The Case for a Comic Book Netflix

Intro

      The following is an idea that has been sitting with me awhile. Believe it or not, I think it is heavily related to sustainability; I'm answering the question of how the medium of comic books can survive the coming years, as currently publishing practices are fairly unsustainable. My answer? I think that there needs to be a Netflix for comic books. 'But wait,' the more astute of you counter. 'There already is one, so we don't need another.' I'll certainly agree that a site already exists for perusal of certain independent titles, but the whole form needs to go much farther, with both Marvel and DC bringing a majority if not the entirety of their past titles to an accessible digital form. The market that they've created is neither sustainable nor necessarily profitable, and the interests of all parties would be greatly benefited by the implementation of this market. 


Why?

      No one can easily deny that Marvel and DC are still incredibly profitable companies with extremely fervent fan-bases dedicated to consuming their work. 

      I think however that it might be fair to say that comic books are no longer the most important monetary focus for the two major publishers. Marvel and DC dropped 2% of their market share from 2012 to 2013, with a drop of over 7% since 2008 (Armitage). That isn't total profit (which would be expected given the financial crisis of 2008 onward), but rather their percentage of the total industry. For Marvel this is fairly bad; they dropped from a 40.9% share in 2008 to a 33.5% share in 2013. For DC, even though the trend is positive, it isn't good news either; they increased from 29.94% of the market in 2008 to 30.33% in 2013. Rather than stealing Marvel's market share, they were able to grab only a small fraction of what was presumably stolen by smaller publishing houses. Pairing this with stats from Comichron, a better profit trend can be seen; with increased estimated sales in 2013 to $780 million in the North American market, Marvel's profits dropped about as much as DC's rose (23 million to 28 million). That doesn't seem that bad for DC, but this isn't including inflation and increased comic prices; factoring in only the former, $57 million of the $85 million increase over those 5 years was purely due to inflation ($695 million in 2008 to $780 million in 2013 (inflation calculator)). Add in the new norm of 3.99 comics, and most of that price difference is just inflation in action. 

      Why is that? If other profit centers using the same characters are only increasing in value, why would comics not be increasing in popularity? After all, to quote Lang, 

"Marvel’s adaptations of its comic-books have been profitable for years, but following the $1.5 billion success of 2012’s “The Avengers,” their films have reached new heights. “Iron Man 3″ hit $1.2 billion, nearly doubling the previous film in the series; “Thor: The Dark World” reached $644.8 million, a 44% improvement on the first God of Thunder film; and “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” is finishing off with $713.2 million globally, a 92% hike from the patriotic warrior’s big screen debut."

      
       I think the answer has three main aspects, spelled out fairly neatly by one example. Final Crisis was one of DC comics' most ambitious events as of the past decade, combining nearly every single aspect of their mythology in a breathtaking story-line that redefined the very means of storytelling itself, simultaneously providing creator Grant Morrison the chance to metaphorically outline the failings of the industry. Not only was the story creative and nuanced, it had, in my opinion, the scope, breadth, and storytelling importance of classical mythology. 

      Unfortunately, to get to experience all of this, one would need to buy around 60 separate comic books (and according to Wikipedia, those were only the ones collected in trade paperback). Assuming each were priced at the now-moderate price of $2.99, one would need to pay $180 to experience the entire story-line, which is the first problem with modern comics. Compared to the past, they're far too expensive. Since most story-lines of the past were both cheaper and shorter, people would pay less to keep in touch with their favorite heroes. They were less of a specialized purchase and more of an impulse buy; there's a reason drug stores once kept them near the register. At the now routine price of $3.99 apiece, two comics which might take you an hour to read are now the same price as a month of Netflix which allows unlimited streaming; if a person wants a good entertainment value, they'll probably vie for the digital media over the physical. Even if comics can offer nuance and intrigue, they pale in comparison to film, which can do the same, is cheaper, and available in larger amounts.

