I think that overall, ultimately the impact of advertisers calling the shots is a more cloying, complacent culture. For example, it was just announced that Unilever is branding environmental content at The Guardian. How radical or pointed can that content be?

Also, after Examined Life was finished I found myself thinking about the way creative opportunities and distribution channels were shifting. Should I be showing my films in theaters or just think about getting them out online? There were other issues, too.

One consequence of this is that people are expected to make it on their own by chasing clicks or building a brand. What a diminished vision that is.

It's the same thing in a way with privacy. You can say "I'm not doing anything wrong, therefore this doesn't concern me," but what does it mean about our society if we're all being watched and recorded? The personal experience - negotiating this as individuals - doesn't describe the social reality and the broader social costs.

One thing I point out is, a lot of people tooting the horn of amateurism, actually, these people were professionals. Some are professors who are employed full time. Others are marketers or business consultants.

All this stuff - about the materiality of the network, what it's made of, and how it works - should be part of a basic media literacy, because we depend on this technology for more and more aspects of our day-to-day lives.

There's this divergence out there between the very small and the very large with the middle disappearing. There is something paradoxical going on where there is this access and we can seek out things on the fringes, but that doesn't describe the overall reality, because the big are bigger than ever.