Papers

Media Democracy Day Educational Resource (PDF - 42 KB)

A version of this two sheet media democracy primer was sent to all high schools in the Toronto district. It gives a short summary of what media democracy is, provides numerous activities teachers can assign their class and also includes a few suggested links. - Created as part of the Media Democracy Day campaign.

Media Democracy Classroom Activity Plan

This long term activity description is designed to demonstrate two different models for a media system: democratic and competitive. In the competitive part, students play out the different roles in modern media to learn how the system leads to certian negative tendencies. The democratic part shows how people can work together to create cooperative media of higher value. - Created as part of the Media Democracy Day campaign.

Jason Diceman's Consensus Decision-Making Booklet (PDF - 646 KB)

An extensive collection of suggestions for improving the consensus decision-making process within a group. It includes many useful diagrams, procedures and lists. -- This paper is hosted on Communicationism.org

The Defining of Communicationism: The Practice of Media Design for Self-Determination (PDF - 682 KB)

My first attempt to fully define the growing movement of people who take an active role in designing the media systems they use. A progressive communication technology manifesto of sorts. -- This paper is the basis of Communicationism.org

Objective History and Emancipation through Surveillance

With our new abilities to record history in greater detail, breadth and accuracy, and our ability to browse, sort and review such records, our history will become more objective, and more justice will be served.

Education Instead of Persuasion: A New Strategy for Improving the Ethics of Marketing (PDF)

A much longer and more complete discussion on how advertising and PR should be outlawed and replaced with a system of consumer reports. -- This paper is the basis of GOODSandSERVICES.org

Ideal Public Discourse Technology (PDF - 913 KB) NOTE: 150 pages

My undergrad thesis on critiquing and designing mass communication technology. This book lays a lot of ground for most of my communicationism work. It is also the first formal introduction of the "Common-Forum".

A very dense two-page summary PDF is also available.

TV’s Failure as a Medium for Democracy

This paper describes how the nature of television and its current sustaining structure make it incapable of supporting a true democratic society.

Education Instead of Persuasion: A New Strategy for Improving the Ethics of Marketing

In this paper I prove that marketing promotions are harmful to individuals, society and the planet, explain how marketing promotions are unnecessary, and present a new model for commerce based on consumer education and fair competition of product, service and ethics. (Includes some graphic charts and examples)

Why Privatization of Education is Damaging to a Democratic and Progressive Society

I wrote this as a contribution to the student campaign against the privatization of Post-Secondary Education in Canada.

Unethical Advertising

The Practice of North American Advertising to Children in Relation to International Advertising Policy

Suggestions for improving communication between social academics and computer scientists.

A short paper explaining techniques for improving communication and cooperation between parties with different established ways of thinking.

Suggestions for Contextual Forums - Draft Proposal

An overview of a new model for general online discussion forums that improve content context and searching techniques.

Suggestions for effective Forum Design

A basic collection of suggestions for designing online forums with the user goals of: discussion, debate, resource acquisition, question answering, trade and publication

The Need for a New Approach to On-line Advertising

Why online advertisers should follow a Standard of Integrity.

The Future of Audio Communication

This paper analyzes the characteristics of audio, the traditional use of audio communication, and the new potential of electronic audio.