      Second, as a side effect of the complexity of the medium, consumers need to read innumerable back issues to understand the story-line or even character of a given book. This isn't always true; certain story-lines simply say 'here's a superhero that you know nothing about, here are their powers, and now they're doing something cool,' (which I'm going to start calling the Guardians of the Galaxy storytelling method), but as a general rule you need to buy more comics once you've purchased one. Whether that's to complete a story line, figure out what was going on in your story, or understand more about the character, it serves to make comics more confusing and unapproachable to anyone but a die-hard fan. While it certainly can make each publishing house a great amount of money from these people, it excludes entire segments of the population who might be interested in starting to read about their favorite character.

      A side problem of this is the "relaunch issue," the thing that sunk the market in 1993 and potentially might do it again (Last). To counter consumer confusion and encourage new readers, publishers try to make their books more accessible by rewriting continuity every few years, erasing past stories and relaunching old tittles while maintaining the same familiar characters as before. This works about as well as people might think; empirically it leads to temporarily higher sales and then readership plummets (Johnston).

      Third, there's no real way to expand the market. I don't mean getting consumers to buy more issues about their favorite character, I mean getting them to either attract their friends or pick up new, experimental titles of less popular or wholly new characters. People recommend films, not comics, so expanding the sales figures to friends of customers is mostly out for various publishers. Besides attracting people to a new book by advertising well regarded artists and writers, publishers have barely any options. At the high price to commit to a new issue, people are less likely to buy, forcing publishers to rely on industry icons like Batman and Spiderman to support publishing more obscure characters like the Martian Manhunter. 

      Last argues that this is perfectly fine, noting that 

"...in 2009, Disney paid $4 billion to acquire Marvel (DC was already owned by Time-Warner). The reason for this gaudy valuation is that the comic books themselves are no longer important to the comic-book industry. They’re loss leaders. The real money is in the comic book properties, which power toy and merchandise sales, theme parks, and above all else movie franchises. Since 1997, 26 comic book adaptations have gone on to gross more than $100 million at the box office. Twelve of these grossed more than $200 million. More—many more—are coming soon to a theater near you."

      But while his logic makes sense and does a great job of explaining why comics still exist in a physical form, I think he misses the point. There may be an explanation for why the publishers operate in this manner, but this doesn't need to be the manner in which they operate.     
  

The Solution

      
      Now that I've explained the need for change and the problems that plague the industry, I can return to my original proposal; Marvel and DC need to start an online comic book Netflix for their older titles. 

      Both companies currently offer digital distribution of their works via their respective sites, and offer some dealers like Comixology. The problem is that this operate exactly like a normal comic book shop but with no physical copy and access across any mobile device a user owns. While sometimes slightly cheaper than physical editions, the same problem of price remains; these comics are took expensive to encourage routine buying.

      But what if each company set up their own distributor that offered the majority of their archive for a small monthly fee? $10 a month from even just their current fans would likely be a huge jump in revenue, and that guess of users is extremely low. It's not like they're losing money; dedicated fans would still pay full price to read monthlies on time, while everyone else might wait a year for it to be transferred to the site. Each comic would be from the past; after the first month they never expect to see any more money from it anyway so they would only be increasing revenue by rehashing old content they've already made. And most of them are already scanned and digitized on their online marketplace; slowly adding more would keep users paying month after month while the current offerings would more than justify the price. Since users aren't even paying for the comic any more, but rather access to it, DC and Marvel can completely cut out the resale market and keep profits within their publishing houses. Comic book stores might lose as well, but this could easily turn comics into a collectible again since they now will become a far rarer commodity.


      Why not smaller publishers? I mentioned earlier that DC and Marvel were losing market share and this is the biggest reason; smaller publishers are increasingly selling more of their books. Since there are more readers than there were a decade ago, diversity in interest has greatly risen, meaning more obscure titles might sell more copies to a specialized audience. Smaller publishers would only undermine themselves by putting their works out in the open for a small fee; they've been experiencing the best physical growth of the industry. 

