Ged Carroll

Category: media | 媒體 | 미디어 | メディア

It makes sense to start this category with warning. Marshall McLuhan was most famous for his insight – The medium is the message: it isn’t just the content of a media which matters, but the medium itself which most meaningfully changes the ways humans operate.

But McLuhan wasn’t an advocate of it, he saw dangers beneath the surface as this quote from his participation in the 1976 Canadian Forum shows.

“The violence that all electric media inflict in their users is that they are instantly invaded and deprived of their physical bodies and are merged in a network of extensions of their own nervous systems. As if this were not sufficient violence or invasion of individual rights, the elimination of the physical bodies of the electric media users also deprives them of the means of relating the program experience of their private, individual selves, even as instant involvement suppresses private identity. The loss of individual and personal meaning via the electronic media ensures a corresponding and reciprocal violence from those so deprived of their identities; for violence, whether spiritual or physical, is a quest for identity and the meaningful. The less identity, the more violence.”

McLuhan was concerned with the mass media, in particular the effect of television on society. Yet the content is atemporal. I am sure the warning would have fitted in with rock and roll singles during the 1950s or social media platforms today.

I am concerned not only changes in platforms and consumer behaviour but the interaction of those platforms with societal structures.

  • TSMC analysis + more news

    TSMC analysis by DigiTimes

    Taiwanese technology industry publication DigiTimes has some some great ‘state of the industry’ analysis pieces. They have placed Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. aka TSMC at the centre of this.

    TSMC dossier (4): Technology contention among world-class leaders | DigiTimes – size of process is only part of the story. Interesting data on how TSMC, Samsung and Intel compare in terms of node transistor density by wafer foundry

    TSMC dossier (6): Possible ways to defeat the world’s top foundry house – TSMC’s concern is not getting surpassed in process technology or losing key customers but being overtaken by someone figuring out how to combine quantum technology and IC design. In-memory computing becoming a reality might be another scenario where TSMC could lose its competitive edge. However, according to Yu-Chung Lin, a DIGITIMES consultant devoted to the study of quantum technology application trends for years, large-scale commercialization of quantum technology is unlikely to happen before 2025. In-memory computing comes with high costs. If Samsung with leading-edge memory technologies really makes a breakthrough, TSMC will have to brace for challenges

    China

    The EU’s unsustainable China strategy | Chatham House – International Affairs Think Tank – really good read from Chatham House

    DiDi’s Troubles, Tweets of the Week (Corruption, Waluigi+Mao, Fish Hugging, Which Chinese Ministry Works the Hardest?) – by Jordan Schneider – ChinaTalk – interesting commentary on China’s regulatory environment, not so great news for western investors

    Consumer behaviour

    Mediatel: Mediatel News: Attention Revolution: a new column by Professor Karen Nelson-Field

    Recommitting to Trust | Edelman 

    Economics

    The Economic Fundamentals of Chinese Communism’s Successes and Failures by Nancy Qian – Project Syndicate 

    Germany

    China-Konzern will deutsche Gaming-Firma kaufen: Wegen Kriegs-Simulationssoftware? – Politik Ausland – Bild.de – Tencent is planning to take over the German game developer Crytek – but Bild reports they hope to use the “CryEngine” developed by Crytek to produce war simulation programs for the Chinese army

    Hong Kong

    Fall of Hong Kong’s opposition camp: mass arrests in era of protests and national security law – really nice visualisation showing the 173 activists including 108 district councillors have been arrested since 2019

    Leung Kin-fai and the question of condemning violence – by Kevin Carrico – so much in this essay to unpack

    Hong Kong’s national security trial debates Malcolm X’s legacy — Quartz – Leung argued that forceful and peaceful resistance can play complementary roles in a social movement, invoking Martin Luther King and Malcolm X as representing the two different styles of resistance in the US civil rights movement. In that 2016 interview, Leung also advocated for protesters to use a level of force that’s equal to that of the police. It’s an idea that evokes another line in Malcolm X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech: “I’m non-violent with those who are non-violent with me.” – so the Hong Kong government is not only oppressing its own people but suggesting that African Americans should have been jailed as national security risks?

