphere. In Club 2.0, the traditional principles of Club 2 are practised and updated (see Figure 1). There is a controversial live studio debate without time limit. It is broadcast on television and also on a public service video platform, a public service version of YouTube. Social media enable user-generated content and online debate. An updated version of Club 2 should make use of the affordances of digital media: in Club 2.0, users can upload discussion inputs and discussed in text- and video-based formats on the public service YouTube channel that accompanies the Club 2.0 television broadcasts. At certain points of time of the TV debate, single user-generated video discussion inputs are selected and broadcast as part of the television discussion so that they inform the studio debate.”