       This neatly solves the problems I outlined earlier; comics would be cheaper, they would become a revenue stream again, consumers could be exposed to more story-lines, and would be more likely to read more obscure titles. I'm not saying it solves all of the current problems with the industry nor will I claim that the solution is perfect, but it definitely resolves some of the more immediate and pressing concerns of the industry. If you want to further the discussion, please feel free to post a comment; otherwise, thanks for reading.

Citations

Armitage, H. Marvel, DC Comics see declining market share. Digital Spy. 9 Jan, 2014. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1uYKPcl

Byrne et al. Best Shot Panel. Uncanny Xmen #132. Apr, 1980. Photo. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1xUxLkz

Comichron. Comic Book Sales by Year. Comichron.com. 2014. Chart. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1opaHcb

Ditko et al. Peter Parker Finances panel. Amazing Spiderman #24. May, 1965. Photo. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1o3i09Z

Gibbons et al. Rorschach 'Do It' panel. Watchmen #12. 1 Oct, 1987. Photo. Retrieved from http://on.mtv.com/1kgejgZ

Johnston, R. The War of Attrition in Comic Book Relaunches. Bleeding Cool. 15 Apr, 2014. Print. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1uZ4CIJ

Lang, B. Box Office: ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ Astounds With $160.4 Mil Global Debut. Variety Magazine. 3 Aug, 2014. Print. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1xTYTzT
Last, J. The Crash of 1993. The Weekly Standard. 13 Jun, 2011. Print. Retrieved from http://tws.io/1tLdnVd
MacEntee, S. ideas. Flickr.com. 7 Mar, 2010. Photo. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1p30naB

Netflix. Netflix Logo. Netflix.com. Photo. Retrieved from http://onforb.es/1j3k3aR

Sharing Machine. great ideas. Toothpaste For Dinner. 26 Aug, 2010. Photo. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1pyqcyc

Wikipedia. Final Crisis Promo. Wikipedia.com. 17 Jul, 2007. Photo. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/UVmEuL

Popping the Filter Bubble

What is a Filter Bubble? 

"We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality, and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you! You dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even *think* like the tube! This is mass madness, you maniacs! In God's name, you people are the real thing! *WE* are the illusion!"-Network

   
     Sustainability relies a great deal upon understanding world-views; to deal with the innumerable opinions and needs of people and affect actual change, one must understand why they do what they do. In the age of the internet there's no reason to think that this would be difficult; the networks that connect us all should do nothing but facilitate interactivity and discourse about all manner of things. But unfortunately that is slowly evolving into a distant fantasy, a byproduct of the fact that each person's internet experience is slowly being tailored to them. Political and internet activist Eli Pariser calls this phenomenon the "filter bubble," noting that all major browsers and websites are slowly shifting to adapt their information flow to the interests of each user, rather than let the user naturally receive information as it comes. By examining what links a user selects or what information they "upvote," websites are becoming increasingly good at identifying exactly what each person wants from them. 

      But while convenient and somewhat opportune, this phenomenon bodes poorly. Pariser's argument is that this will make our society increasingly divisive, drawing together groups of close-knit individuals that will reject alternative ways of thinking, preventing cooperation and understanding across the globe. A NRA proponent, for instance, might never encounter arguments against gun ownership if this continues, and never bother to approach the issue from both sides. It doesn't matter the issue; all sides need to be well informed to find middle grounds or they will constantly demonize the opposition unjustly.

      Funnily enough, this phenomenon closely resembles that which the 1976 movie Network explored, one in which the world outside of the news channel was becoming increasingly irrelevant. Much of the film was devoted to arguing against this phenomenon and for all people to spend more time ignoring the opinions of the "box," but the movie never truly arrives at a solution to the issue that still allows interaction with television. Since it is unlikely people will shun the internet, for sustainability to survive in the coming years it is imperative that a solution is found; thankfully unlike Network however, there are a myriad of possibilities on how to fix the issue. 