    Ireland

    Irish language introduces new term for people of color | IrishCentral

    Legal

    Translation: Cybersecurity Review Measures (Revised, Draft for Comment) – July 2021 | DigiChina

    Luxury

    Defying conventions, Chinese millennials turn to watches | Vogue Business – “There are lots of common points among women who are enthusiastic about watches, including financial and intellectual independence, and having a refined attitude towards shopping luxury goods,”

    Luxury is culture now. Here’s how | Vogue Business – Vetements has teased a rebrand as a platform for young talent. Gucci spotlighted 15 emerging brands including Collina Strada and Bianca Saunders at November’s GucciFest film festival. Saint Laurent recently teamed up with Bang & Olufsen, Baccarat and JL Coquet on a lifestyle product series. Luxury brands no longer sell just their brand. In a new era of consumer expectation for shared values, brands are curating platforms to function as tastemakers to extend their own brand halo into the wider cultural world

    Marketing

    Dunkin’ drives audio ad results by matching background music to listeners’ tastes | Marketing Dive – this did make me wonder about brand. In particular the role of audio branding and about the role of jingles in culture.

    Splash and Dash; Ford Fragrance Shows Petrol Fans They Won’t Miss out with Mustang Mach-E GT | Ford of Europe | Ford Media Center – as a non-driver I miss the ritual of going to the petrol station and filling the tank. As a kid I loved accompanying my Dad to do it.

    Till Jagla adidas Collab King Exclusive Interview: Why He Left – “Now Energy is a new hype creation unit that really puts storytelling at the heart of everything we do,” says Jagla. “It was literally starting a brand within a brand. It was all the bad and ugly of the startup brands.”

    Media

    Cannes Film Festival, Risking China’s Ire, to Screen Hong Kong Protest Documentary – WSJ – Hollywood has been trying to court China. This feels like they’ve given up the ghost on this.

    GB News in crisis as exec quits and presenter is pulled for ‘taking the knee’ | The Guardian – GB News – set up on the basis that free and open debate is no longer possible in the mainstream media due to an all-pervasive “cancel culture”, was overwhelmed with complaints that after only a few weeks on air it had gone “woke” and its content was not sufficiently rightwing.

    Online

    How Vietnam’s ‘influencer’ army wages information warfare on Facebook | Reuters

    Financial services advertisers in the UK must meet Google verification requirements by August 2021 – how on earth will YouTube survive? Unless Google sets the bar really low, or those ‘forex training courses’ count as education. But then, that’s how OneCoin managed to get around their problems as well. This might not be the panacea that Google would want it to be seen as.

    Pluralistic: 15 Jul 2021 – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow – interesting thread on how Facebook has disbursed its Crowdtangle analytics team. The reality is that social monitoring tools have been going dark for years. Most of them disproportionately rely on Twitter. Twitter has an outsized importance for its audience size due to it being favoured by journalists. Doctorow’s post however looks specifically at these Facebook moves

    Security

    We Got the Phone the FBI Secretly Sold to Criminals | Vice 

    Philippines calls claim China influenced 2016 election to favour Duterte ‘nonsense’ | South China Morning Post – Former foreign secretary Albert del Rosario made the claim at a forum on Monday, citing a ‘most reliable international entity’. He said senior Chinese officials were ‘bragging that they had been able to influence the 2016 Philippine elections so that Duterte would be president’ – I wouldn’t be surprised if China did try to influence the election result. However I am surprised that Chinese officials would be so indiscreet. The risks of that getting back to Beijing are too great, unless they wanted to be found out

    Threat to UK from hostile states could be as bad as terrorism, says MI5 chief | The Guardian – while the threat from Russia, as demonstrated by the poisoning of the Skripals in Salisbury, is familiar to the British public – the spy chief will argue that threats that typically come from China are not. McCallum will say that universities and researchers risk “having their discoveries stolen or copied” if they are not vigilant and that businesses could be “hollowed out by the loss of advantage they’ve worked painstakingly to build”.

    Technology

    Russia to Build 8-Core RISC-V CPUs for Laptops, Government Systems – ExtremeTech

  • WeChatlization

    WeChatlization is a term that I heard from Xinhua News journalist Wang Zichen. He shared the term on a stream of tweets that I have compiled into a quote below.

