The overriding ideological argument presented by the Kent Commission, a Canadian Royal Commission on Newspaper and other media concentration,  stems from a deep and unshakable belief in the freedom of the press. As stated in the Commission’s Report: “Freedom of the press is not a property right of [newspaper] owners. It is a right of the people,” (Kent Report). The Kent Commission positioned itself as vanguard of consumer, and citizen rights. However, legislative change was not forthcoming, primarily due to the election of Mulroney’s conservative government.

In retrospect, the value of the Kent Commission can be seen in the population’s latent attitudes towards media concentration. The free press movement has garnered significant support amongst media-conscious individuals, both in the U.S., and in Canada. In an interview with Adbusters magazine, Noam Chomsky spoke about the problems posed by George Bush’s administration in regards to free press and press reform. He said: “Unless you have organized public opinion, which can be mutually reinforcing and can help develop a critical understanding, everyone is going to be at a loss. It’s you against the Internet and you don’t know what to look for. These problems can’t be solved by technical means. They have to be solved by organizing an educated population” (Adbusters).

Chomsky places the onus on the public, to become organized and to, hopefully, stimulate some level of press reform.

Noam Chomsky has been the voice of dissent within America for several years; but there are other voices that are gathering not only in strength, but also in readership.

Caslon Analytics, an Australian website, tracked some of the hard data on blogging.

Amongst the results:

Blogcount estimates that there are between 2.4 million and 2.9 million active blogs in June 2003.

Technorati claims that it catalogued up to 11.7 million blogs in June 2005.

These numbers are revealing, but also, on some level, misleading. Generally, such statistics include what are called “spam blogs” and other such websites.

However, blogs are posing obvious challenges to traditional media outlets, especially since they often feature news or links to reliable sources alongside their opinion blogs. The appeal of the blogosphere lies predominantly in its interactivity.

The ability to interact with information has been steadily increasing; readers are becoming contributors and commentators instead of merely consumers of information.

Marshall McLuhan , in his 1966 lecture “The Medium is the Massage” said that:

“The strange dynamic or pattern of electric information is to involve the audience increasingly as part of the workforce instead of just tossing things to it as consumer or as entertainment…You do the work.”

The goals of blogging are often focused on consumer independence, in thought and expression. The blogger can, momentarily, disconnect themselves from the traditional media which has become synonymous with phrases such as “cross-channel convergence” and “concentrated ownership.”

Blogs, amongst other Web2.0 applications, have become an excellent example of consumers doing the work. While bloggers may be free from the restrictions of a heavily concentrated media landscape, an important question seems to emerge: are they writing in accordance with journalistic ethics?