Solutions   

      Pariser's solution is for Google to both consider the public good when customizing searches and open their search algorithms so everyone can understand how their results are individually filtered. The first sounds reasonable from merely a business aspect, but the second is perhaps a little too farfetched; Google has declined to reveal such information because it is an integral part of the uniqueness of their product. Certainly Google could give some vague idea of how they rank, but the nonspecificity of such a revelation would likely make such information useless. Since everyone's results are customized distinctly, relevance would likely be factor constantly changing.
      
      The first is still not a perfect solution though; there are significant issues with allowing certain people to determine what is relevant or important to each person. Pariser thinks that there can be a good blend between important information and "fun" results that we may be more interested in, but there seems to be a fine line between delivering information and politicizing a news feed. Saying certain things need to appear may be just as bad as saying that they shouldn't. 
     
      As Levy notes, Google responded to Pariser by introducing Search plus Your World, a separate search engine that could tailor results based upon friends' searches and interests or just based off the available data. But while the first is better than nothing and the second is democratizing, both still fail. By having only friends' interests dictate data, you can still easily be stuck in filter bubbles of social life. After all, we're more likely to be friends with those who share our beliefs. The second is good, but relevant and crucial information could easily escape if people aren't careful. Plus, tailoring the internet has certain advantages; it would be good if they could be retained. Thaler and Sunstein argue that while it may be somewhat immoral trying to shape someone's worldview, offering them the option of other choices as long as the original options they wanted are present, is perfectly fine and arguably justified as a public good.
     
      Stray has several suggestions to fix these issues, and I think correctly identifies that this problem needs to be solved from several angles. From arguing that the web needs curation of high quality or socially relevant media to claiming that mapping web activity would identify biases, he touches upon the multi-dimensional aspect of the issue. His thoughts are that there should be settings available on websites to tailor information by categories like importance, relevance, popularity, and diversity from your one's viewpoint. While a nice idea and assuming that bias in selection in kept to a minimum, I think this works great in theory, but considering that most people operate in "straight-lines," rarely changing ho they do something unless it's an emergency, I think proactive change is for the best. I think his argument is strongest when he says:

"Another possibility is to analyze social networks to look for alternate perspectives on whatever you're reading. If people in our personal social network all hold similar opinions, our filters could trawl for what people are reading outside of our home cluster, retrieving items which match our interests but aren’t on our social horizon.\

      The benefits of search customization could be easily paired with the diversity of other opinions; 1 of every 5 results could be from differing opinions. Alternatively, they could be from the pages of people who vary mostly with your opinions but have a common interest in that one. Graells-Garrido et al seem to believe that option is acceptable; their research indicates that there is a statistically significant portion of people who are open to seeing diversity in their online access. 

      That's not to say that filter bubbling can be solved in one fell swoop, but I think that change can be slowly integrated into how we use the internet. For both our sake and the future of sustainability, it will remain important in the coming years to see how other sides view various arguments and meaningfully interact with them in the digital world. 

Citations

Ali T. Bubble 2. Flickr.com. 23 Aug, 2008. Photo. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1xBG2tt

Az, d-221 books. Flickr.com. 16 Oct, 2010. Photo. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1oNMpcr

Graells-Garrido et al. Data Portraits: Connecting People of Opposing Views. Cornell University Library. 19 Nov, 2013. Digital.

Internet Movie Database. Network. Photo. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/

Jairoagua. Networking. 5 July, 2005. Flickr.com. Photo. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1o5Rz2R

Levy, S. Has Google Popped the Filter Bubble? Wired.com. 10 Jan, 2012. Digital. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/2012/01/google-filter-bubble/

Pariser, E. "Beware online filter bubbles." Ted.com. Mar, 2011. Video. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles

Stray, J. Are we stuck in filter bubbles? Here are five paths out? Nieman Journalism Laboratory, Harvard University. 11 Jul, 2012. Digital. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1zxswdc

Thaler, R. and Sunstein, C. Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness. Yale University Press, 8 Apr, 2008.