    If nobody has said this before, I am gonna coin the term WeChatlization: a growing number of Chinese public discourse is increasingly going – firstly if not exclusively – to the WeChat part of the Internet, at the cost of the traditional Google/Baidu searchable World Wide Web.

    The numerous and increasing amount of 微信公众号, called by WeChat itself as WeChat “Official Accounts” but in fact WeChat blogs, are gradually eroding the territory of traditional dotcom Internet sites.

    WeChat blogs are effectively not searchable via traditional search engines like Google or Baidu. So for the purpose of getting information, one gotta adapt to the change.

    Example No.1: the World Peace Forum starting today at Tsinghua University in Beijing doesn’t appear to have an updated dotcom, dotedu, or whatever site, but you will find the list of speakers at their WeChat blog

    Wang Zichen via Twitter.

    WeChatlization poses a number of challenges to the rest of the world and the open web. It makes information harder to find than the open web. It cripples opportunities for other Chinese information startups. Its not healthy, but then neither is Meta. Which brings us to our next point WeChatlization isn’t a new phenomenon. Prior to the open web taking hold there were closed communities on CompuServe, Prodigy and even AOL. For the duration of Yahoo! Messenger, there was a vibrant community underpinning the brokerage of oil to fuel ships.

    Outside of China you see media and communities that only exist, or publish first on Facebook. This is particularly true for lifestyle as well as current affairs based communities. Both of which are just as opaque to search engines as WeChat. Like WeChat, Facebook’s internal search mechanism leaves a lot to be desired.

    Prior to that there was a similar phenomenon with MySpace and Friendster. For many years after its peak in popularity, MySpace still hosted a vibrant community of HR professionals attached to the CIPD.

    You seem a similar phenomenon in AltspaceVR, a Microsoft owned VR social network that has hosted in-platform only business conferences. You have had similar kinds of happenings in games like Fortnite and both American electioneering and Hong Kong political protests happened virtually in Animal Crossing.

    All of this puts the communities under the arbitrary rules of the platform owner, be it the constraints that support an authoritarian government or a rapacious online advertising model. The ethics challenge the perception of open communications that these platforms allege to promise each other. More related content here.

  • Handset industry of South Korea + more

    South Korea’s handset industry

    South Korea’s handset industry is leading indicator of supply chain shift – Samsung has chosen to place two thirds of its global production capacity at 360 million phones near Hanoi, Vietnam and one third in Noida, India. At the same time, a group of American brands led by Apple have asked their Taiwan-based OEMs to set up production facilities in India. Taiwan’s three largest manufacturers Wistron, Pegatron and Foxconn all have production lines up and running in India. Before this, Taiwan-based notebook computer manufacturers had already moved their production to major ASEAN countries. It is a definite trend that manufacturers are relocating part of their production out of China into ASEAN countries and South Asia – Apple can learn a lot from South Korea’s handset industry. Apple’s approach to its supply chain compared to the handset industry looks risky. It is betting on Chinese behaviour that seems to run counter to Xi Jingping-era China. More on handset industry related content here.

    China

    Ketamine and the Return of the Party-State | Palladium Magazine – as China gets richer and its factional lines get drawn across social battles instead of economic ones, we can expect rhetoric about moral regeneration to become more potent. The party’s turn towards encouraging family and child-rearing might well be the first sign of things to come. When all your political capital has been invested in the narrative of national rejuvenation, there’s no easy way out when the low-hanging fruits of the market start to run low

    Former Chinese Party Insider Calls U.S. Hopes of Engagement ‘Naive’ – WSJ – “Wishful thinking about ‘engagement’ must be replaced by hardheaded defensive measures to protect the United States from the CCP’s aggression—while bringing offensive pressures to bear on it, as the Chinese Communist Party is much more fragile than Americans assume,” Ms. Cai wrote. Her 28-page paper is slated for publication this week by the Hoover Institution, a conservative-leaning think tank at Stanford University. A growing roster of Western politicians and analysts has concluded that U.S. diplomacy with China hasn’t paid dividends. But such views are rarely expressed publicly by sources as highly placed as Ms. Cai was just a short time ago. – Pretty reasonable assessment with plenty of empirical evidence to support it

    Fawning and complacent, the West has eased China’s path to power | The Sunday Times – while the statement is true, it also shows how much the tone has changed towards China

    Finance

    Brazil and China in talks to strengthen science and technology ties | ZDNet – China calls for financing to bring plans to reality…..

