I have the good fortune to have a number of interesting clients who are often writing about bleeding edge topics, especially in the realms of digital media, marketing and communication.

Alan Moore, a mobile and engagement marketing expert is currently writing a new book, “No Straight Lines”. I’ve been privileged to have a read of one his drafts. There were a number of points he raised in his writing that I found very topical with regards to recent media stories.

“In Audience Atomization Overcome Rosen writes In the age of mass media, the press was able to define the sphere of legitimate debate with relative ease because the people on the receiving end were atomized connected “up” to Big Media but not across to each other. And now that authority is eroding.

This ability to connect, to go round, over, under and through what were for years barriers to information are the means by which we challenge the authority of mainstream media.”

But the push is on to stop this, as Opennet.net sets out to show by listing all of the available internet filtering techniques and which countries are currently using them. It would appear the trend is on the rise.

Australia is currently the test case, and all other “democratic” Western countries are watching with interest. Governments have a tendency to copy each others legislation, especially if one sets a precedent.

…election rigging? No, finding out about it.

The above CensorDyne advert from GetUp!, a non-partisan lobby group, was created with the intent that it would be aired where possible in Australia to try to get their message across to Australian legislators. One of the aims of the CensorDyne campaign was to have the advertisement aired on every Qantas flight. However this week Qantas refused to run the CensorDyne ad claiming they have a policy of not airing political material. However this response has been called into doubt as the airline has perviously air political satire. But most telling of all, David Epstein, a Qantas executive with close links to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has dismissed suggestions that he personally barred an anti-internet censorship advertisement from airing on flights to Canberra.

These same “democratic” governments who have long been critical of the likes of Chinese Net censorship, are the very same governments who are looking at the very same technology for their own use, and in some instances, purchasing that same technology (software).

It is true what you say. This new networked world is very empowering, and that is precisely what the “establishment” do not want – a very public forum of discussion, debate, criticism, parody and outing is not welcome.

And that establishment is the corporates who pull the strings of government.

“Funny that, and of course we had the whole ‘cash for questions’ issue in the UK, and then recently four Lords again using their influence, so it is claimed, to change legislation to the benefit of companies in exchange for large amounts of cash.”

What we face is similar to the great American land rush of the 1800’s. People streamed Westwards to claim their bit of turf, at the expense of those already there (digital natives) and set up their own little “utopias”, hence the Wild West. And indeed many times I have read the internet equated with this.

But it was not too long before “authority” and regulation caught up with everyone, and that being because big business interests moved in – Ranchers, Railroads, Mining.

Question is, will WE manage to establish some sort of Digital Constitution, or Bill of Rights to our own data before we are filtered or locked out?

Or rather the question is, will WE take the time to properly inform and educate ourselves about this technology that we use?

While perhaps we despise malware authors and others out to steal our bank account details, defraud us and cause general selfish havoc, and provide the “establishment” further excuses to lock the Net (mobile or static), these malicious persons are actually forcing people not to take their data for granted.

But there remains that question. Will people be lazy, and not take personal responsibility and run to the open arms of the “establishment” for protection from the internet nasties, or will make the effort to become better educated?

From time to time I visit Reuters.com to look at the latest news events in video. How sorely was disappointed and quickly annoyed with the advertising that they’ve appended to EACH news item video. It makes it an absolute horror to watch. It is even worse than prime time television news broadcasting. At least they only hit you once every 10 minutes or so.

So greedy have they become, the same adverts that run in the video are also displayed as static image adverts along the side of the page. The adverts aren’t even contextual. So you could be watching a story about the latest horrific bombing of civilians after your happy family chocolates advert. Hardly the sort of product placement I’d want for my brand or product.

Many of the large corporations seem to be at a loss as what to do with online video. The bandwidth and storage it consumes is costly. And so they are left scratching their heads as to how they can possibly turn a profit from it.

The must be long deafening silences in corporate think tanks until some bright spark comes up with the idea of let’s do it the old way because we don’t dare try anything new. Just ram it down people’s throats. Why we’re so big, the audience doesn’t have a choice.

Or do they? The coporations seem to be longing for the silver bullet fix to this nasty new media technology, that gives the consumer, god forbid, a choice. As I wrote in my previous post about Facebook overtaking MySpace, the quickening pace of innovation is threatening the very foundations of the business models that have dominated our modern media.

New upstart startups can quickly rocket ahead of lumbering Jurassic giants leaving them scrambling in the dust to catch up. This can be seen the make overs, widgets and other functionality features that MySpace quickly sticky taped on to their website.

And now there’s a new can of worms called mobile media. With expensive data transfer rates and limited screen space on hand held mobile devices, there will be even less tolerance from audiences for advertising bully boy tactics.

A growing thorn in the sides of these media moguls is the fact that the audience is no longer a dumb mute consumer. They have a voice and are willing to share their opinions and experiences amongst their social networks. Enabled by the immediacy of networked digital technology they can quickly inform each other of where better opportunities or offers are.

Oft of late have I read the of the media complaining of this citizen journalism, complaining how they are leeches that take their hard work and regurgitate it. These same voices fail to  then acknowledge the two way street where the “professional” journalists are now trawling social media networks for the latest events as they are proving more immediate than the standard news networks, as evidenced recently with the Twitter and Gaza and plane crashes.

Think it impossible for the status quo to be challenged? Ponder this. Neither Google or Facebook have been sold into established media hands. They both rose from backyard obscurity to being two of the most powerful companies on the internet. They could challenge establishment because of their willingness to innovate. Both have been shrewd enough not to opt for the easy path and attempt to force advertising on their users.

But the question often asked in the media circles today, is how and when will they turn a profit from their huge user bases? The answer to that lies with how innovative and useful they choose to be for the people who use their services and paying close attention to how they are used and giving people what they want or need.