Is "Traditional" College Dying?

Assessing the Threat of Online Universities

      Sustainable business thinking attempts to determine the likelihood of various industries' success in the near future. One could easily argue, for instance, that the death of the DVD market is quickly approaching or already here; digital streaming and downloads have rendered physical copies essentially obsolete. I mentioned that this blog would try to occasionally explore topics like this; hopefully this is but the first post of many. 

      The days of brick and mortar or "traditional" universities seem to be numbered, with online education's extent ever-increasing in size; with the price of education continuing to rise across the board, more and more students are turning to online courses to either supplement their education or replace it. According to Columbia University’s Community College Research Center, approximately a third of all current college students are enrolled in at least one online course (NYT ed) a number unthinkable a decade ago and one likely to only rise. Some advocates of online education see it as a logical response to the current failings of various education systems (Department of Business Innovation and and Skills), offering several key benefits that traditional colleges currently lack, an argument that is both well supported and neatly intuitive. In that vein of thought, the Online Education Database spells out 10 reasons online education is special; reproduced here are the 3 most distinct.

• First, the access of online college is far greater than that of a traditional school. While a physical location artificially limits it's audience to those in the area or who travel from afar specifically for it, online education can be accessed by anyone with an internet account. Considering that number is currently hovering around 3 billion people (http://bit.ly/RdZ6QH), that's a far larger market than all colleges combined might have access to. 

• Second, the cost of online education can be much lower than traditional education, something that will likely only increase in the near future. Since coursework and materials can be recycled ad infinitum once created, the costs to maintenance drop significantly after the first year, coming down mostly to web hosting costs and payment for teachers or assistants to grade certain things computer software is unable to. This is admittedly circumstantial, as some colleges charge more for the online course "convenience," but the lack of room and board, travel, and supply costs more than make up for this. With the rise of MOOC's (massive open online courses), free online classes sometimes for credit usually led by a qualified professor, the competitive advantage only rises; normal colleges do not give away credits for free.

• Third, the time flexibility of an online course is a much more open; students can complete assignments whenever they want before the due dates (most normal classes assign them a day at a time) and watch lectures whenever they choose. Normal college has course schedules and expected completion dates and times to study, all of which interfere with attempting to balance things like heavy credit loads or a job. 

      But even with all of these benefits, I don't think the logical  conclusion is that "traditional" colleges are dying; I think the right answer is that their current model is unsustainable. My argument is that online education's rise is doing more to correct that model than destroy it, and "traditional" colleges can easily survive online universities' rise by stressing the key benefits that they offer. Offline colleges might need to alter the shape of their offerings in the next decade, but as long as properly managed, they will be able to weather the oncoming storm of internet offerings. 

The Strengths of "Traditional" College

      There are five primary reasons that traditional college isn't dying out. There are definitely more; these should however encompass most of them. 

• First, brick and mortar schools have mostly expanded into the online classes market already. Most universities now offer certain classes online, or hybrid classes that place the homework on the web and the activities in the classroom. It doesn't matter then if online college encroaches on the college's potential students, as it seems unlikely that third parties can encroach on the market when the market already supplies classes run by qualified faculty.

• Second, it is very unlikely that online classes can possibly offer every single course that a university can. Many classes are specialized seminars or composed of hands-on laboratory assignments or require special field trips or need student to build models to build their respective skills. Online courses can't do all of that; those things require a physical presence. A strange but likely objection is that virtual reality is becoming steadily more advanced and could soon (Facebook's acquisition of the Oculus Rift technology at least indicates that the market is advanced in VR development). It seems likely that in the near future students could experience lectures and labs and model-making all from the comfort of their homes. But even if that occurred...