    France

    France probes fashion retailers for concealing ‘crimes against humanity’ in Xinjiang | Reuters – source told Reuters Uniqlo France, a unit of Japan’s Fast Retailing, Zara owner Inditex, France’s SMCP and Skechers were the subject of the investigation

    Hong Kong

    How Beijing humbled Britain’s mighty HSBC | Reuters – The decision by Baowu to blackball HSBC is part of a clampdown on the global London-based bank by many of China’s gargantuan state-owned enterprises – a campaign described to Reuters in interviews with HSBC bankers, and employees at state companies who have first-hand knowledge of their operations. Controlled by China’s ruling Communist Party, these companies manage the nation’s largest industrial projects and are responsible for $9.8 trillion of revenue annually. The reason for the pullback by state firms isn’t HSBC’s financial soundness, which isn’t in question, but rather Chinese politics. People inside the state enterprises and HSBC say Beijing has grown disenchanted with the bank over sensitive domestic and international legal and political issues, from China’s crackdown in Hong Kong to the U.S. indictment of an executive at Chinese national tech champion Huawei Technologies – this makes HSBC’s pivot to China look foolish

    ‘Unstoppable storm’: rights take back seat under Hong Kong security law | Yahoo! News – from the journalist’s Twitter thread when she shared the article and additional material that didn’t make the cut: “Judges hope to be given more trust and discretion. Prosecution wants more power. What can defense do? …I’m not as naive to believe they won’t come after lawyers. Losing license is the minimum charge.”

    Luxury

    Streetwear Has a Homophobia Problem | Highsnobiety – where to start with this? I think that some of the homophobia is down to in-out group dynamics. Gays have been in the streetwear industry for a long time. Bomber jackets as a streetwear item came from creatives like Judy Blame and the Buffalo Collective

    Media

    America’s New Post-Literate Epistemology | Palladium Magazine – McLuhan believed that the West was due for a period of “re-tribalization,” but by “tribal” he meant much more than the commonly understood definition. Yes, there would be polarization: people would by and large become less civil, less rational, touchier, and more defensive about the smallest things. This much, we already know and see every day. But McLuhan went even further in his use of the term, arguing that electronic media—more so than any political ideology—shifts the sensorial basis of Western society away from the visual, the literate, and the abstract and toward the oral, the tactile, and the tribal. In other words, he saw re-tribalization as a process that will eventually return modern man to the mental and epistemic world of his pre-literate tribal ancestors: the “global village.” Over the long run, this can be quite benign, even sublime: in 1969, McLuhan imagined its endpoint as a society of “mythic integration” where “magic will live again.” Speaking in lofty millenarian terms, he predicted technology would merge humanity “into an inclusive consciousness…a new interpretation of the mystical body of Christ…the ultimate extension of man.”

    ‘Crypto Keepers’ NFT-Backed Drama Series Hatched by AMM Global – Variety – the production company spun out of Hong Kong’s Asia Television – a former free to air TV station

    Facebook, Twitter, Google Threaten to Quit Hong Kong Over Proposed Data Laws – WSJ – the problem is that the online platforms don’t put teeth behind it. Like taking unilateral action against Chinese advertisers and Chinese media. Lets assume that Facebook, Twitter and Google would have to leave Chinese territories. They can then squeeze China two ways:

    1. China’s small factories rely increasingly on direct to consumer sales through Facebook and Instagram advertising. As does product aggregators like Wish.com and Shein. Squeezing them out of advertising would send 10,000s of Chinese employees out of work
    2. Shutting out China’s SOEs (Air China etc) and Chinese media accounts would severely cripple China’s external united work front efforts to influence the global market

    Vietnam

    Vietnam to phase out 2G, 3G serivces starting 2022 – Vietnam’s Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) has decided to start phasing out 2G and 3G technologies within the country in 2022 in a bid to encourage people to use smartphones and promote digital society.

