Selling Off Cyberspace

Abstract

The eminently sensible notion of public space uncluttered by commercialism is now beleaguered on all fronts, and even the theories and political structures which underpinned the concepts of public service in broadcasting, public utilities (gas, water, electricity, telephones) and the provision by a benign state of a range of public services (education, libraries, health services) are discredited or marginalized. Almost daily we are confronted with startling new examples of the forward march of the market and the commercialization of areas of social and community activity previously untouched by its relentless drive. Take, for example, street furniture — the advert-bearing shelters, superloos, drinking fountains, newspaper sellers’ kiosks, litter bins and Parisian-style pillars constructed in our city streets — which a French company, J.C. Decaux, has now begun to exploit and dominate internationally. According to Nick Cohen (1999: 178), the benefits of signing such deals to citizens from councils, within whose territorial confines the bulk of these structures exist, are almost non-existent, but they have either seen the painless opportunity to make money through selling the advertising space to Decaux, or, where there has been reluctance, holidays and other hospitality to be lavished on city dignitaries to soften resistance. Whatever reason, the result is that public space becomes a hoarding.