• Third, colleges have a great deal of resources that online classes cannot offer.  In a single word, these resources all are "connections." Online professors can't access your skills, work with you on research, and draw conclusions about your character. They can't recommend you to important contacts and build up your social network to increase your chance of job placement. You won't meet new friends and build solid relationships in online colleges, two things that could again land you a career. It is my belief that much of the role of college currently is building yourself as a person, exploring different career possibilities, debating moral, political, and philosophical views to decide what you believe independently from parents and the views of those you've grown up with. This won't apply to everyone, but should generally apply to most people. College is less about the "learning" and more about the "education," the development of people into individuals able to face the world. Online schools lack that unless classes are merely additions to current workloads and not the only form a student is receiving credits. 

• Fourth, the incentive to complete a course is much higher in a physical setting. There are huge attrition rates for MOOC's, sometimes topping 90% in each class (Brinton et al, NYT ed). A 2011 study of Washington students similarly found that a higher percentage of students dropped out of college entirely when they took more online classes (NYT ed). This is due to several reasons; lower costs might incentivize people to drop more courses if they get too difficult, the use of a computer might be far more distracting than a normal classroom, students who join online might already be under-performing and never get proper teacher engagement, physical involvement (such as living in dorms and attending lectures) might make normal students place more value in their education, and normal colleges have far more resources (and motivation) to prevent students from dropping classes. Either way, online universities' can't compete with the success of traditional schools.

• Finally, the education of traditional schools will likely be valued far higher by employers for years to come, placing great value on obtaining a degree from a physical location.The University of Phoenix has greatly soured the online universities' reputation; with several federal lawsuits and accusations that they prioritized money making and scamming over educational quality, employers have likely been convinced that the education is substandard. For the reasons listed above concerning the resources of traditional colleges, that's likely accurate. I can't quantify exactly how this changes the value of the degree, but I think the internet does a good job for me; Google has pages of forums discussing former student's plights of being unable to use their degrees to obtain jobs. 

     
      The point is that traditional college isn't dying and will continue to offer innumerable degree programs for years to come. Online colleges might appeal to those who can't afford the costs of ordinary college, older people who want to supplement former degrees, those who normally don;t have access to certain courses at their university, and those on strange schedules that require flexible coursework. But this population isn't nearly high enough to wipe out traditional college's willing student body; all it will do is deflect certain sections of prospective students away from them.

Results

      I mentioned earlier that online schools were correcting the unsustainable nature of current colleges; here's where I'll return to that idea. Traditional college is getting progressively more expensive as the years past, far beyond the pace of normal inflation. Having a foil that could offer a way to supplement or completely circumvent the traditional system will place great pressure on universities to reduce their prices to compete. 

      Will this affect the Ivy Leagues and similarly pretentious liberal arts schools? Probably not, because they sell education alongside both name status and a certain intellectual atmosphere, but state universities and lower-regarded schools will have to reduce costs to compete. 
      
      Where will this come from? Likely reduced administration (pushed to automated online formats), less emphasis on specialized housing and university resources, and less physical classes; purely fact-acquisition classes like introductory sociology might be pushed entirely online, freeing up professors to conduct more research. This won't work for all schools though; non-state institutions might go bankrupt under the pressure. This is just normal market fluctuations at work; if they weren't sustainable to begin with, weathering this storm will be nearly impossible. 

      More companies like Starbucks might start offering college course compensation coverage as part of the normal salary (Vrdolyak); with cheaper education, this won't cost them much and will be seen as a valuable benefit to employees. Starbucks itself is doing this likely because it's good PR at a cheap price; their offer only covers online courses anyway. 

      Cheaper education won't necessarily be for the better though; online classes will still be cheaper for the reasons mentioned above. This will mean that more minority and poor students will turn to them for education. Remember that the education is less regarded than a normal degree, so a new education "class" distinction might grow. Where currently there is a gap between the employment options of an Ivy League and non-Ivy League graduate, there will be a further one growing between these and online-educated students. More people will have education access, but the respective worth of their education will decline.