  • White Motorcycle & other things this week

    White Motorcycle Concepts WMC250EV

    I have watched this video by White Motorcycle Concepts a few times and still don’t quite get it. White Motorcycle have hollowed out the centre of their motorcycle, to allow air flow through the middle of the bike rather than cutting the air cleanly. The little that I have seen make it hard to discern the effect of Bernoulli’s principle on the shape of the White Motorcycle.

    Tenacious D channel the Beatles

    Tenacious D are better known for their homage pieces to metal bands. For a charity single donating to Doctors Without Borders – they try and channel The Beatles. Its hard as The Beatles had so many sounds that they changed abruptly and crashed into each other.

    I think they did pretty well.

    Stories, players and games

    Nigel Scott has put together an interesting set of ideas on business and marketing. There’s some bits I’d disagree with (are Google, Facebook et al really changing the game, or just costing marketers more?). Really worthwhile going through it all here.

    Akira behind the scenes

    This brief look behind the scenes looks like an excerpt from a longer programme. But it gives an idea into the work which went into making the animated film Akira. The precision and level of detail is mind boggling.

    Gimme 5 mixes

    Gimme 5, the label of long time streetwear distributor Michael Kopelman have a library of good mixes up on Soundcloud and I have been listening to their back catalogue. They’re worthwhile listening to for their eclectic mix of material.

    #MyAppleDaily art project

    Chinese artist Badiucao is publishing a blank template of the paper’s front page for each day that the Apple Daily isn’t published. The idea is to encourage people to publish their own front page instead.

    More from Badiucao here.

    my apple daily introduction

  • Apple Daily & other things this week

    Apple Daily

    Hong Kong newspaper Apple Daily closed down. It closed under government pressure. If we’re honest about it, it had been under government pressure for years. Advertisers were reluctant to be in the paper for years, partly due to government sentiment. Despite being Hong Kong’s most popular paper, it was running on loans that Jimmy Lai gave it.

    Apple Daily
    Final print edition of the Apple Daily published in Hong Kong

    It’s end came with a series of cuts. Jimmy Lai has had his assets frozen as part of the national security law related investigation. The Hong Kong government extended these charges to further senior employees of the Apple Daily. Then the Hong Kong government froze the bank accounts of Apple Daily and the related companies.

    The business had 67 million US dollars; so could have kept going for another 18 months until that freeze kicked in. As it was, the last paper would have come out on Saturday. On Wednesday the lead writer was arrested and the board decided to publish its last paper on Thursday. They printed 1,000,000 copies of the final edition which sold out. On previous days they had printed 500,000 to mark the asset freeze as Hong Kongers came out to support them. Back in the late 90s the paper was around 300,000 copies a day. The typical print run was 150,000 copies a day. The paper had about 500,000 paid subscribers. I was one of them. Yes their English copy was almost sub-Guardian standard (but with less typos of course). But their English language news has stories about Hong Kong business and China that other English language outlets didn’t cover.

    The security secretary John Lee warned people not to associate with Apple Daily employees, creating a white terror style scenario.

    A lot of the commentary from people who should know better has been about the Apple Daily‘s tabloid nature. Apple Daily was Hong Kong’s most popular paper for a number of reasons

    But they conveniently ignore Apple Daily‘s pioneering work in internet video journalism. Its investigative journalism and an editorial stance that called government to account. Stories last year included expat police officers breaking planning and property laws. But the Communist Party of China doesn’t want to be examined, let alone held to account.

    Hong Kong writer Sum Lok kei summed it up really well with this post that he put on Twitter

    Yes, ppl are aware of Apple Daily’s failings, their paparazzi arm and all. What is being mourned isn’t exactly the paper, but the possibility of its existence in this city that had prided itself for its witty discretions – now replaced by a monotonic, absolute drone.

    Via @sumlokkei on Twitter

    The Hong Kong government has been very opaque about the kind of journalism that is allowed. It is arbitrary and designed to promote severe self censorship.

    Apple Daily the night after it closed down
    images of the now closed Apple Daily fence with tributes from Hong Kongers via Guardians of Hong Kong Telegram channel
    Apple Daily the night after it closed down
    Apple Daily the night after it closed down

    It all hinges around the national security law:

    • Seccession includes acts ‘whether or not by force or threat of force’
    • Subversion or colluding with foreign countries are vague. So Apple Daily were accused with colluding with foreign countries without being in touch with them
    • The law isn’t supposed to be retroactive, yet Apple Daily content from before the July cut-off date is included in its alleged violations
    • China’s definitions of state interests are expansive
    • It is extra-territorial in nature. So this post that I have written could fall foul of inciting hatred of the Hong Kong and Chinese government. Despite the fact that this post is written and hosted outside Hong Kong. If I get shanghai-ed whilst transferring through an Asian airport you know what has likely happened

    But its just the media isn’t it? No.

    • if you’re a strategist in an advertising agency writing about consumer attitudes and touch on areas like what Hong Kong localism means for brands. This would affect how brands position themselves, I wrote similar positions for brands on Brexit supporters versus remain supporters. (Brexit supporters preferred local brands with nostalgia compared to remainers.) Or changes in attitudes to home ownership and buying homewares due to immigration. The kind of things that the government won’t like then you could be doing eight years to life in jail
    • If you write critical piece of analysis on bonds, Chinese or Hong Kong ‘well connected companies’ or forward-looking views on government policies. You could be doing eight years to life in jail
    • If you create a legal opinion on any of the above for a client. You could do eight years to life in jail
    • If you did a frank audit of a well connected company as part of the audit team of an accountancy firm. You could do eight years to life in jail
    • You do legitimate academic research in an area that the Chinese or Hong Kong governments and their hangers on don’t like. You could do eight years to life in jail

    All of this sounds like a bit of an exaggeration?

    While the world was looking on at trials of Apple Daily, major retailer Watsons withdrew special edition water bottles. The water bottles were designed with the slogan #Hong Kong is very beautiful. Presumably, they had originally been created to tap into Hong Kongers love of limited edition things celebrating their city and their love of hiking in oppressively hot weather.

    They were withdrawn due to perceived seccessionist overtones. Hong Kong is actually achingly beautiful with its futuristic skylines and natural environment. By comparison lot of the Chinese mainland is butt ugly like Hubei province or Beijing in winter.

    Bao Choy, a freelance producer who worked at RTHK was fined for ‘improper car plate searches’ carried out investigating Pro-Beijing forces inspired Triad violence at Yuen Long.

    A reporter at pro-Beijing paper Ta Kung Pao who accessed the same database, but was bound over instead.

    The Department of Justice said it agreed with the order, as Wong had a clean record and was working for the pro-Beijing newspaper when he made the licence plate searches.

    Ta Kung Pao reporter off the hook over car searches – RTHK.hk English news (June 17, 2021)

    Hong Kong brought in new film censorship rules banning documentaries on the protests and anything the government doesn’t like.

    The Hong Kong government is expanding its reach into accountancy diminishing the role of Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

    This would give Hong Kong increased insights into NGOs and political parties. Professional bodies in accountancy and law have been seen as a roadblock by the Chinese and Hong Kong governments. The movement against accountancy bodies is mirrored by moves against the legal profession. The latest move to make solicitors senior counsel turns the legal profession upside down.

    You are now restricted in accessing company registry data, making ownership structures opaque. This will provide boundless opportunity for corruption and fraud and Hong Kong becomes as opaque as mainland China.

    And in a news report from Hong Kong’s public service broadcaster RTHK:

    “If it’s a police state, why not? I don’t think there’s any problem with a police state. When we say a police state, I will view the other side, that is the emphasis on security,” 

    Pro-Beijing politician Alice Mak who is a affiliated with the Federation of Trade Unions quoted in Nothing wrong with HK being a police state: lawmaker – RTHK English news service.

    GPS for your feet

    Honda has been putting in thinking into pedestrian navigation that provides haptic direction instructions through your feet.

    More information from SoraNews24.

    Pride inspiration

    June is pride month and one of the best adverts that I have seen is by Pinterest. It has members of the LGBTQI community from around the world talking about sexuality and how they learned about themselves.