Conclusion       

      
      Online education is interesting because it poses a viable threat to the normal college order. That said, it isn't killing college anytime soon because of the unique attributes normal colleges possess. What will happen in the near future is likely a price war between the two types of schooling, something that will reduce prices across the board but potentially segregate education. All in all, there is definitely good in the rise of online education, but the potential risks will have to be closely monitored in the years to come to prevent the negative effects such a model might produce. 
     

Citations

401(K) 2012. College. Flickr.com. 24 Dec, 2011. Photo. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1kVK1LI

Brinton et al. Learning about social learning in MOOCs: From statistical analysis to generative model. Princeton University paper with Boston University and Microsoft collaboration. 19 Dec, 2013. Digital. 

Department for Business Innovation and Skills. The Maturing of the MOOC. Sep, 2013. Digital. 

Lawrence OP. University College. Flickr.com. 20 Apr, 2009. Photo. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1nhx6Z3.

MacEntee, S. college lecture. 18 Nov, 2010. Photo. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1ugrSBE.

Montecruz Foto. Kumbia et Internet. Flickr.com. 4 Sep, 2012. Photo. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1sTHHMU 

New York Times Editorial. The Trouble With Online College. New York Times. 18 Feb, 2013. Digital.

Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/opinion/the-trouble-with-online-college.html?_r=1&

Online Education Database. 10 Advantages to Taking Online Classes. 10 Jan, 2012. Digital. Retrieved from http://oedb.org/ilibrarian/10-advantages-to-taking-online-classes/

Tlng~. sunway university college. Flickr.com 18 Nov, 2007. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/WFnkWC

Vrdolyak, H. Starbucks to Offer Employees Online Degrees. The Heartland Institute. 27 Jun, 2014. 
Digital. Retrieved from http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2014/06/27/starbucks-offer-employees-online-college-degrees

Localized Government's role in Sustainable governance (Part 2)

Recap

      I previously discussed the role localized government could play in benefiting citizens of large democracies, but stopped before I discussed the respective benefits such an arrangement might bring. That, and the detriments of such an arrangement, will be the content of this post.
      
      Two caveats before I begin. The majority of research I cite deals with third world nations. I don't think that discredits the conclusions though; all are from a sociological perspective and aren't grounding their statements in quantitative facts. Rather, the benefits and concerns they outline can be applied to any scenario where localized governance shifts begin.
      
      Second, most papers cover decentralization, a broad-sweeping term that covers many types of power transfers away from state level. I'm talking about the same thing; broadly speaking, my conceptualization of localizing government deals with moving power and authority from the national to the regional level.

Benefits of Localized Government

      Case studies seemingly indicate that localized governance accomplishes the aims of national governments better than they do. Grasa and Camps found that service offerings were improved across several African regions by the integration of decentralization, while the TRA reported that similar results were true in Latin American and Caribbean case studies as well. Remington argues that there are several key features of the local scale that contribute to this success.

• First, the size of resources are far more manageable on a smaller scale. Compared to the tight budgets, large land areas, and numerous priorities of national institutions, local governments can easily focus on their areas and abilities to make effective decisions. This directly helps environmental efforts by allowing leaders control over the outcomes of their areas.

• Second, any scarcity problems are known and felt by the community. Balancing usage rates is far easier when all know how much is left and are adversely affected by said things disappearance. 

• Third, social norms can more easily pressure people into doing the right thing. Whether indirect or direct, corruption levels can decrease merely because the people operating the governance feel bound by the communal rules of the place in which they live. The direct connection mayors have to the people plays a crucial role here; more sides of more issues can be considered by the leaders when they know many of the important problems of their area. 

    
      As a result of these factors, localized governance can do a number of things that national governments can't or don't concern themselves with. One of these is the resource distribution changes that the case studies noted. Why can they provide more? Because they both know the needs of the community and don't have to waste money on the administration side of politics. But there are further benefits. 

• First, localized governments can bring representation to the minority peoples typically disenfranchised by larger, more nationalistic institutions. At the large scale, minority interests are ignored, at the small scale, they're important parts of a community. A smaller scale government could easily consider opinions from fringe groups that have no chance in national elections. 

• Second, they can increase the accountability of the local command by allowing greater oversight to be implemented. When a community has closer connections to their leaders and have members of their community in office, they have a far closer connection to policy decisions, preventing corruption and increasing general approval. 

• Third, as a result of these two things, regional stability can be greatly enhanced (Grasa and Camps). If there are factions competing for representation that are no longer ignored and more resources to be shared among everyone, general levels of conflict seem to decrease. 

      Many of these problems aren't even issues in places like America; people may feel slighted over policies, but few fight because of them. The benefits though can be considered similar if applied to first world nations; both accountability and public service offering increases seem like powerful incentives to shift politics towards the local realm. But returning to the stats mentioned in the previous post, people don't seem to think that there's as much of a reason to participate in local governments. This is what will bring us to the detriments of such a scheme; even if good for democracies, people might not accept it.

Detriments of Localized Government

      There are essentially three detriments that come with localized governance, but honestly depend a great deal on the given instance in which it was implemented.

• First, these governments might become more corrupt if people aren't willing to become civically engaged. Already we've seen that only around 25% of individuals participate in mayoral elections; if that doesn't change when state or regional offices get more control, they could easily begin to abuse those privileges (TRA). Without oversight or public engagement, this whole schemata could fail.

• Second, regional conflict could potentially increase. Yes, Grasa and Camps note that violence has decreased in Africa with this, but that could again be due to a lack of engagement. If individuals knew that more resources were now at stake that they could more easily access, violence could very well increase.

• Third, in the long-term, national protection could be undermined by localized power. If the nation as a whole was facing an exterior threat, decentralized power would not be best for ensuring the public's safety. This isn't necessarily a problem though; as long as national governments give up only what they shouldn't focus on and concern themselves with the larger priorities like defense, global conflicts would not be an issue.

Conclusion

      There's no reason to think that nationalized government is going the way of the horse and buggy, but it's at least important to think about improving how it functions. In some cases, power centralization can be beneficial for developing regions; Nikolov notes that it dramatically improved the economies and regional cooperation of smaller EU nations. But it seems that localized government has a place in parts of the world that are past those concerns. Sure, corruption might soar and efficacy might stagnate in the short term, but if in the long-term with proper civic engagement education the government can better meet the needs of it's people, I think it's worth considering as a viable change in the way democracy functions. 

      I've discussed bringing power back to a more local level, and while I have generally outlined what that might look like, I think the discussion is worth continuing. I'll likely return later to outline what major areas the United States federal government could decentralize, in a discussion of a government's role in a modern-day democracy. If there's something you think is worth including in that, please leave a comment and further the discussion.

Citations

Brenn, M. City. Flickr.com. 25 Oct, 2010. Digital. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1rj0e3d

Grasa, Rafael, and Camps, Arnau G. Conflict Prevention and Decentralized Governance: Some remarks about the state of the art in theory and practice. International Catalan Institute for Peace, Gran Via, Barcelona, 2009. Digital. 

JJ, city lights. Flickr.com. 2009. Digital. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1jKxcIS

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. New York City in Winter (NASA, International Space Station, 01/09/11). Flickr.com. 18 Jan, 2011. Digital. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1p1Md5w

Nikolov, D. Decentralization and Decentralized Governance for Enhancing Delivery of Services in Transition Conditions. Background Paper for Saint Petersburg 2006 Regional Forum on "Enhancing Trust in Government through Leadership Capacity Building." Digital. 

Remington, S. Sustainable World: Approaches to Analyzing and Resolving Wicked Problems.  Kendall Hunt Publishing; 1 edition, 2013. Print

Tuscany Regional Assembly. Decentralized Governance for Democracy, Peace, Development, and Effective Service Delivery. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Digital.

Simon and His Camera. Urban City Love-London Office Life. Flickr.com. 30 Mar, 2013. Digital. Retrieved from http://bit.ly/1rvQfJu